Dana closing up shop is like Freaks & Geeks going off the air — but sadder, because I devoured the show in one epic DVD marathon a few years ago, while I’ve hung onto every word of Number One Hit Song, week after week, since before it was called that.
The woman’s got more talent than all the trick dolphins in Orlando. When I read her writing, I’m ashamed of my own.
If publishing were about smarts and wit and insight, Dana’s essays would fill our better magazines and be anthologized, and Caitlin Flanagan could congratulate herself on her first-rate intelligence while organizing her own goddamned cabinets. Thank God Dorothy Parker lived in the last century. These days she’d be editing the American Lung Association newsletter and blogging on the side.
Question my praise if you want; Dana and I are friends. But we met because of our sites, and our occasional volleys (see, e.g., the karaoke chronicles) are one of the main things that have kept me going all this time. Without her, the toe I’ve been keeping in blogland feels awfully unsteady.