Do you even ask what I'm talking about?

I don't know how I will mark Thursday's 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. But I know I will be one of millions of people around the globe who will pay tribute to the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

Truth be told, I'm not the world's biggest Elvis fan. I like his music -- especially his breakthrough tracks from the mid-'50s ("Hound Dog," "Jailhouse Rock") and his leather-clad "comeback" concert from 1968. But I can't really watch his 31 feature films ("Clambake"? "Kid Galahad"? Please!).

The ranks of Elvis impersonators -- estimated at 70,000 -- make me laugh and scratch my head: What's up with these guys (and gals)? So do the 600,000 folks who make pilgrimages to his Memphis mansion each year, turning Graceland into a national shrine.

I won't be celebrating Elvis, but the idea of Elvis: Not the man but the icon. The symbol. The legend.

The poor boy from Tupelo, Miss., whose superstar life was just a warm-up for the greatest second act in the history of American popular culture. The singer who scored No. 1 hit records (the single "A Little Less Conversation" in 2002 and the album "Elvis: 30 No. 1 Hits" in 2003) decades after his death and who is honored each year at Elvis festivals held everywhere from Australia, Canada and England to Ypsilanti, Mich., and Chapel Hill. The King of Rock 'n' Roll who has become the King of Kitsch -- last week eBay listed 6,925 Elvis items for sale, ranging from records and DVDs to Elvis knives, belt buckles, clocks, barstools, heart-shaped tins and copies of his third-grade report card showing many "E's" for excellent. The urban legend seen sipping Slurpees outside 7-Elevens in off-the-radar towns -- is that bag of burgers under his arm for his roommate, Bigfoot?

The sublime silliness of Elvismania is a wonder to behold. It is, at bottom, terrific, goofy fun. And yet it also contains a strange depth, opening a window into our nation's history and psyche.

Elvis is our greatest celebrity, an icon whose unrivaled fame was fueled by the forces that transformed America during the last century -- forces that, paradoxically, now make it all but impossible for our celebrity-saturated culture to produce another Elvis.

Elvis the entertainer could have thrived in any era; Elvis the icon only became possible in the 20th century. Before then, the work of all the performing artists -- every actor, singer, dancer, comedian who ever lived -- was vaporous. Once they delivered a soliloquy or sang a note, it was gone forever.

Technological advances -- especially Thomas Edison's invention of sound recording in 1877 and the development of motion pictures in the 1880s and '90s -- changed that. Mass audiences could hear Enrico Caruso sing his arias with a turn of a handle and watch the shenanigans of the Keystone Cops for a few coins at the local theater.

Suddenly, fame was possible on a grand new scale. And that possibility fueled America's appetite for celebrity. The fame game really took off in the 1920s, when radio was introduced and cinema started coming into its own. This first great era of icons gave us athletes such as Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey, actors including Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo. During this decade Bessie Smith, Jimmie Rodgers and Louis Armstrong cut records that would immortalize them.

Fame spread like a happy virus across the culture to writers such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald and dancers, including Martha Graham.

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