Bridget Bardot: Bob Dylan’s first muse.
Most of us can go about our lives for long stretches—months, even years—before we spot a celebrity: a movie star, a model, a famous musician, a professional athlete. They exist, however; they are out there; and spotting a celebrity, no matter how we pretend otherwise, gives us a little thrill.
There are some people, however, who are not celebrities, but who nonetheless have a powerful effect on us: we think of them—probably not consciously—as celebrities who somehow missed being a celebrity; they could be celebrities, we think; but they occupy ordinary places in life—like we do.
One thinks of the two ballplayers who were twins: one swung the bat a thousandth of second faster than his twin: he was the major league baseball star, and his brother, physically similar, unknown. This is not to say the world is populated with potential stars, for humanity, as we interact with it, seems imperfect indeed, and even the celebrity can turn human in an instant.
The celebrity is rare, and also rare is the celebrity-who-is-not-a-celebrity, the ones we might be fortunate to call our friends, or even marry.
In this new theory of love, we are making the case that celebrity-thrill is love.
We are thrilled to discover a celebrity, living without fame, right under our noses, and we fall in love with them, and this, in fact, is what defines love.
In the reverse situation, our lover makes us feel like a celebrity—but, of course, if they are skillful enough to make us feel that good, they must possess celebrity charm themselves.
We are smitten with someone’s beauty—we feel they are so beautiful that they could be a model, but we don’t care that they are not, for it is the beauty we love—but it is the idea that they could be a star which is how we measure them, which is what makes us love them—it is the same excitement we get from fame—the fame, even though it is not “there,” is what gives us that thrill which drives our feelings of love.
Love is not, then, as traditionally thought, a desire, a weakness, a hunger, an urge, an addiction, a need to fill an absence.
Love is a celebration, an excitement brought on by celebrity and fame.
We can certainly convince ourselves, in moments of weakness, that the traditional model of love (addictive urge) is the truth, for hunger afflicts us daily.
But the recluse, who is truly a recluse, does not feel love, even as the need continues for food and sleep.
Love belongs to the social, and what is more social than fame?
The latest love statistics from Japan support Scarriet’s thesis: large percentages of young people opting out of sexual relationships; the government worried about declining population; high percentages of Japanese men and women no longer interested in love or sex; the urge for love and sex literally drying up—in a society bombarded with virtual-reality celebrations of cute/sexual perfection, a futuristic society overwhelmed by cartoon celebrities.
The latest poetry buzz—stirred up by the poet Jim Behrle—concerns a book, The Kill List, which is driven by one thing: who is on the “list?”
Is it any accident that poetry lost its public just as Modernism decided poetry and love (always linked) didn’t really need each other?
We might reject this view as superficial, but we do so at our peril, for here’s the truth:
Love is love of fame and love of fame is love.
