Ellen Killoran

To @ellenkilloran.bsky.social, on what would have been her 50th birthday. I would not be making some aging joke at her expense today—not out of fear of hurting her feelings (it would not), but because that shit’s hack and it wouldn’t get a laugh.

poster for the movie BABY BOOM

My Irish-twin sister @ellenkilloran.bsky.social, who died way too young three years ago, won tickets to see the Diane Keaton movie BABY BOOM when she was like 10. But she got in a big fight with our dad about something and he didn’t let her go and I don’t think I can ever watch that movie.

Two little girls standing, back to back, facing the entrance to Amoeba Music on Hollywood Blvd. They each hold a bag from the store containing an LP.

The annual visit to celebrate @ellenkilloran.bsky.social on her birthday. (This year we got Neutral Milk Hotel’s ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’ and John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s ‘Double Fantasy,’ featuring a bonus pickup of Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Guts.’)

a photo of Ellen as an adult. Taken at a backyard barbecue, she is framed to the right, showing her left side in profile, facing perpendicular to the open, flaming grill in the background. She looks cool.

I'm johnnykilloran.bsky.social if you have thoughts, questions, comments.

Here's to Ellen, getting to give this place the kiss-off.

To play off her last-and-forever pinned tweet (and now pinned...skeet? don't love that, neither would she): Let's keep sharing information. 25/25

(Conclusion cont'd)
I'm going to keep tinkering, set up some block lists for her, try to follow the people she followed here who are over there, probably prune a lot of the migrated tweets that were just me posting updates (because of images that became urls and such). 24/25

a screengrab of Ellen's (former) Bluesky bio. it reads "IN-PROGRESS BUILD OF AN IN MEMORIAM SPACE FOR ELLEN'S TWEETS BY HER IN-OVER-HIS-HEAD BROTHER WHO'S HAD TO DOWNLOAD PYTHON AND IS LEARNING CODING (??) IN AN ATTEMPT TO TRANSFER HER DATA. DO NOT FOLLOW UNTIL THAT'S ALL SET, TY. - @johnnykilloran.bsky.social"

CONCLUSION
ellenkilloran.bsky.social
Account is up and running; I do need to (and will) change that bio to remove the panicked DO NOT FOLLOW warning. You can follow. 23/25

(Good News? cont'd)
So as much as I'm doing this for my family, I'm doing it for a lot of other people who knew Ellen personally and/or professionally, appreciated her kindness & her smarts & her perspective, who might appreciate getting to hear her voice once in a while. 22/25

(Good News? cont'd)
and I can tell you that it's nice to be able to hear her voice by reading it every once in a while. Social media was not where Ellen *plied her craft*, but she was a writer--and good writing simply can't stop itself sometimes, regardless of the medium. 21/25

(Good News? cont'd)
2d. Ellen wouldn't give a shit about "maintaining" a single one of her tweets (I won't be migrating any of mine before I nuke my account), certainly not on a public forum. But she's gone, and I love her, and I miss her every day... 20/25

(Good News? cont'd)
The process that I started from (before becoming a master hacker) explained that any tweet that was a reply, or started with an @ or included a quote of another tweet (or was a retweet) wouldn't post on Bluesky. So that explains at least some of it. 19/25

(Good News? cont'd)
2c. Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed, in Point 1 of "Good News" (Tweet 7 of this thread), an asterisk on "(eligible)" in "(eligible) tweets." *Of the 26K or so tweets of Ellen's that I now possess, about 10K & a quarter made it back up on Bluesky. 18/25

(Good News? cont'd)
and finally at around midnight last night I figured out a fix for the error that had plagued me for 24 hours all by my lonesome and activated the migration. I am legitimately proud of the achievement, far more than a reasonable adult would or should be. 17/25

The Bluesky move!

(Good News? cont'd)

2b. It was super-complicated (for me, who hadn't attempted to input code since maybe high school computer lab) and it took all weekend and I had to join Github but I couldn't get anybody to talk to me (nerds) 16/25

The hell was I talking about.

