death in the rearview mirror

Dean offers a roll call of some public figures who died this year, within a reflection on the day and the season.

It's usually impossible for me to ever keep straight who in the glittering house of fame is alive, and whose beam is on automatic. The advent of fame is the advent of death, only some are strangely still breathing. Or something.

Dean identifies the names by field, by personal reminiscence, by endeavor, or claim to fame - the Taco Bell dog, e.g. It reads like an x-ray of the ganglia of a generation. One that is still generating, and degenerating, for a bit longer.

There's more to it - to us - to everything - than we know. Ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars, wrote Benjamin.

Perhaps constellations are the fame of stars. When Dean goes to Yankee stadium, he tweets the games.