Have I mentioned lately, that I miss reading Cathy’s World? [1]
I don’t think I have.
Tonight, I stumbled across an archive I made of her site a few months ago, thinking they might take it down, and started reading. When I looked up again, it was hours later. Been a while since I’ve been that absorbed.
As I said the night she died….
Not that she had any particular political insight. I disagreed with her occasionally. Usually not. But that wasn’t her focus. Rather, I think, it had to do with her ability to allow the reader more directly into her thoughts than most writers can do. It’s a rare gift.
(Sigh) And alas, not to be indelicate about this, assuming no changes, it’s about to become a little rarer.
For a while there, that least until midsummer of this year, I would spend an occasional evening waltzing through some of the older stuff that got left out on the site. Not so much, anymore. It’s been quite a while since I’ve dug through some of her older stuff, as I often do with a lot of the blogs I read.
Aside, for background:
This will perhaps sound obsessive. One thing I’ve noticed with interest is the ‘time capsule’ function of blogs… at least the ones that have been around long enough to fill the role. Such archives give one the chance to look back at one’s writing style, how they’ve grown, certainly, they serve as a reference work for current postings, and of course the look and feel of the site, and how that has grown over the years. That kind of comparison over time for some of the longer lived Blogs interests me.
So….
Within that context, one thing I’ve noticed about Cathy’s archives, is she either came by the talent naturally, else she hit blogdom fully developed as a writer….either way, thus not changing a great deal over time, not needing to go through the growth process most of the rest of us did. I mean, look, I know she was working for UPI, for example, but that’s an altogether different style of writing from the style of writing that kept her on my “regular reads” list.
Nobody could ever accuse Cathy of being a geek about this stuff, particularly early on…. (Post #6, for example, from March of 03, “Too bad I don’t know how to do links”…) so her whole thing was her ability to drag the reader in.
Truth to tell, perhaps Lileks [2] is the closest thing we have left, in terms of the combination of content, and style. I think they’d both take that as a compliment, while each being uneasy with the heady crowd that comment places them each in.
Hmmmm.