Remembering Cathy Seipp
Cathy Seipp (front) with our friend Emmanuelle Richard in the Chateau Marmont Pool.
Jackie Danicki put together a wonderful Pinterest bulletin board of photos and memories of our friend Cathy, who died way too soon. Lung cancer took her, five years ago, and I miss her a lot. Here's a bit from a note I sent to her daughter, Maia Lazar the other day.
She was my first friend in LA and she was largely responsible for how much LA felt like home to me -- and now is home like no place ever has been. All those people who were messaging (about posting memories of her) I see as basically gifts (to me) from your mom, thanks to how she created this incredible circle of people, and was utterly unsnobby about who got to be in it, providing you weren't dull or an idiot. I mean, Luke Ford! Case in point!
I'm talking about how so many of my friends and people I know and care about are friends I met through Cathy -- Nancy Rommelmann, Kate Coe, Jackie Danicki, Sandra Tsing Loh, Hillary Johnson, Kerry Madden Lunsford, Irene Lacher, and so many more.
And Luke Ford is the crazy Australian turned crazy American Orthodox Jew. Again, for Cathy, you just had to be interesting.
To get to know Cathy, read her work, which was just crackling smart and funny. It's here, at the site her daughter made after her death.
(A common thing friends of hers and I say when there's some news story out that no pundit can quite do justice to: "Wish Cathy were alive to write about that.")
Cathy appears in my next book (the last one was in memory of her, and I wrote a few chapters of it at her house while she was sick). The chapter where she appears in the next book starts out with this great (and very Cathy quote from her):
I just want to let everyone know that having cancer hasn't made me a better person.
I remember Cathy- boy was she cantankerous. R.I.P.
Ever hear any word on our other long lost blogmate?
Eric at March 21, 2012 8:14 AM
Never met her, to my chagrin, but we emailed a few times after she read something on my blog that she liked. She was an incredibly gracious person, and I really miss her blog, and especially her NRO articles.
Matt at March 21, 2012 8:45 AM
While I never met Cathy Seipp, I always enjoyed her writing, both at National Review and on her blog. Her illness and passing certainly came as a shock, leaving me feeling a little hollow. And since her daughter and my eldest are about the same age, I kept thinking how tough it must have been for her to lose her mother, and then have to tell her mother's readers the sad news.
But hey, Miss Alkon, I've been waiting for an appropriate context to tell you this: Cathy Seipp is the reason I read your stuff! As you'll remember, she had nicknames for all the people she linked to on her blog, and I just had to know what a "Revengerella" was! So, if you ever get tired of my comments, just remember who put me up to it, however indirectly.
Old RPM Daddy at March 21, 2012 9:39 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/03/21/remembering_cat.html#comment-3086835">comment from Old RPM DaddyAwww! Thanks Old RPM. And I tried to call my book Revengerella: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, but my publisher wouldn't let me.
Amy Alkon at March 21, 2012 9:43 AM
I am with RPM. I found you through Cathy. I remember looking forward to reading whatever she wrote. I also remember how sad it was Maia had to share the news of her passing. I hope all is well with her. I remember thinking that she was a smart, tough kid and that if anyone could survive it would be her. Is it rude to ask for an update on her life? If it is not too personal, I would love to hear what she is up to these days. Thanks!
Sheepmommy at March 21, 2012 9:50 AM
I also came to this blog from Cathy's. She was always a pleasure to read and she is missed.
Astra at March 21, 2012 10:48 AM
I found everyone through Instapundit, including Cathy and you(Amy).
I have always avoided L.A. But Cathy's writing did make me question that from time to time.
PaulA'Barge at March 21, 2012 10:48 AM
"And I tried to call my book Revengerella: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, but my publisher wouldn't let me."
Yes, but if you showed up at DragonCon to participate in the Skeptrak, you could play the part!
Radwaste at March 21, 2012 11:04 AM
I remember reading her with pleasure as well, in those days when there was a lot of interesting stuff to read on the Net, and it was a new world to explore instead of to commodify. She was good.
Bill Peschel at March 21, 2012 11:08 AM
Amy--wonderful post. Thank you.
Maia at March 21, 2012 11:19 AM
5 years? dang. I thought her death was more recent.
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
I R A Darth Aggie at March 21, 2012 11:27 AM
I first met her at the LA Bloggers event (2003?) and used to see her at David Horowitz' lunch events and the occasional RJC meeting.
She was intelligent, principled, supremely talented, incredibly kind, and a wonderful mother. The kind of woman that every real man want to travel through life with.
I miss her terribly.
Steve at March 21, 2012 11:56 AM
How is Cathy's daughter doing?
Carol at March 21, 2012 12:56 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/03/21/remembering_cat.html#comment-3087440">comment from CarolGreat -- pretty amazingly. Don't want to say what she's doing in case she'd rather not have that be public, but she's working hard and doing well. Blogger Moxie (moxie.nu) was super-great the year after Cathy died, talking to Maia every day and being a sort of big-sister/guide. I think that helped a lot.
Amy Alkon at March 21, 2012 1:27 PM
All of today's comments about Seipp –on here, on Twitter and in email– have called to mind Breitbart; She was similarly irreplaceable. And 1800 days later, she hasn't been replaced.
