TOO MANY LOSSES

I was about to post a mini-tribute to the musical geniuses that left the physical plane recently, Pierre Boulez, Paul Bley and David Bowie (what are the odds for all their last professional names ending in "B"?)—a trio that seemed to confirm that old myth of famous folk dying in groups of three—when two more prominent innovators in their creative fields also passed, poet C. D. Wright and actor Alan Rickman.

I hope the latter two don't forecast two more poets and two more actors joining the list of the departed in this first month of the new year.