Rittenhouse RIP
Blogging - - Posted on July, 4 at 11:43 am by Tim
I was very sad to hear about the death of pioneer blogger, Jim Capazzola of the Rittenhouse Review. RR was one of the first ‘big’ blogs I knew about and dealt with back when Surfdom started in the US in 2002. Unfortunately, we got off to a rocky start when Jim took offence at some wisecrack I made about Italian hitmen in a post; but in a series of email exchanges we discovered we both had an Italian heritage that had a surprising number of things in common, and we more than sorted out the to-do. There were also a number of other things we kept in contact about for a little while, including a few language-related matters. He was also appalled at my choice of barber, or that I even went to one instead of a “proper” hair dresser. Eventually, as these things go, we fell out of contact, and I hadn’t heard much about him recently.
Anyway, hearing about his death in the very nice post linked above brought back a lot of memories of those early days of blogging and made me realise how much it has changed. Meeting people like Jim, even if it was only via email (we arranged to meet in person at one stage but it fell through) was all part of what kept a lot of us in it, that sense of collegiality, and Jim was a big part of that for me in those early days (makes it sound like it was a 100 years ago!). I really wanted to acknowledge his passing and express condolences to his family and friends.
Posted in Blogging |
July 4th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
The RR was on my must-read list when I first discovered blogs back in 2002-2003. With the the proliferation of good blogs it slipped off my reading list, but I’m very sorry to hear of his death.
July 4th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
It does seem as if it was a hundred years ago, doesn’t it?
Well, we’ll always have the panda.
July 4th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
that’s sad to hear. there have been a few blogger deaths in recent times that i have read about. still, it must be something of a comfort to the bloggers’ family and friends that they have touched so many people through their writing. luckily, so far, nobody i have personally had that kind of relationship with (touch wood).
i miss the old days too. it was definitely much more inspiring to have that personal connection with other bloggers and without it, sometimes you feel a bit invisible, or wonder what the point of it all is. i guess that means we don’t just blog for ourselves, or for complete strangers, huh.