FAMOUS

In David Mamet’s play Lakeboat, a veteran sailor and a college student are talking about why a journalist should never use the word “famous” when writing about a person.

If the person is famous, the reader would have heard of them. If the reader hasn’t heard of the person then he (or she) isn’t famous. In short, famous is a redundant adjective.

I was thinking of that exchange last week when someone told me that “Mark Cullen, the famous gardener” was going to be at my town’s Home Hardware. I had never heard of Mr. Cullen before so I decided that he wasn’t famous. Then again, I am not a gardener. Also, I can’t name one famous gardener. Not one. If I was passionate about gardens, I’d probably be able to name several. But I’m not.

Pardon me, but do any of my readers know who Dai Vernon is? Or Darwin Ortiz? How about Paul Harris, Bill Malone, Steve Dacri, Jeff McBride or Rudy Coby? Drawing a blank? No problem. They’re all professional magicians. But how would one know that unless one is interested in magic?

Well, you don’t have to be interested in magic to know who David Copperfield is. Or Criss Angel or David Blaine or the late Doug Henning. I’m not a cook but I know who Julia Child is. I don’t design cars but I can tell you who Henry Ford was too.

I guess that means there’s two kinds of fame. There’s the fame that transcends its field and there’s the kind that does not. People in the former category probably make more money. The trade off is they can’t really go anywhere in public without being hounded for autographs.