Have there ever been any posts on the Blue you found too late? February 23, 2015 8:43 AM   Subscribe

I stumbled across the works of the poet Mark Strand very recently, and to my sadness found he had died not long ago. I found the MetaFilter thread in his memory and wanted to add a comment in memoriam about a very touching poem of his, as other MeFites had indeed done, but the thread was closed. So now I'm wondering: are there any threads on the Blue that you want to add to, but the thread is closed and perhaps on a subject that is unlikely to be raised again?

The poem of Strand's that I wanted to share:

An Old Man Awake In His Own Death

This is the place that was promised
when I went to sleep,
taken from me when I woke.

This is the place unknown to anyone,
where names of ships and stars
drift out of reach.

The mountains are not mountains any more;
the sun is not the sun.
One tends to forget how it was;

I see myself, I see
the shore of darkness on my brow.
Once I was whole, once I was young . . .

As if it mattered now
and you could hear me
and the weather of this place would ever cease.


This thread will be closed someday too. Irony!
posted by Quilford to MetaFilter-Related at 8:43 AM (26 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite

As the mefite who posted the Strand obituary thread, I hereby grant you an honorary backstage pass.

That was a good thread, full of poetry and remembrance.
posted by spitbull at 10:14 AM on February 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


Mostly I want to add a bunch of "Told You Sos", it's probably good that I can't. :P
posted by Drinky Die at 11:55 AM on February 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


Happens to me whenever I try to post something I think it cool only to be told it's already been posted. Nine times out of ten it was long enough to be closed already.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:02 PM on February 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


No thread lasts forever.

Except for MeFi Music.

And FanFare (Game of Thrones S04 E01).

And podcast posts.

(And MonkeyFilter posts.)
posted by filthy light thief at 12:15 PM on February 23, 2015


I was too late to explain how those people got their cats wedged into their scanners, and why.
posted by michaelh at 12:48 PM on February 23, 2015 [7 favorites]


See, it is like this. The good Mefite reads every post and comment contained in every division of the site every day. At work memos go unread, email is not replied, reports are not filed. At home dishes molder in the sink, the grass is not cut and weeds proliferate, but MeFi is read word for word and no opportunity to add one's personal opinion is lost. In other words priorities, dude, PRIORITIES.
posted by Cranberry at 12:50 PM on February 23, 2015 [3 favorites]


The End.


lovely poem, I'm glad this thread lives...
posted by infini at 1:14 PM on February 23, 2015




A bunch of my older posts now have expired links and I'd love to update them.
posted by zarq at 2:12 PM on February 23, 2015 [3 favorites]


Same here, but instead of idly wishing, I add the tags "BrokenLink," "VisitMyBlogForTheCurrentLinks," "L@@KatTheseFreshLinkz!!" and "TotallyNotSEOcrap!!!lolz!!"

{/hamburger}

(but the BrokenLink tag isn't a bad idea. Then I could call myself a Back-Tagging Superstar.)

(I've also thought of re-posting my posts to my own [non-existent] blog, so I could maintain the links, fix the typos, and otherwise improve on my past efforts.)
posted by filthy light thief at 3:04 PM on February 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, sometimes I go back to old posts that look cool only to find that the links are broken or are now behind a paywall. Fortunately, sometimes I find that the material is online elsewhere. I definitely don't endorse everything on that site, but the prison-thread material is outstanding.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:48 PM on February 23, 2015


Same here, but instead of idly wishing, I add the tags "BrokenLink," "VisitMyBlogForTheCurrentLinks," "L@@KatTheseFreshLinkz!!" and "TotallyNotSEOcrap!!!lolz!!"

You sir, are a genius!
posted by zarq at 4:23 PM on February 23, 2015


A bunch of my older posts now have expired links and I'd love to update them.

On a related note, this past weekend I had a post on the blue deleted as a double from a couple of years back. But the link in the original post is now dead, so was it really a double?
posted by Short Attention Sp at 4:30 PM on February 23, 2015


Have there ever been any posts on the Blue you found too late?

All of them.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:41 PM on February 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


Eating Posts.


Links run from the corners of my post.
There is no linkage through time.
It has been eating postery.

The index does not believe what it sees.
Broken links are sad
and they walk with electrons in blurry dress.

The links are gone.
The post grows dim.
The # are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their Corollas roll,
their broken links burn like brush.

(Little homage to Strand.)
posted by clavdivs at 9:47 PM on February 23, 2015


15 years ftom now, a few months shy of my 30th anniversary at this place, I suddenly realized that due to my time travel I was unable to post in this thread.

I'd like to thank the mods for making an exception for me.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 4:06 AM on February 24, 2015



On a related note, this past weekend I had a post on the blue deleted as a double from a couple of years back. But the link in the original post is now dead, so was it really a double?

The tree fell. The sound travelled.
posted by infini at 4:25 AM on February 24, 2015


A bunch of my older posts now have expired links and I'd love to update them.

Do the mods update old broken links when asked?
posted by grouse at 4:51 AM on February 24, 2015


No they do not. Link rot is not something the site was set up to work with.
posted by cjorgensen at 5:49 AM on February 24, 2015


The web wasn't set up to work with it, really.
posted by thelonius at 6:53 AM on February 24, 2015


Honestly, I think adding the ability for some of us to update our own older posts with new links would be a good ide-

...[trails off]... that's 700+ posts.... with thousands and thousands of links... a veritable million-headed hydra of potentially expiring links... probably hundreds of hours of endless work... and people would come to expect us to curate all our old posts.... ye gods....

Can't help link rot. Nature of the beast. It just happens, man.
posted by zarq at 8:40 AM on February 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


This happens to me all the time, because I tend to be months/years behind the curve when it comes to consuming popular culture. When I get into a new show/movie/blog/podcast/whatever I'll often go looking to see if it was discussed on the blue, and have to enjoy the discussion vicariously.

Even more often I'll come across an unanswered Ask MetaFilter question that I totally have a good answer for, but I'm years too late.
posted by usonian at 9:36 AM on February 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


AskMe: I'm years too late.
posted by infini at 10:18 AM on February 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


usonian: "Even more often I'll come across an unanswered Ask MetaFilter question that I totally have a good answer for, but I'm years too late."

Metamail the poster. They have the ability to ask the Mods to post an update even years later.
posted by Mitheral at 5:26 PM on February 24, 2015 [1 favorite]




Yes, this happened to me last year, I was bummed! Someone posted about the website Get Off My Internets and I missed it. I have had bad experiences with the website and would have explained them for posterity, but, oh well. Life's too short. As Mr. Strand might have agreed.

(He was my favorite living poet. And wrote so much about death, and anticipating his own death! I liked the poem you left here.)
posted by onlyconnect at 10:20 AM on February 25, 2015


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