Sarah Gibbons over at Cherchez La Femme posted about the death of choreographer Pina Bausch this week. Sarah also mentioned Ed McMahon, Michael, Farrah, as well, but left out Billy Mays, Gale Storm, and, well, if you're into this kind of thing, the list goes on and on and on, as you can see from this Wikipedia page.
Ever since my mom died, I kind of resent celebrity death because she deserved one herself. But why? Why do I want that for her, want celebrity for myself? She didn't crave fame, would've dreaded the publicity, didn't even want a memorial of any kind. But more of this in another post. What struck me most about Pina Bausch's death though, was that she was diagnosed five days earlier. Five days. Sheila berger was given four weeks to four months and was dead in two and a half weeks, and that seemed so sudden. But she was coming off of chemo and knew the news might not be good. To be diagnosed with cancer and die five days later seems to me just the most horrible way to go.
So RIP Pina Bausch, you influenced many great dancers and performers I've known in NY and SF, and RIP famous and non-famous people who've died this week, and condolences to their families of the unfamous who resent those heralded deaths.
On 9/11/01 I was living in San Francisco. On 9/12/01, my wife left me. Friends back in NYC kept calling and telling me about the World Trade Center, and I would eventually get a word in and tell them that Jess left, and they could hardly offer me any help at all, went right back to talking about the smoke and the smell and the friends and . . . while I could hardly feel what used to be my whole world's chaos and destruction three thousand miles away, as my whole little world was crumbling in California.
So many different levels of tragedy, of consciousness of tragedy; thinking about Sheila Berger's death, and of these other, "bigger" deaths, from so many little ghettos and sprawling cities of fame I wonder how many people who know Pina Bausch died have heard of Billy Mays, and vice versa? But all of them, and hell, I'd guess a majority of people alive on earth, billions of people, know that Michael Jackson is dead.
Not sure what my point of this rather facile synchronicity-ish rambe is, but it's making my head kind of spin.
