I read his stuff on occassion. And yes it made me laugh. When people claim that he was the greatest satirist on the Net - well I don't know how one goes about measuring that type of thing but I can certainly understand how they could feel that that statement was defensible.
But from what I've read about him since - from what I've seen in the responses people have had. It seems that despite being teh Funniest EVAR, his writing was oversadowed by his basic sense of decency. That is certainly something special and I am sad that I missed out.
So, I'm going to do a bit of a tribute to him. At first I was thinking about finally getting around to assembling a Blogroll - and I still might but I don't think I'll be setting it up as a Jon Swift memorial. So here's what I'm doing instead-
I read a lot of namby-pamby centre-left kinda progressives as well as a batch of A-Listers. Like BM Matt and Talking Pants Marshall and Political Animal and FDL and on. Basically what I read is - some sites more regularly than others - Atrios' Blogroll. I read a bunch of other stuff too, but I've been using Eschaton as a home page portal thingy.
Well, I'm stopping. I'll not be dropping into people's sites from Eschaton anymore. Perhaps this isn't the best tribute - it seems kind of spiteful and passive agressively petty.
Like I said, I didn't know the guy (which I regret) - and while I admired and have been thoroughly entertained by his writing - I'm not fanatical about it. So I'm just going to make this one small change in my surfing behaviour in his memory. And I'm doing it for me too - I suspect that this will be a much better way for me to find things.
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Also, John Cole over at Balloon Juice is thinking of setting up some kind of writing endowment in his honour.
You're right about his sense of decency, too. His was a savage wit, but a truthful one.
The thing is, I don't think I'm nicer than Atrios, but I know Swift was nicer than I am. I want my blogroll to be places I want to visit, and that's the way it is. That's why you're there.
"Blogroll Amnesty" was kinda stupid as was announcing it at all, but if the guy wants his blogroll to be a tool to show him where to go that's fine.
Jon Swift was just nicer than that.
Thanks Substance. I was flattered and delighted when I saw myself on your blogroll shortly after I started up.
As for Atrios - well everybody disagrees with everybody else at least sometimes. It's not like I'm going to stop reading Eschaton. But I am going to think a bit more about what links I click on.
So, I'm looking at this as a way of pushing myself to venture into corners of the Web I wouldn't normally be found in.
You just may find stuff like this.
So I'm just going to make this one small change in my surfing behaviour in his memory.
I bet he would have loved that.
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