The Book of Dead Philosophers has on its cover a photo of a book with the title The Book of Dead Philosophers. The book in the photo is lying on its back, presumably in a supine, dead-book pose.

This is already annoying on many levels. But I looked inside anyway, and the introduction started with a quote from Montaigne’s “That to Philosophize is to Learn How to Die,” which went thusly: “If I were a maker of books, I would make a register, with comments, of various deaths. He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.”

Oh well, this is better, I thought. Kind of a how-to book on dying. I’m all for that. I’m entirely susceptible to the idea that if I knew how to die I’d know how to live. It might explain so much, I mean, about my general level of despair: I’ve got no clue how to die properly.
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Today’s Defendant: Randy Pausch, America’s Favorite Corpse

Statement of the Grand Inquisitor: Professor Pausch’s “Last Lecture” is already forgotten by the Oprah fans who leaked cheap tears at his televised death, this middlebrow false martyr. They ask little of a saint, and he had nothing to give. All spiritual consolation is contemptible, but Pausch’s last lecture was so starved of meaning it amplified the breath of the grave. He told America that you can’t change the hand you’re dealt, just how you play the hand. He had other insights, such as “Don’t complain,” and “Brick walls let us show our dedication.” This was the gruel he offered at his own elegy.

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