It’s Always Something
Roger Ebert on his cancer and thoughts of his mortality:
Nor do I mope about fearing that my cancer might return. If it does, it does, and that’s what she wrote. At Pritikin they have a truism: “If you don’t die of anything else, sooner or later you will die of cancer.” We all nod thoughtfully.
If this news depresses you, reflect that for “cancer” you can substitute almost any other fatal disease or even any accident, save perhaps Spontaneous Combustion, which I do not believe in, but have always thought an entertaining way to go. If that happens, they’ll be talking about you when you’re gone.
After all he’s been through, Ebert continues to churn out words at an astonishing rate, and with a burnished insight that rewards all comers. Writing recently about the recent rise of celebrity cult at the expense of film critics, Ebert observes:
The celebrity culture is infantilizing us. We are being trained not to think. It is not about the disappearance of film critics. We are the canaries. It is about the death of an intelligent and curious, readership, interested in significant things and able to think critically. It is about the failure of our educational system. It is not about dumbing-down. It is about snuffing out.
The news is still big. It’s the newspapers that got small.
