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An Obit Fit to Blog, and Print
Filed under: In Memoriam Tagged: Calculated Risk, Doris Dungey, economy, Jonathan Taylor, obituaries, recession, The New York Times
Jonathan Taylor writes:
Having taken note of Ben Bernanke's possible slowness on the uptake about the country's financial situation, it is, sadly, now an occasion to pay tribute one who did see what was coming, and who has died of ovarian cancer: "Tanta" of Calculated Risk, Doris Dungey. I recall reading a lot of predictions that there was going to be hell to pay from the mortgage market quite a while back, mostly at Atrios's place, and if I recall correctly, a lot of those posts were inspired by the work of Calculated Risk; naturally, I've been reading the site more and more in recent months.
I was also a little struck by the headline on Tanta's New York Times obituary: "Doris Dungey, Prescient Finance Blogger, Dies at 47." After all, an archive search shows that Tanta is just the third person identified primarily as a "blogger" to have been the subject of a Times obit. (The other two were Cathy Seipp and Steve Gilliard.)
Having attended the recent roundtable on obituary writing at the New York Public Library, I'm led to wonder how the Times is keeping tabs on who's worthy of an obit (not to mention The Verb) among bloggers. Not to be too morbid, but there will be more blogger obits, and Dungey's includes what may one day become a classic trope:
The blog quickly drew a lively and informed group of commentators, few livelier and none more informed than someone who called herself Tanta. She began by correcting some of Mr. McBride's posts. "She would tell me either I was wrong or the article I was quoting was wrong," he said Sunday. "It was clear she really knew her stuff. And she was funny about it."Tanta soon graduated from merely commenting to being a full-scale partner. Her first post, in December 2006, took issue with an optimistic Citigroup report that maintained that the mortgage industry would "rationalize" in 2007, to the benefit of larger players like, well, Citigroup.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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