Connections lost

There was, and is, one major difference between your online friends and your friends in Real Life™: when your online friends go, it takes forever to find out about it.

Dennard Summers died on the 8th of May, still in his thirties. In his real life, he was a music and media writer — for a while, he ran something called Pittsburgh Media Insider — and most recently, he had established himself as the producer of Steel City Video Mix, a public-access cable series. Our paths crossed first in 1999, when our common interests intersected: I was collecting examples of female invisibility in the media, and he was doing bluescreen work and archiving precisely the sort of still photos I was looking for. A mailing list grew out of this; there are now well over 100 subscribers.

Word didn't get back to Pittsburgh bloggers until last week, and the mailing list was informed late last night, though I didn't check it until this morning.

For a while, members of the group styled themselves "The Hole in the Air Gang." Today, the Gang has a hole of its own, one which will be impossible to fill.

Fare thee well, old friend, and remember: in the next world, there is no digital-rights management.

Posted at 7:24 AM to General Disinterest