Adieu, Mattieu

My old friend Mikhail Tal, the chess grandmaster from Riga and the 8th World Chess Champion, taught me to drink vodka correctly. Correctly meant drinking it his way, of course, which meant frozen and straight up, no chaser. No tonic, no orange juice, no 7Up, no ice cubes, and definitely no paper umbrella implaed into a cherry or a wedge of orange, perched on the rim of the glass. Misha taught me to keep vodka outdoors in the winter. "Free refrigeration, Meggy! What could be better," he'd exclaim before gleefully tossing a large one back. When Misha was truly in his cups, he'd quote huge swathes of Pushkin from memory. I understood no Russian, but no matter; poetry is music in any language. The following morning he'd be back at the chessboard, seemingly none the worse for wear, and he would systematically demolish his opponent in the brilliant attacking style he was famous for. In the absence of snow my bottle of Stolichnaya lives in the freezer, but lately it's been outside, where it 'correctly' belongs.

Tonight, when I pour myself a shot to help lubricate dinner preparations, I will be drinking a toast, not to that old rogue Misha but to my friend Matt, aka Scorpionkiss, whose Blip journal was pulled yesterday. I am very sad about the disappearance of one of my favourite blippers, a wonderful, kind man whose stirring images and writeups have brought me great pleasure and respite from the often humdrum parade of flowers, sunsets, children, feet and pet blips I see here - my own included, obviously. Matt's gracious comments on my journal (and on countless others) have greatly encouraged me and helped me to expand, not only my photography, but my sense of compassion for those less fortunate than me.

Please spare me your lectures on rules or cheating unless you have never once broken a rule or cheated on anything in your life, ever. I don't envy Blip Central the judgment calls they must make daily. But the fact is that these rules - on nudity, borders, and good taste, to name a few - are regularly bent here simply because the huge volume of blips that must be vetted daily means that some will slip through the net.

It's a sad day for all of us when someone is shown the door because his star shines differently from ours. We are all diminished by it.

Salut, Matt!