Celebrities

CELEBRITIES IN BED

They itch, scratch, writhe, sleep, snore. Yes,
all right, sex too. Also mites. Mites are a
problem for celebrities as they are a problem
for everyone else.

CELEBRITIES IN PUBLIC

They present themselves like peacocks or rubbery statues; OR
they become sullen and withdrawn like badgers; OR both.

ATTENTION IS THE COIN OF THE REALM

Celebrities didn't invent this system, in which
attention is the coin of the realm, not money,
which is, albeit important, secondary. Celebrities
are attention-capitalists who leverage attention
to acquire more attention. Pay attention!

CELEBRITIES ON THE MOON

It was the result of a mass-expulsion.

ANGRY CELEBRITIES

The mixture of fame, money, entitlement,
indulgence, and self-loathing sometimes
explodes like a souffle.

CELEBRITIES IN THE U.S.

They are represented to us as people we imagine
ourselves being while still being ourselves,
although they know we can never be like them,
and they know why. We know why.

CELEBRITY GRAVEYARD

I asked a tombstone for an autograph.
It refused. I offered mine. It declined.

CELEBRITIES GET TIRED OF BEING CELEBRITIES

Retired from acting, Cary Grant liked to watch
TV and eat a modest meal on a TV tray at home. Greta
Garbo did not want to be alone; she wanted
to be left alone.

CELEBRITY IS A CHRONIC ILLNESS

Society suffers from celebrity.


hans ostrom 2015

To the Band With One Hit

We loved it, et cetera. It was the one
we loved. It had that sound, et cetera,
and that et cetera beat. What they called
a hook. What they called a hit. Hook
and hit. You hit the charts. You charted.
Back then there was radio and so on.

None of the rest of what you recorded
sounded quite like the one we loved.
How does that happen? Better question
is how does that not happen, what
with managers and producers, the
distractions of youth, and everything
moving at the speed of sound or light
or Earth or people? The charts

hit you. You all are giving music
lessons now or still in the business
producing or playing in bars or
you became lawyers or electricians.
In the end, who cares? You do, we do,
and nobody does. We loved it. It
made a sound-print on time. Lovely
and permanent and ephemeral,
wow what a word that is, et cetera.
Wishing you well in obscurity from
obscurity; love, us.


hans ostrom 2014

All Right, Now

Having successfully eluded
fame, he took
a long nap
and awoke refreshed.



hans ostrom 2013

What She Realized

She realized one day
that what she had produced
in her field was as good
and often better than
what the famous in her field
had produced. She knew
she'd never be famous.
She understood the machinery
that established hierarchy.
She knew that proclaiming
her work was as good and often
better was a losing ploy,
and she knew that complaining
was the sucker's payoff.
So she chose satisfaction.
According to hard criteria,
what she had done was good
and even excellent. Let it
be that, she thought,
and let the rest go.



hans ostrom, 2013

The Art of Obscurity

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The Art of Obscurity

Becoming a hermit
is the lazy person's path
to obscurity. The more
determined Obscurity Artist

becomes known but not
remembered, hides in plain
sight, is never exalted; it
goes without saying: hush.

Make connections that break.
Pretend to be interested in
rising and climbing, but see
to it you withdraw in time.

Stay and play at edges.
Always trouble categories.
Take advice but treat it
as material to rework

into whatever art it is
you make, not as assistance
out of the shadows.  Come and
go as you please, a kind of fame.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

Who Else?

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Who Else?

The famous have families, too. Leave
them to their grief, even as operatives,
lawyers, and T-shirt makers go to their
hives to get busy. Who else besides
the famous died today? Our electric
screens can't say. So we imagine
abandoned old and demented ones
dissolving into last breaths and final
hallucinations. Or we think

of soldiers, refugees, and homeless
ones who strayed so far from hope.
Others get shot, blown up, bludgeoned.
Disease and mad accidents steal others'
lives. Though the scandal of death
is always and everywhere, media explode
phosphorescently when celebrities die.
The glare blinds us momentarily. The

exhausted ritual gossip stops our ears
like beeswax. We recover, recognize
the grotesque face beneath the face
of fame, turn away, get on
with tasks. The commonplace seems
dear. The famous have families and
friends. Leave them to their
privacy if they'll have it.

Our talking screens entreat us
to come back and gaze some more. No.
Who else besides the famous died today?
In the wind, green cedars sway.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Names of the Obscure

Names of the Obscure


Mr. Jiggs ran the grocery store in town. He never used
his name as an excuse for not being famous. No one ever
asked, "Hey, Jiggs, did you want to be famous?" It was
out of the question. Not so with Johnny, local mischief-artist:
A thief by age 15, in the Marines by 18, back home at 24
starting fights. He wanted fame and settled for trouble.

Meanwhile, Claude Munkerz became ever more reclusive.
With a name like that, what else was he supposed to do?
Where were "his people" from? someone once asked, not
looking for an answer. Those who made it inside Claude's
shack came back with tales of smells, guns, and incongruously
exquisite furniture. Johnny robbed Clyde (guns and cash),

left town, never came back or found fame. Jiggs let Munkerz
run a tab at the grocery. Claude paid in cash at first, then
in barter (walnut table, mahogany chair), then not at all.
He died. So did Jiggs, in Florida, after retirement. On his
lap when he had the heart attack lay People magazine--
all about famous people.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom