Crap: Tom Disch is dead

[womzilla]

According to ellen_datlow and lizhand (the latter on theinferior4), Thomas M. Disch (tomsdisch) is dead by his own devising as of sometime this week. (Ellen said July 4; the Wikipedia, with no citation, says July 2.) Patrick has more, including a terrific summary of Disch's overall position in science fiction:

the concluding lines of his 1965 SF novel The Genocides, a book wedged forever up the nose of overweening skiffy can-do-ism

Disch was up the nose of science fiction his entire life.

Anyone who read Disch's LJ over the past two years could not be surprised by this. For that matter, anyone who read much of his work before that would be hard-pressed to be surprised. Which doesn't mean I'm going to miss him any less.

(Updated to add:)
Unsurprisingly, Disch's final LJ post is now turning into a wake. There has been only one stupid troll so far. There are, of course, also remembrances of him on the posts linked to above.

Comments

[wizwom.livejournal.com]

Oddly, his next to last post is about writing letters to dead authors.

Odd birds, writers.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I'd seen that--*after* finding out about the death--but it hadn't sunk in. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I like the in-journal wake and posting of wishes and memories that seems to happen. The same thing happened for your brother, if I'm remembering rightly.

I believe instructions will come to be left in the future for one's on-line blog or journal. Does it stay, untouched, as it was left? Get respectfully deleted? Give someone access to it after the owner has passed on? It'll depend on the site, on the host, on the family, and on the owner's wishes, if any, and it will be interesting to watch how this part of our society evolves.

K.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Very much the same sort of thing as with Tim, and on Steve Gerber's blog earlier this year.

And you're right--people need to make arrangements for what to do with their online real estate in the event of their incapacitation or death. I'm fortunate in that I happened to know one of Tim's most frequently used passwords, including to his LJ, so I could clear out the occasional troll; but I didn't know all of them, and it took a lot of work to get maroney.org transferred, first to my parents (his heirs) and then to me. Maroney.org is now hosted by a good friend, so if I kick the bucket, she can give it to my heirs without much hassle. And while supergee and nellorat know my LJ password (and many other valuable passwords), I don't know if they know my Panix password. I should correct that.