But because the scope of her attention was usually more localized, it was therefore more intimate. (I mean that in the broadest sense of the word; I never met the woman.) Her responses to the people in her community were blessedly tidy, and often instructive.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 21, 2012 2:04 PM
She was so great--I think of her nearly every day. IRL she wasn't all that cranky--she had a great sense of humor and fun and could laugh at herself, as well as everything else in the world.
KateC at March 21, 2012 2:16 PM
Don't know that I'd ever seen this before (via Emmanuelle's Twitter), but it's handsomely tart.
A favorite blog post towards the end came when she announced, simply and unbidden, that she'd never been a smoker. Couldn't have been clearer: It tolls for thee, Bitch....
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 21, 2012 2:27 PM
Funny--I was thinking about her about a half-hour before I read this. I never met her, but I liked her blog, and I've been thinking about how on-the-mark she was about the phenomenon she dubbed "the New Dad." I was noticing an abundance of "New Dad" types in the "hip" Yuppie-Left neighborhood I live in, and remember how accurately she had these types pegged.
Bilwick at March 21, 2012 2:38 PM
I read Cathy's blog every day myself--and also her columns for National Review and the Independent Women's Forum. I met her only twice: once in 2005 (I think) when she came to Washington with Maia and Emmanuelle and dropped by the IWF, where I was a blogger myself. The next year we had lunch near her house in Los Feliz when I was visiting my mother in L.A. Cathy insisted on paying--so gracious. She hadn't revealed then that she had cancer, so it was a shock to read about her illness on her blog.
Cathy's blog introduced me to Amy and also to Sandra Tsing Loh, both of whom, thanks to her vivid writing, I came to know as well as if I had met them personally. Via Cathy I also got to know Luke Ford (a regular in her life) and Mickey Kaus, whom I knew only as a face at occasional Washington parties many years ago. Cathy so thoroughly brought to life a world of irreverent, witty, and politically incorrect Los Angeles writers, all of whom were her friends, that I envied her as much as I admired her and wished that I had never moved to Washington so that I could enjoy all of those people, too. And then there was her father, living in the basement, and her ex-husband and her relatives...So dense and rich a scene.
Cathy was brave and funny until the end, and she blogged every day until she could blog no more. For months after her death I would visit her site just to take in that acerbic, generous, larger-than-life personality--and to learn something about writing, as well. There will never be another Cathy.
Charlotte Allen at March 21, 2012 2:46 PM
I remember a tear welling when I read of her passing,
It returned today when reading comments from the many who loved her.
One could know her as a friend simply by reading her writing.
RR
Rich Renken at March 21, 2012 3:05 PM
Sigh, there is no one remotely like her on the scene today. She is missed in many ways.
Elisabeth Irwin at March 21, 2012 4:12 PM
I've missed you, Lizzy... You faked me outta my shoes (at least) once. Since then, every monster from your mold has been real.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 21, 2012 4:16 PM
I remember Cathy politely, and completely, disarming an apoplectic Lawrence O'Donnell when he starting getting out of control when discussing public education. (Cathy: "Really? ALL the teachers, every one?!?" - in response to O'Donnell losing it over the allegation that some teachers at his kids school probably were not doing their job. They were ALL great, just great according to O'Donnell...)
She was great and I miss her on a regular basis... and I only "knew" her through her writing and appearance. She was that good.
Californio at March 21, 2012 4:21 PM
I remember Cathy politely, and completely, disarming an apoplectic Lawrence O'Donnell when he starting getting out of control when discussing public education. (Cathy: "Really? ALL the teachers, every one?!?" - in response to O'Donnell losing it over the allegation that some teachers at his kids school probably were not doing their job. They were ALL great, just great according to O'Donnell...)
She was great and I miss her on a regular basis... and I only "knew" her through her writing and appearance. She was that good.
Californio at March 21, 2012 4:22 PM
I'd forgotten some of these little things Cathy did for us... Things like getting under Robin Abcarian's skin.
Just golden.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 21, 2012 4:36 PM
A person i only knew through her writings,but respected and admired I feel happy I had some exposure to her through them and envy those who were part of her life in reality.And,in case Maia reads these comments, you were blessed to have such a mother
CE
Colin Elliott at March 21, 2012 5:56 PM
I met Cathy a couple of times; already ill, she was funny, gracious and friendly. Thanks for posting.
Amy L at March 21, 2012 6:38 PM
I read her faithfully once I'd discovered her and always enjoyed her writing. My favorite remembrance of her though is her appearance on the TV show Dennis Miller had back in the early 2000s, where she was arguing with the freakazoid Lawrence O'Donnell about the quality of public schools.
Seeing him angrily hulking over her like some weird lefty Godzilla as she calmly told him "You're delusional" was amazing. She was a woman who didn't blink in the face of lunacy. What she would have had to say about the OWS movement I can only guess but I bet it would have aimed straight at the heart of the monster.
Douglas Fletcher at March 21, 2012 7:17 PM
> What she would have had to say about the OWS
> movement I can only guess but I bet it would
> have aimed straight at the heart of the monster.
Dood.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at March 21, 2012 8:06 PM
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