A Very Sad Ghost Site

Filmmaker and game developer Theresa Duncan committed suicide in New York on July 10th; apparently her companion, artist Jeremy Blake, is also now missing, and may have drowned himself in the Rockaways.

Duncan had considerable success in the late 1990's as a pioneering CD-ROM game designer; her titles included "Mimi SmartyPants," "Chop Suey" and "Zero Zero." These games featured quirky, non-violent scenarios that proved popular with young girls, and were both well-reviewed and well-received by the market. Mr. Blake collaborated on the illustrations for these games, and became a well recognized graphic artist in his own right who showed at New York's Whitney Museum.

Theresa Duncan leaves behind her Blog, located at http://theresalduncan.typepad.com, which for two years chronicled her thoughts; its formal title is "The Wit of the Staricase."

It's always tempting to view the online writings left behind by a suicidal soul as both a last testament to life and a trail of clues that might explain such a tragedy, and I'm sure we'll be reading many such interpretations in the coming weeks, especially because Duncan made some eerie statements on her Blog in her last days, including:

• "Goodnight, Children, We're In The Arms Of The Great Lover"


• "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." -- 2 Corinthians (3:17)"


• "What I hope you will do in the coming week, Scorpio, is rescue from obscurity any important thing that is on the verge of becoming unspeakable. Be a retriever of that-which-is-about-to-disappear. Be a rememberer of that-which-is-close-to-being forgotten."

Are these fragments clues? If so, where can they lead us? The Web gives us such enormous power to peer into the inner thoughts of others that it is easy to forget that the heart is dark and mysterious, and there are thoughts and feelings that can never be reduced to a mere form of words. One's online writings are, in the end, just a part of what one chooses to put out to the world. What one withholds, however, can never be known, and may in fact be more responsible for the actions one takes.

It's an awful thing when people take their own lives; and it is especially terrible when they are young, talented, and might have gone on to illuminate more of this dark world for the rest of us. May the friends and family of Duncan and Blake find peace in the future.