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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
Praise for Daily Blah:
"It is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." - Sunday Times (UK)
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Daily Blah for... Thursday, July 18, 2002
Time For Your Close-up, Mr. Hitler
With the big bad bin Laden bogeyman still at large and the world almost one year into being a very scary place, whom do Americans want to cluster round their TV sets and watch a four-hour miniseries about? That's right: Hitler. Or to be more precise, young Hitler (in the grand visual tradition of young Sherlock Holmes and young Indiana Jones, only with less crime-solving/derring-do and more painting/anti-semitism). At the same time, there's an upcoming Hollywood movie starring John Cusack on the same theme. What's going on here? Do we really need more anti-heroes in our lives? Is the U.S. turning into a pale imitation of Don DeLilo's White Noise, with its academic Department of Hitler Studies and vaguely menacing background threat of disaster?
On the other hand, isn't it funny that people only start kicking up a fuss about representations of Hitler -- that it only becomes a subject for national debate-- when it enters the visual realm? I mean, did anyone bat an eyelid when Ian Kershaw came out with Hubris, his epic biography of the ultimate evil-doer's early years, on which the CBS miniseries is based? No, because it was a book, and so few of us read books anymore. But ask any nonfiction publisher about the cottage industry in Hitler books. The Nazi dictator has long been one of the largest moneyspinners in the woodpulp world. We are still fascinated, it seems, by what repels and frightens us.
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