Isn’t that a celebrity?
On working days, famous people just go about their business hobnobbing with their peers, and doing whatever it is they’re famous for, public office, TV stints, making movies, or acquiring companies, planets moving in their natural orbits and not colliding with anonymous asteroids.
Special events like art auctions, trips abroad, long weekends, or trendy restaurants however attract celebrities in their unaccustomed milieu where ordinary folks (rich but not famous) may also be wandering around. The famous ones strut around (it’s the only way they know how to walk) looking well scrubbed, from all the skin peeling, and trim from all the liposuctions. Like Moses entering the Red Sea, these celebrities part waves of people in their path, leaving in their wake some stranded fishes gasping for oxygen. It is the service staff, however, that stop whatever they’re doing, even suspending mid-air the delivery of pasta to a customer to gawk at the demigods who deigned to smile at them.
What is the non-gawker supposed to do as he affects nonchalance, even a little pique at someone glamorous and more glowing ( how do they achieve that look?) who definitely attracts all the attention? Can they just ignore all the lesser beings having selfies taken with these demigods? Celebrities can just be famous for being famous. Maybe they are constant features in glossy magazines, photographed at book launches, condo inaugurations, or strutting in some famous beach. Sometimes they are politicians trained to smile at strangers thrown with them in an elevator. In a ride only two floors down, just a nod of deference and recognition of status is sufficient. ( Yes sir, I know you are a senator who likes investigations and the eventual whitewash.)
The recognition factor depends on media visibility. Has-beens are seldom acknowledged. Strolling unnoticed, though wearing loud attire and shoes that shriek Prada, may be an aging celebrity lawyer who once did work for a deposed dictator and an assortment of notorious clients. He does not part crowds or even get greetings. Only a few recall his once high celebrity index. (Oh, is he a celebrity again?)
Celebrities can be street parliamentarians, well-known too in certain circles which like to raise funds by organizing running events. What are they running from? Nontraditional celebrities (and their political equivalent) may also get mobbed by men in uniform.
It is even possible on a long weekend at a famous club in the mountains not to bump into anybody you know. This bumping business has a Murphy’s Law version. You will only bump into somebody you know who will engage you in a protracted conversation if you are trying to be inconspicuous. This does not necessarily mean you are with an unlikely companion who is too pretty and too young to be a financial consultant. You may just be lowering your profile to conduct research for a novel about a liaison between a banker and a married woman and how such a scene would play out in an exclusive-club setting. Having to engage in unwanted conversation is certain to derail your note-taking.
Even when they speak with loud voices ( have you seen my latest movie?) and are attended by a coterie of bag carriers, celebrities claim they just want to blend in with the crowd, and not attract attention. The probability of such anonymous treatment seems higher in chic places where the rich are raised from birth not to fuss over anyone, even those with more money.
Still, it is quite a disappointment for supposedly famous people to be blissfully ignored. The thought balloon of a celebrity seems simple — am I now so passé that I am no longer recognized by waitresses? (Do you know who I am?) Have my looks changed so much from all the cosmetic tinkering done on them? For instance, can the wife of a re-matching boxer unaccompanied by him still be recognized after all the cosmetic tucks and peels? True, her size is extra small after all those kids. The former saleslady looks so different on her billboard that you wonder if this is a personality being launched in a new TV program: “where is she now?”
Accidentally being in the presence of celebrities requires blasé indifference. Just continue whatever you are doing, even if it happens to be just having coffee at the veranda, watching the ebb and flow of humanity. This is a preoccupation unfortunately that is too easily mistaken for celebrity-hunting.
Anyway, avoid picture taking, even when the celebrity is insisting to have one with you. Sorry sir, my coffee will get cold.
Celebrities can just be famous for being famous.