Mike Scalise

Just in case you haven’t been keeping up, this week is People I Know Week. The reason? This blog–which is meant, in part, to call attention to DC-area writer types–was in danger of becoming the Rion Scott/Joe Hall/Matt Klam/Ryan Call show. So just like when the songs on my iPod have become a little too familiar, I’m infusing some fresh, new blood on to this blog, and profiling people I know who do good work, in hopes of either fostering a community or making myself feel somehow important for knowing them. So far we’ve had Brian Brodeur and Jennifer Janisch.

Here’s another: Daynah Burnett.

I’m realizing I have a skinny roster of productive DC acquaintances not because I don’t know many. Its because in several cases, these people have left the DC area for what they think are greener pastures. That’s the case with Daynah, an essayist/critic who split DC in late 2007 to become a doctor of horror films, but not before leaving behind a trail of smart, distinctive work that (a) spans genres, (b) takes everything about as serious as it deserves to be taken, and (c) proves that bravery, wit and grace not only can, but *should* occupy the same space at once.

While here, Daynah published a strong handful of crisp personal essays in magazines and journals like Hip Mama, Bitch, and Mortar & Pestle (where she wrote a melancholy meditation on her “poor boobies”). But it’s been her recent work as a TV and film critic at PopMatters that’s put a nice polish on a website that has some shitty writing, and given the  tired, snarky art of reviews a refreshing voice that asks honest, unexpected questions about what we watch and what, exactly, its doing to us.

Take, for instance, this angle on the Season 2 premiere of A & E’s stab at re-exploitation programming, The Two Coreys:

Watching the The Two Coreys is a bit like looking up my high school boyfriend on Facebook. Suddenly, he’s no longer the perfect object of my idolatry, but instead, a blathering train wreck with too much hair gel and an unfortunate penchant for appliquéd blazers. Any lingering affection I once had for either Corey—who both made appearances on my ceiling, my locker, and even inside my wallet—has been replaced by one question: What in the hell did I ever see in that guy?

In short, I am exactly The Two Coreys’ demographic.

It’s Daynah’s rare blend of sharp insight and criticism mixed with an essayist’s wry, personal touch that compelled Kiwi folk-duo fans to give her kudos (link, link) for her spot-on, perceptive take on HBO’s Flight of the Conchords, and led none other than UTNE Reader (the “forward thinking guide to the independent press”) to single out her dispatch on the tired gender politics weighing down the state of modern horror films.

But those are just some of Daynah’s reviews, and I don’t have it in me to comment on the hundreds of others. You’ll have to read them for yourself.

PopMatters Archive: Daynah Burnett (link)

Mortar & Pestle: “My Cup Runneth Over” (link)

Flight of the Conchords Completely UNofficial Fan Site: Excellent Pop Matters Article (link)

Conchords In Flight: Critic: Why the Show Will Fail (link)

UTNE Reader: Short Takes (link)