Friends

Remembering Leslie Harpold 10 Years Later

Today's the 10th anniversary of the death of Leslie Harpold, a friend who died on Dec. 7, 2006, at age 40 in the middle of a brilliant run as one of the first and best web essayists. Before there were blogs and social media silos the web was full of personal sites, hand-coded in HTML by people who had no idea what we were doing -- because there were absolutely no rules or expectations. Leslie's creativity flourished on that vast undiscovered canvas. Most of Harpold's work is no longer online, ... (read more)

Why Leslie Harpold's Sites Disappeared

Leslie had a special kind of magic. But today there's no trace of her sites. As long as those sites were up, her brand of humanity was alive, pure, unedited and quenching. The availability of her writing made her slightly less absent. Sad isn't really an appropriate construct for missing Leslie. And sappy sentimentality wouldn't please her at all. But that writing should remain on the Internet. Those sites should never come down. They belong here like Leslie belonged here. Immortal. -- a ... (read more)