I’d never heard of the bestselling r’n’b’n’movie star until her Cessna crashed just after takeoff a week ago. But that’s okay. Nobody’s that popular any more: Popular culture is more accurately characterized these days as a lot of mutually hostile unpopular cultures.

So let us take Rochelle Riley, writing in Saturday’s National Post, at her word, and agree that "Aaliyah was Mercury rising. She was Saturn with brilliant rings of movies, songs and laughter getting brighter and hotter."

"But she was more," adds Miss Riley, hastily, just in case you’re getting blase. "Unlike others on the verge of greatness, Aaliyah’s success had already mounted the horizon and was coming at her like a sunrise in a hurry … For her, the what-might-have-beens weren’t untouchable."

The trouble was, unlike others on the verge of the Street of Dreams, Aaliyah’s gold-plated Cadillac had already mounted the sidewalk and was coming at her like a Rochelle Riley sentence careering toward a multi-metaphor pile-up.

Dying young can be a good career move, but not too young…

Mark Steyn soaring to the sky, just before 9/11.