True enough -- but easy to say when you've been as deservedly recognized as Sonny Rollins. (Thanks to Mark Daniels for finding this nugget.)
But is the drive to "do your work" -- as an artist, anyway -- separable from the urge to communicate, to be seen and heard? Isn't making art a specialized development of the need to communicate -- a sort of peacock's tail sprung from utilitarian feathers? And what's the difference between "recognition" -- having an audience, being appreciated -- and "fame"? Is it now necessary to be recognized in "the grid of three hundred million," as the late George W.S. Trow asserted, in Within the Context of No Context, was the terrible result of television (though the number has risen since he wrote)?
The middle distance fell away, so the grids (from small to large) that had supported the middle distance fell into disuse and ceased to be understandable. Two grids remained. The grid of the two hundred million and the grid of intimacy. Everything else fell into disuse. There was a national life—a shimmer of national life—and intimate life. The distance between these two grids was very great. The distance was very frightening.
Recognition in "the grid of the three hundred million" may now be necessary to make a secure living from one's work, but has it become necessary to our egos, too? Does recognition short of fame now not count, not nourish? (And was it always that way, just the grids were smaller?) And has the blogosphere changed this -- has it restored some of the middle grids, and are we yeoman bloggers, small freeholders, satisfied with this, or do we still feel under the only radar that matters? Do we still long to leap that gap?
So much is lost with fame.
Discuss . . .
(My personal take on this is, well . . . ambivalent. I'll get into it in the comments, as one of you, later on.)
Sonny Rollins......interesting guy.
I did a show on WCBS-TV ("Public Affairs" stuff) with a quartet of Sonny Rollins and naturally it went beyond a hit. It was magic. CBS make a small fortune from various foriegn markets buying rights to it (Japan,etc) and then had the audacity to complaint the subject wasn't public affairs - yeah it was beautiul art - JAZZ by artist who will go down in human history.
The small hassle that happen was answered by me suggesting we all go to the Bklyn Bridge to do the thing via remote.
Seens Rollins had a neighbor who complained about the noise? So Sonny started hanging out on the Bklyn Bridge blowing his horn as he only could.
Only in New York!
Just one of those wonderful experiences I had in that hamlet of a constant spell of art.
Posted by: rick robotham dvm | April 29, 2007 at 07:58 PM