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Add one part satire to two parts sincerity. Sprinkle on a couple of rants. Stir liberally.
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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.
If it's called Daily Blah, how come you don't always write every day?
I am trying harder. I promise. Please don't hurt me.
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)
"It's really funny and informative." - Dave Eggers, author
"The Blah is becoming a daily destination for me." - Richard Marsh, Playwright
"I like it, and I don't." - Fiona Hogg, Teacher
"Better than Xanax." - Lessley Andersen, journalist
"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
Friends, Bloggers, Countrymen ... lend your ears to these people. I come not to bury them, but praise them.
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Wonkette
My TIME articles
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Online column index
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Daily Blah for... Saturday, May 11, 2002
Nod Vigorously While Reading
This is a fascinating example of what I suppose you'd call self-persuasion, or simply evidence of how gullible we all are. From my reading matter of the moment, Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point:
A large group of students were recruited for what they were told was a market research study by a company making high-tech headphones. They were each given a headset and told to test to see how well they worked while the listener was in motion ... All of the students ... heard a radio editorial arguing that tuition at their university should be raised from its present level of $587 to $750. A third were told ... they should nod their heads vigorously up and down. The next third were told to shake their heads from side to side. The final third were the control group ... All the students were given a short questionaire, asking them about the quality of the songs and the effect of the shaking. Slipped in at the end was the question "what do you feel would be an appropriate amount for tuition?" ... The students who kept their heads still guessed $582 ... those who shook their heads [guessed] on average $487 ... Those who were told to nod their heads up and down ... wanted tuition to rise, on average, to $646. The simple act of moving their head up and down, ostensibly for another reason entirely, was sufficient to cause them to recommend a policy that would take money out of their own pockets.
Alright, dear readers, from now on I would like you all to nod vigorously while reading Daily Blah entries. Further instructions will follow.
They're Number Three!
Six months after I wrote about blogging in Time, U.S. News and World Report discovers it.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, May 07, 2002
When Sam Met Will
Here's a stunning new movie Bill introduced me to: Pandaemonium. It's about Coleridge and Wordsworth from their early friendship in the revolutionary era through the Lake District and laudanum days. I can't speak for its historical accuracy -- was the unrequited romance between Coleridge and Dorothy Wordsworth that intense? Did they really go tripping on thornapple? -- indeed, I suspect it is intentionally playing fast-and-loose with facts, part of the premise being that Coleridge can somehow see far into the future, into our world. And yes, the ending isn't so hot. But as a piece of cinema, it is unlike anything else I have seen in the last year, and as an expression of the art of being a writer -- of the grounded left brain (Wordsworth) struggling against the Dionysian right (Coleridge) -- it is unlike anything I have ever seen. Watch for the scene where Coleridge explains how the opium has set him adrift in time while wine glasses scatter in slow motion. Enchanting.
... Y Viva Espana
Speaking of getting grief from my readership, my dear and only sister Ruth writes from Spain:
checked out your web site - very good i might check in more often. but the kkk lookielikies are called nazareños not nazarenes. also you said your ideal would be to have manhattan and great britain in 'frisco bay - what about me?!?
Good point. Okay, here is a revised list of all points east I plan to have towed through the Panama Canal and brought up here just as soon as we can locate the proper cutting equipment: Manhattan; Great Britain and Ireland; the entire Spanish peninsula. Since my globetrotting sister has also been sighted at various points in Paris and Italy, we'd best have them airlifted in. Just in case.
The Vampire Strikes Back
Profuse and profound apologies, dearest reader. I've been away in New York for the last week and a half -- yes, I know, they have the Internet there too. But that damn city can so easily turn you into a sleep-deprived vampire. It's hard to readjust to a 24-hour town when you haven't lived in it for two years. I felt full of energy that I spent by staying out and up virtually every night till 4 or 5 am -- in velvet-roped clubs where they sell vodka and cranberry for $12 a glass, or simply putting the world to rights with my old friend and Daily Newshound Bill. He doesn't sleep much at night either. Oh, and he likes to talk about bulls. (Sorry, Bill.)
I was in town for my J-school reunion two weekends ago, finding out what the rest of our class -- an unusually close one, for reasons that will become obvious -- has been up to this past five years. That Friday I spent in the Time-Life building, back on the 23rd and 24th floors where Time magazine itself resides and where I was located from 1997 to 2000, back among the well-versed writers and sanctified editors I still call collegues. The business editor buttonholed me and, over a couple of bourbons, requested that I stay in town for another week to close a six-page story I was writing for him. How could I refuse?
Daily Blah was always on my mind, of course. But heck, I couldn't even finish the story I was writing until I stayed in the building one night until, yes, 4 or 5am. I am painfully aware that the blog has now become a means for my friends and family to check up and check in; it's like I'm married to the damn thing, for better or worse. My mother called me earlier today just to make sure I had returned from New York. Part of her concern: "you haven't updated your website ..." My friend Kaila writes from Florida: "Are you alive?" All in all I can sympathize with CNet writer Jennifer Balderama, who wrote in My blog, my self:
Eventually you gain an audience that has expectations that you're going to have something witty, profound, helpful or humorous to say on a regular basis. If you don't update your blog, the e-mail starts trickling in: "What happened? Are you dead?"
Quite. I feel like training all the large dogs in the neighborhood to type, so that if I end up half-eaten by one -- pace Bridget Jones -- they can at least make a Daily Blah entry informing all and sundry of the fact.
Of course, I'm sensitive to the concern, and my ambitious ol' self is even more sensitive to the point Bill made: a constantly updated blog leads to exponentially improved page views. A rarely updated blog will barely attract readership. I may not have written entries while in New York, but I still checked out the hit counter at the bottom of the page. I could see it was slowing down. I hate the thought that I'm causing people to click away and I want to make wild promises about this site literally living up to its name. But of course I can't. Because who knows when two glasses of bourbon are going to send your life in a radically different direction, at least for a short while?
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