Is Mike Jittlov Alive?

[filkertom]

Okay, something's going on.

At a panel at DucKon this past weekend, mention was made of Mike Jittlov and The Wizard of Speed and Time. And someone told us that Jittlov had passed away of cancer this winter.

I can find no mention of this anywhere, including alt.fan.mike-jittlov and his own site.

So now I'm looking for documentation. Serious, legit news sources. Anything? Anybody? Bueller?

Update: As fas as we can tell, it's bogus, and Mr. Jittlov is alive and well. Thanks to sff_corgi.

Comments

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

Not to the best of my knowledge. A good friend sff_corgi knows him well, and would've said something.

[annathepiper]

I had email from him in February, so he was certainly alive and kicking as of then. :)

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

I just wrote to Corgi and I expect she will be able to quash this one after a quick phone call. I can just envision it now.

Hey Mike, are you alive? Ok good.

[johno.livejournal.com]

He used to be in the phone book.

Call information and ask them. ;)

I did once when a con I working on wanted him as a guest. (alas, he was not avail our weekend.)

.
.
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(323) NO HUMAN

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Well, it wasn't that. They had no idea who he was.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

AFAIK he's alive and well.

[johno.livejournal.com]

Ooops.

Whitepages.com said it Mike Jittlov and the number translated to NO HUMAN, which is what I remembered the nubmer to be...

Sorry

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

He had to disconnect that number a while ago, but otherwise you remembered correctly.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Bluntly: CRAP.

For one, I'm about a skillion times more likely to get cancer than he is, considering his care about his health (other than, y'know, the exhaustion thing).

For another, he sent me an e-mail here at work just a couple weeks ago, May 22.

I didn't try calling him for his birthday because EVERYbody else does, but I'll try when I get home. Forgot my expletive deleted phone this morning in the rush to leave (to no avail, I was still 10 minutes late).

So, who do I go beat up for spreading lies?

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

I think Greg woulda called me if something happened, anyway. If he could find my number.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

[tips hat to Selene]

RUMOR QUASHED.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

OKAY. Corgi says she got some e-mail from him on May 22. Just movie gossip, nothing significant, but it does confirm his living state.

Re: RUMOR QUASHED.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

oops, she posted between the time I pushed the Post A New Comment button and the time I sent the comment. Hee.


Well, ask him if he started it himself? The only thing better than a good death rumor for reviving a flagging career is really dying. Just ask Paul McCartney... and John Lennon.

Re: RUMOR QUASHED.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Hee, I'm not as fast as he is, but... ;)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Many, many thanks. E-mail me.

[braider.livejournal.com]

Last I saw the man was at a youth hostel in ... Cork? in 1995.

[braider.livejournal.com]

Heh. Next time you talk to him, tell him someone who met him in a youth hostel in ... Cork? in 1995 says hi. I finally have proof that someone else in the known universe has heard of him. ;-)

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

OMG, you were around his Ireland trip? [envyenvy] *grin*

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

:nod:

[braider.livejournal.com]

My university gave me a grant to study Irish music for a year. Six months of that was spent travelling in Ireland, learning what I could. He was one of the many entertaining people I met along the way. I have pictures of that particular hostel, and some of the folks I met there, but not him - I think he was only there the one night.

[braider.livejournal.com]

Ooh, hey, but I can leave a picture taken on a day trip from that very hostel.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Oh, that might ping a memory - either here, if Tom doesn't mind, or e-mail me (on my userinfo page). :)

[braider.livejournal.com]

*grin* He wasn't on that trip, and I already did - the user icon is a picture of me sitting in a tree on the grounds of Blarney Castle.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

[eyestrain] Oh, OK! ;)

[braider.livejournal.com]

What, you can't see that? Here's a larger version:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/braider/749425/

And here's what I look like now:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/braider/146852311/

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I forwarded the links. :) He was delighted and said something about... errrr... a newspaper kilt?!

Proof positive

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

http://sff-corgi.livejournal.com/379775.html, and may be forwarded if/as necessary, of course.

[blueeyedtigress.livejournal.com]

Hah! Corgi beat me to it -- I was just about to provide that link.

(The Wizard is faster than Corgi, and Corgi is faster than me. Poor, slow Blade ....) ;]

Only one thing I can think of to....SING!

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

I am not dead yet
I can dance and I can sing
I am not dead yet
I can do the Highland Fling
I am not dead yet
No need to go to bed
No need to call the doctor
'Cause I'm not yet dead!

[braider.livejournal.com]

*blink blink* Ok, I have no recollection of that, myself. (I can't swear it didn't happen, but ... hm. My brain is almost trying to make up a memory of this. Might you be willing to get the actual story?)

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

It might have been excluding the time you talked to him -- he said that he had to do laundry at the hostel, but had run out of clean clothes, so he wore a newspaper kilt while his stuff was agitating.

*blink* [shakes head]

Not sure if he was kidding about that....

[braider.livejournal.com]

I think I remember him wearing a robe, actually.... I most remember the gas fireplace with the fake log. I spent a lot of time as we talked staring into it. It was warm. (I spent a certain amount of time in Cork in cold, damp weather, being generally miserably because my boyfriend didn't show up as planned).

I am but the Wizard's secretary *wink*

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Mike requested reposting here:

(the Late Wizard reports:)

Thanks to a concerned call from Warrior Princess Corgi (with a nod to Mark Twain), I'd like to clear up a slight online exaggeration...

Death by Cancer? Yea, though I live in HeL.A., there's no history of cancer in my family tree. Might even be a touch of Merlin heritage, since my 86-year-old mother's white hair is turning back to brunette.

Death has had a zillion chances to collect a Time Wizard, but I seem to maintain priority as this Reality's comic relief.

http://www.wizworld.com/fotos/jittlov_n_gargoyle.jpg
http://www.wizworld.com/fotos/jittlov_n_gargoyle2.jpg

Sadly, news of my demise has not reduced the daily avalanche of spam; and has increased email asking if I'm really gone, so that signed Wizard posters will eBay higher.

Which beckons a Smiley of Hope from the virtual Hereafter O:)

Consider - Vincent Van Gogh, during his lifetime, sold only one painting, for a trifling sum. But, after his suicide, VVG's Portrait of Gachet sold for $82.5 million.

So, if I can just stay patiently dead for 40 more years, my whimsical Moneygami sculptures could bring enough wealth to attract a blue-eyed blonde Norwegian mate. Or at least, by then, I'd have better spam blockers.

http://www.wizworld.com/moneygami/moneygami_cat_laugh.jpg


---------------- and, in another response ----------------

Incredibly, I have no memory of the ethereal Miss Braider at Cork Hostel!! Or our chatting by its fireplace! Only of a nervous private hour in the laundry room, waiting for my clothes to wash, whilst wearing an emergency kilt of origami'd classifieds. And later (fully clothed) ringing my movie theme on Cork Cathedral's bells. And exploring that same Blarney Estate, with its mystic twisting trees and Witch's Wishing Cave. And, and, and... maybe Mary's in my 1995 travel videos! Must transfer and view them, before the oxide falls off!

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Re: I am but the Wizard's secretary *wink*

[blueeyedtigress.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool. He still sounds like himself, so (in absence of visual evidence to the contrary, but knowing that you are a Hound of Integrity, Corgi) I conclude (and rejoice) that the Wizard is still among us, in whatever temporal context that makes sense for a Time Wizard. ;]
(Blade, checking in from the road to Pittsburgh, but not really from the road, y'know?)

Re: I am but the Wizard's secretary *wink*

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Tremendous. Thanks, Corgi!