Pun Salad

Cathy Seipp, one of the great sources for stellar writing, common sense, and humor in the blogosphere has passed away. To honor her memory, allow me to share links to some of her writing that I found especially good over the past couple years:

• Cathy wrote on Bob Newhart;

• And Richard Feynman (bet you never thought you'd see both Feynman and Newhart this close together in a single post);

• She did a great interview with Matt Stone and Trey Parker from South Park;

• A perceptive (and prescient) look at TV shows 30 Rock and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip;

• She looked at online privacy (funny article title: "Gladys Kravitz Nation");

• A digression on journalistic ethics, managing to be hilarious on a serious topic and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston is a self-important humorless weenie;

• Her skeptical take on gay marriage;

• Her devastating review of an idiotic book about Charleton Heston;

• Her experiences in trying to find an Oriana Fallaci book at City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, and her funny and smart blog post on the fallout from her article;

• Her response to feedback she encountered to one of her LA Times op-eds on parents obsessed with getting their kids into selective colleges, containing the timeless observation:

  I guess they detected, just beneath the surface, my usual impatience with officious blowhards and took it personally.

• And finally, something she wrote back in October 2005 about her illness. It probably should be bookmarked by anyone who might need to know someday about how to handle a dreadful disease with extraordinary bravery and class.