James Capozzola, 1962-2007

You've probably already heard the news by now: Jim Capozzola, the man behind the Rittenhouse Review, died yesterday. He had been ill for a while. After he'd recovered enough to plan to return to his job, he fell and hit his head, suffering a brain hemorrhage.

Jim's friend Suzie at Suburban Guerrilla has more, including a list of links to a virtual Irish wake.

As a guest blogger at this site, it's probably presumptuous of me to speak for Roger, who will return from vacation any minute now, but I know that he always regarded Jim with affection and respect. Notice the blogroll on the right side of this page: Jim's two blogs are at the top of the list. When Blogger first arrived on the scene, they used to run ads at the top of the page of your blog, unless you paid them enough money to make the ad go away. Jim paid to have the ad removed from this blog (scroll down).

In the early days of lefty blogging, there were about four heavyweights whom I used to read daily, and I suspect that Roger read them daily too: the late, lamented Media Whores Online, BartCop, Atrios's Eschaton, and the Rittenhouse Review.

It's been said that not too many people bought the first two Velvet Underground LPs upon their release, but that everybody who DID buy them went on to form a band. It's not overstating the case by much to say that nearly everyone who was moved by one of those four blogs went on to start their own. Jim wrote with style, wit, and grace, and he will be missed, here and elsewhere.