Privacy and the Culture of Celebrity

At the risk of sounding like an old fuddy-duddy, I am tired of this seemingly never-ending "news" about every twist and turn of any given celebrity's life. I don't understand why we want to know every little detail. Isn't life full enough and challenging enough for all of us; complicated and complex enough to require full attention to our own twists and turns and those of our parents and children and friends?

OK, enough of that. But wait! Here's something to think about, and it has to do with Crane and stationery and celebrities and everyday folks like you and me and privacy. Every day, stationery, invitations and announcements for A-List celebrities come in to Crane's engraving facility. I know. I've seen hundreds of them.

We know months in advance when they're getting married, where they're getting married, who they're getting married to. We know the names and weights of their babies. We engrave invitations to parties the rest of us could only attend in our wildest dreams. Sure, a typesetter or engraver may say something to a co-worker about the cool stationery I just did for........

But that's as far as the information goes. It never ends up in the tabloids or on TV gossip shows or touted on Crane's website. There are two things at work here. For the folks at Crane who create personalized stationery, it's about the quality of the stationery, not the public profile of the customer. And it's because we respect everyone's privacy. Especially yours, whether you're an A-Lister or a soccer mom.

But just this once, I've got to show you one that went through today: