i've held off on writing more because it all seems inadequate. like most of us on mouthfuls who are not based in nyc--and perhaps even like most of us who are--i knew sneak online. yes, i'd met him and eaten with him in new york but as far as i'm concerned our friendship was entirely an internet one. it's hard for people who're not severely online as most of us are and have been for a long time to understand the nature and depth of friendships that exist largely/only on online forums/groups. and the loss of people you didn't know "in real life" is not supposed to hurt so much. but sneak's death hurts a lot and i can only imagine how much larger the loss is for people like jesikka, mitch and others who did know him well offline as well as on.
i don't remember exactly when sneak joined mouthfuls. my path had not crossed his on egullet (where i did not have much to do with the nyc forum) and i'm pretty sure he was not here during the energetic and fractious early years of mouthfuls. people have mentioned his joining in 2007 or so. i would have guessed later. but whenever it was, i remember feeling a little bit of proprietary prickliness when this sneakeater guy showed up and was posting all the time and quickly zooming up the "most posts" charts. and, yes, i rolled my eyes too in the early days over his accounts of his outings with much younger women. but it wasn't very long before i was won over by him.
quite simply, he was the best of us. he was deeply knowledgeable (about so many aspects of culture) but he never used his knowledge as a weapon; i can't remember him ever putting anyone down. he was not shy with his opinions but he was always generous even with people he must have disagreed with severely (on specifics or with their broader worldviews). he was not someone who avoided disagreement or wanted mouthfuls to be a bland place without any drama but he managed to stay above it all even when he participated in discussions that got other people (not least me in the bad old days) very exercised. his interest in food, music, literature, film etc. of all kinds was exceptional in an internet culture that sees most people double down on unexamined cultural positions. it was clear what kinds of things he loved most of all but it was also clear that he resisted cultural hierarchies of taste. and in the last decade, as mouthfuls, and pretty much every other discussion forum of old, grew increasingly silent, losing members to social media or more complicated personal lives, he was one of those who kept it alive and made the discussions that were still happening vital and worth reading. (he was also very funny.)
i am sorry that as my own participation lessened, even before but especially after the loss of the old site, i didn't get to interact with him on the forums as much as i used to. i'm sorry that i never told him how much i admired him, how much i learned from him, and how much his opinion of me meant to me. i'm very sorry that i never reached out to him until it was too late after hearing the initial news of his diagnosis. but i'm very glad to have known him--i wish it could have been for longer.
