After sixteen months, and a few late fits and starts, Cinderella Bloggerfeller has finally decided to hang up his glass slipper. Don’t go over there and encourage him to come back. I used to do that when my favorite bloggers retired until I realized how tiresome it is. There are other joys in life, and if you’re sick of blogging, quit. Then, if you were any good, you get to read your own obituaries.
The worst name in blogging history was the least of Cinderella’s distinctions. He was among the wittiest of bloggers; sample his account of his birth, his New Apocalypse Review, his one-entry series of Inspired Misspellings of the Blogosphere, his brief and expanded eulogies for Edward Said, and his nifty lift from Swift.
I can count on the fingers of one hand the blogs that are irreplaceable: Cinderella’s was one. He specialized in translations from Polish, French, Spanish, and Italian. Some were literary, some philological, some political. Cinderella followed assiduously the nasty goings-on in Transcaucasia, of which most Westerners are at best dimly aware. (This entertaining Insider’s Guide to the Stans should get you started.) He consistently dug up useful articles and interviews that we monoglot Americans wouldn’t have found or been able to read if we had.
Glenn Reynolds does what he does supremely well, but if he were to disappear tomorrow, some pocket-Reynolds, like James Joyner, would spring up to take his place. There are no pocket-Cinderellas, and in his absence we shall simply have to do without.
Thanks for the obituary. It was certainly better than the ones Ernest Hemingway got to read. I’m sure my ghost will continue to haunt the comment sections of the blogosphere and I’m toying with the idea of setting up a blog for one day only this year (February 29, of course). Cheers! All the best with your blogging, CB.
I just tried to "go over there" and got a generic BlogSpot page. I hope this doesn’t mean CB has actually deleted his site. It should be kept, for three reasons:
1. Archives are good. Links from other sites should be kept functional.
2. I’m probably not the only one who constantly used it to find (e.g.) Spanish and German verse on the web. I don’t even know where to look now.
3. Someone who called himself ‘Bryan Gumble’ deleted his MWOWatchWatchWatchWatch site (don’t ask) and someone else then used BlogSpot to recreate it, but now filled with filthy remarks about BG. BG was a nasty piece of work himself, and may even have deserved this. I doubt that CB has made any enemies bitter enough to do the same to him. Still, why risk it? It’s not like BlogSpot sites cost anything to maintain, do they?
For all these reasons, I think the site should be kept up, or put back up, as the case may be, with a brief message explaining that it is dead. Comments should, of course, be turned off if CB doesn’t want to police them.
Then again, it’s his site, so maybe I should lay off the advice . . . .
It’s still there and I’m still going to keep it there, though I might delete a few posts. But I’ve just noticed that Haloscan has deleted most of the old entries in my comments sections without telling me. Bastards!
Yes, I saw it was back this morning. Apparently BlogSpot was just screwing up: the Belligerent Bunny Blog gave me the same result last time I looked.
BTW, Doc, I’ve left a comment on one of your entries (about a Spanish sonnet) at your other blog.
A fine obituary. CBF’s blog has been a consistent pleasure to read. I particularly valued the translations. As a near-monolingual, I shall miss it.