you were bigger than the whole sky

the Eras tour mourns Ana Clara Benevides Machado

I was already watching the Eras Tour livestream out of Rio de Janeiro the first time Taylor Swift pointed out somebody who needed water. I registered it as a sweet moment of concern from her, a sign of how much attention she pays to the crowd. When, later, she went and got somebody water herself, I didn’t find myself very worried that anybody in the stadium was in serious danger… but I did think to myself: if somebody died at one of these shows, I don’t think she could handle it.

But as it turned out, unbeknownst to me and probably to Taylor, somebody already had: Ana Clara Benevides Machado, age 23, who passed out from the heat earlier in the evening and did not survive.

Who, precisely, was responsible for the conditions inside the stadium being so bad is being thoroughly hashed out by people as I type this and I don’t really have much to add to it because I…