15/25

........

14/25

still photo of John Wood as an evil bishop in LADYHAWKE

still photo of John Wood as a kindly scientist in WARGAMES

SAME GUY. John Wood, what a talent, RIP circa 2011. 13/25

It didn't, though. Great movie, great synth score, great Michelle Pfeiffer. Fun memory.

Know what's wild? The guy who plays the evil bishop who cursed Hauer & Pfeiffer and the guy in WARGAMES who plays the despondent but kindly genius who teams up w/ Broderick & Sheedy? ...12/25

Our paternal grandmother had taken us to lunch at the Howard Johnson's in Somerset (Mass.); afterwards my sisters and I sat in her car and watched her call our mom on a payphone and ask her permission to expose us to a film I was certain would contain unimaginable violence. 11/25

LADYHAWKE was an important film for me, as it was the first PG-13 movie I ever saw. I believe it was Ellen's first, too, and it might have been our older sister Katie's. We all saw it together; none of us was 13. 10/25

still photo of Rutger Hauer, holding a hawk, and Matthew Broderick, huddled behind Hauer as they both sit astride a horse, in the film LADYHAWKE

For my money, actually? In terms of Baby-Matthew-Broderick movies? I prefer LADYHAWKE to WARGAMES. So we'll keep me as Matthew Broderick from WARGAMES in this scenario, but make Ellen......

Rutger Hauer from LADYHAWKE. Such a badass & Broderick was very intimidated by him. 9/25

still photo of Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy in WARGAMES

(Good News? cont'd)
2a. Just now briefly I thought, "oh, and it could be like Ellen was with me as Ally Sheedy" but then I remembered that they weren't brother-sister they were romantic so that doesn't work. 8/25

still photo of Matthew Broderick in WARGAMES

(Good News? cont'd)
1. I've created a Bluesky account for Ellen and migrated all (eligible)* tweets from this account to that one. I was able to do this because
2. I spent the weekend becoming a genius coder/master hacker, here's a current photo of me 7/25

THE GOOD NEWS?

Is Bluesky any better than this place? At the moment it is without question. Will it *stay* better, especially if a rise in popularity leads to more capital which leads to advertising & corporate boards & so on? THAT'S WHY "GOOD NEWS?" HAS A QUESTION MARK. 6/25

(Caveat Break cont'd)
2. Given that she was a fairly obsessive Twitter user, as I was until two years ago, Ellen would have preferred not to have had to bail on it--but, at the very least in terms of personal use, she would have fucking bailed on it. Roundabout now. 5/25

CAVEAT BREAK:
1. I downloaded a raw data file of everything Ellen ever posted here *two years ago*, because I am what the French call "prescient" (same spelling, French-er pronunciation), so it's all saved, just in a different format. 4/25

Leading to THE BAD NEWS?

1. This thread marks the last time anything will be posted on Ellen's Twitter account, because
1a. I am deleting Ellen's Twitter account, later this week probably. 3/25

First, THE BAD NEWS:

1. (Gestures sheepishly to America)
2. I don't know if you're much for current events but word on the street is that this particular website has rapidly devolved over the last 2 years & last week reached its nadir as a sort of NazIncelCryptAIChudNet. 2/25

(left to right) childhood photo of little Johnny, little Ellen, and little Katie

"BAD NEWS/BAD NEWS?/GOOD NEWS?, AND SOME STUFF ABOUT 'LADYHAWKE'" - A 25-Part Thread to Close Out Ellen's Twitter Account (By Ellen's Brother Johnny) 1/25

Ellen's brother Johnny here. While I'm finishing setting up her space on this site, I'm going to (temporarily) leave up a cut-and-paste of a quite delberately overlong (25-part, not including this one!) explanation from the other site. ("This place" means "that place," and vice versa.) 0/25

I want to say again (as I've mentioned to several of Ellen's friends & colleagues directly) that my family and I greatly appreciate your support and your kind words about her over the last, very difficult, month. Life will never be the same, but staying connected helps. (5/5)