Cartoons, cartoons, cartoons.... John Crowther's Cartoon Odyssey

I think of it as The Fool's Journey. I've been asked who the "fool" is. It's me, but in the classical sense of the court jester. Only the fool was allowed to tell the king of his follies. All cartoons are available as prints or originals, framed or unframed, through my website or e-mail. For mugs, t-shirts, and other products visit my gift shop at www.zazzle.com/jcrowtherart* (be sure to include the *).

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Look Ma, No Hands

Andy Warhol once claimed he never said that everyone has their fifteen minutes of fame. What he actually said, he insisted, was that fame lasts fifteen minutes. The latter is probably a lot closer to the truth, at least as a metaphorical observation on the nature of celebrity. The word fame comes from the Latin fama, which is strictly translated as talk but means something closer to "idle chatter." Either way Warhol said it, taken in this light he had it right. The mistake is to think of fame as something to be desired, when in fact it just means that you are briefly, whether literally or metaphorically, a subject of gossip, often mean-spirited. I thought of this as I was watching The American Idol the other night, which is akin to watching people in the Coliseum being ripped apart by lions. In pursuit of fame, the delusional subject themselves to the demeaning demands of waiting for hours and hours in a cattle call in hopes of about fifteen seconds of public flogging, without ever understanding the degree to which they're being horribly, abusively used. And then, unless you're that boy who was so unbelievably, over-the-top dreadful that he had his full "fifteen minutes" of notoriety (with his own website), you're gone, cast back down into the flaming hell of ordinariness.

Keep in mind that any cartoon here can be put on a mug, t-shirt, or host of other items at www.zazzle.com/jcrowtherart.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes fame indeed is a fickle mistress.
I think most of us would be content with being noticed on the off chance and heard on occasion! Especially artists... who in the past have been known to cut off an ear because no-one noticed and no-one cared.

Big Brother should be banned... it damages people. IMHO.

4:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeremy is my favorite among the cartoons, I think. Somehow I always feel sympathy for the mother. Maybe the great expressions on both their faces, says she smiling.

Where is il professore? I am finally back in swing, in a manner of speaking and do not see any postings from him. Miss you, il professore and your no name cat.

12:37 PM  

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