R.I.P. Leslie Harpold, online pioneer, zinestress, and fan of Advent Calendars

She founded Smug.com, was (bemusedly) named one of Wired's Sexiest People (along with Chank Diesel. Ah, 1997), and wrote a blog 2 years before that word existed. Over the last few years, she had published a yearly Advent Calendar. This final one stops at Dec 7th.

I exchanged a few emails with her about 9-10 years ago, since I found out that she was a Michigan State grad, and I wanted to know how she'd managed to escape to NY. I knew she had medical issues even back then, causing Smug to stop publishing and then never to be relaunched. There's still a forlorn post-it note on the old frontpage, but the great archives are there.

But now she's gone, and we are lesser without her.