DW recently lent me his copy of Best of The Perl Journal: Games, Diversions, and Perl Culture, a charming volume edited by Jon Orwant. The chapter "TPJ Cover Art: From Camels to Spam" by Alan Blount displays the magazine's covers for issues 1-20 (Blount was the photographer/designer) accompanied by witty commentary. Issue #16, Winter 1999, featured the actual tombstone of poet e. e. cummings (carved unfortunately in all-caps by the stonemason). Blount writes:

I wonder if, with the current SMS/IM aesthetic, we'll start getting "hr li3x william denny aka b1tr00tr, once l33t, now ded. peece out beeatch."

That "... once l33t, now ded ..." made me cackle. (translation: "... once elite, now dead ...")

But reality is ever better. Looking around for other "leet" obituaries I found an entertaining mini-biography of William Leroy Norton, alias John F. Bedford (1851-1921) — known affectionately by the nickname "Leet" (see http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygrant/leet.htm). The article is by Leet's grand-nephew, Ben N. Benson M.D., and tells a tangled tale of crime, imprisonment, escape, exile, and false identity — the story of a 19th Century l33t haxor ...

(see also LeetSpeek (10 Jun 2004), ... )

TopicLanguage - TopicHumor - 2004-06-17

(correlates: LeetSpeek, IllusionOfControl, NightingaleFloor, ...)