Thanks to my writing career and aspirations, I’ve made a lot of friends over the years. Some have left lasting impressions even after we’ve lost touch. One of those friends and fellow authors was Philip J. Reed.
I’m not entirely sure how I first met Phil — I think it was through a mutual friend, Chris — but most of our early interactions were around a short story compilation that he was putting together. Around that time, Phil was writing prolifically for Nintendo Life, and he wanted to assemble a collection of “twisted/subverted” short stories based on the old Worlds of Power books from Nintendo.
I signed up for that project, and when he published my story “Linus Spacehead’s Cosmic Crusade” in the collection, Phil became the first person on the planet to put my fiction into a book.
We chatted a few times during and after that project, but what really left an impression on me was his hilarious writings both on Facebook (I was still using it at the time) and his website — noiseless chatter.
We shared an ironic obsession with the TV show ALF, or at least an obsession with making fun of it. We would post nonsense and memes about Max Wright on the FB page where he roleplayed as the actor’s “official publican”, and rereading Phil’s ALF reviews has been something I do at least once a year since he first showed them to me.
And that leads us to this very solemn post, which I’ll admit I’m writing completely freeform, so forgive me.
Today was one of those days that I decided to navigate over to noiseless chatter and read a couple of ALF reviews. While doing so, I noticed a recent post that looked suspicious, as if Phil’s site had been compromised and someone was using it to deliver malware.
That led me to scroll through his other posts, hoping to figure out what was going on, which is where I found one with the headline: “Thank you all.”
Seeing that headline made my stomach turn far more than the threat of website compromise. I wanted to believe that it was going to be a post about abandoning the website (which would have been bad enough) but something told me it was worse.
After a quick search, I found out that Phil passed away in 2022, right around the time that post went live.
I don’t know how to continue writing about this without feeling like I’m making it about myself. Such things aren’t really my strong suit. All I know is that I feel like someone kicked me in the chest, and I keep thinking about how I remember trying to reach out to him via email as recently as a year ago. I had no idea.
Of course, I did a lot of follow-up searching to confirm, and in doing so found posts and memorials to Phil from his friends. (Most of whom I recognized from the ALF comments section.) It softens the blow to know that he was so universally loved.
The best thing I can think to do is make sure his work keeps getting read. That’s how writers live on — or at least that’s the best plan I’ve got. To that end, here are a few places to find his work:
Nintendo Life post with links to his articlesResident Evil by Philip J Reed on Boss Fight Books
You’re missed, Phil.
On the off chance that someone reads this who has taken over noiseless chatter (friend or family, maybe) please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you need help keeping it secure. I’d hate for anything to happen to Phil’s work, and would be honored to help keep it preserved safely online.
