Edward Copeland

I have mentioned before the strange way the internet can expand the number of people you will come to mourn. This week, I read, from Matt Zoller Seitz, that Edward Copeland has died. Edward Copeland was the pen name of a man named Scott Schuldt, who ran a blog, mostly devoted to movies, but with some TV and politics and personal posts as well. His blog was one of my touchstones, back in the late 00s - a source of great writing; and for his occasional surveys and list posts - Oscar rundowns; or elaborate multi-voter projects like the foreign film poll he hosted, the Ray Memorial 100. The blog had some of the flavor that Wonders in the Dark has now - multiple writers (though Edward himself tended to dominate), broad interests, a sense of community - lively comment section, plenty of back and forth among blogs - strong opinions, expressed forcefully, but with the expectation of debate... I liked his blog, and his writing, very much, and have missed him, as his health took him off the net. He suffered from multiple sclerosis - and for some years, has been bedridden, and for some time now, struggling even to write. He wrote about his illness, on the blog and on facebook - those posts made wrenching reading, but in the past year or so, they have become very rare - which I suppose is more wrenching still. I miss seeing his posts come up, on facebook or in my blog feeds - I did not know him, beyond the kind of correspondence and interactions we have on blogs and facebook and such, but I will miss him.

(And I can't fail to note that he was the one who got me on Facebook in the first place. Back in 2007, around the time of the foreign film poll, I think, he sent me an invite - probably along with the other participants in the poll, or in his email address book... either way, I did it, and that was that.)