Fame, like a wayward girl, will still be coy*

by chuckofish

It saddened me to hear of Naomi Judd’s death. One of the first country albums (a cassette tape) I ever bought was the Judd’s “Love Can Build a Bridge” for daughter #1. I mean, what could be better than a mother-daughter singing duo? We loved the Judds back in the day. My kids gave me her cookbook one year for my birthday.

But looking back, Naomi’s life reads like a cautionary tale–she wanted fame more than anything else and she got it. But at what price? She seemed to sacrifice both her daughters on that rhinestone altar to fulfill her own dream. Is it a wonder that she ended up a depressed and anxious hot mess? Now they are saying her death was a suicide. Well, who am I to judge? But it still makes me very sad.

I would not wish the burning blaze
Of fame around a restless world,
The thunder and the storm of praise
In crowded tumults heard and hurled.
I would not be a flower to stand
The stare of every passer-bye;
But in some nook of fairyland,
Seen in the praise of beauty’s eye.

–John Clare (1793-1864), “Idle Fame”

Into paradise may the angels lead you, Naomi. At your coming may the martyrs receive you, and bring you into the holy city Jerusalem.

In other news, I will note that today is the anniversary of the death of actor Bruce Cabot (1904-1972).

I think I’ll watch King Kong (1933) in his honor. You will recall, it was Bruce who saves Fay Wray from the big ape. King Kong was one of his only starring roles, but he had a long career playing supporting parts, notably in eleven John Wayne films.

Sometimes being a character actor with small parts in a forty-year career is better in the long run than super-stardom.

“And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.”

–Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

Hang in there. God loves you.

*John Keats