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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 ... hey, wait, you're writing every day!
See? Told you I'd try harder.
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.
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Daily Blah for... Tuesday, January 21, 2003
The Twain Shall Meet
Tai Chi and Upstairs Downstairs. The martial art and the jewel of 70's television. Neither were part of my world 24 hours ago, but -- thanks be to modern technology -- I now feel like I have a beginner's grasp of both.
I've started working out with this Tai Chi DVD with instructor Scott Cole. And I'm amazed, almost to the point of feeling guilty, by how much exercise I'm getting out of how little effort. Sure, some of the poses are hard to grasp at first, but try it twice. It's incredible how fast you learn. I'd never even considered Tai Chi before, and used to smile quizzically at the Chinese seniors who practiced it on the steps of the Columbia Journalism school every morning I arrived there. Today I take back a year's worth of quizzical smiles.
Upstairs Downstairs was also something I'd never encountered before. I was rather too busy being born halfway through its third season. But my parents always spoke of it in reverential tones, and the older I get -- and the further away I get from my homeland -- the more important such things seem. So today I started slogging through the first of five 14 hour-long DVD compendiums of the whole damn show, and got a head start on the rest with this excellent, in-depth episode guide. Like Tai Chi, it deserves its reverence. Updown, as it was apparently known to cast members, is easily the most detailed costume drama in TV history. It pays homage to the now-vanished concept of an English gentleman's home being staffed by a dozen servants (Gosford Park is a pale imitation by comparison), and takes us into one such home from 1904 all the way to its eventual sale in 1930. Service was a cultural system, a hierarchy designed to keep everyone in their place, yet also give them a sense of safety. It was nightmarish and comforting at the same time. And it is as alien to me as martial arts. Both have their moral ambiguities, I suppose (Tai Chi being partly designed to turn men into killing machines).
I didn't plan a day that melded such diametrically, almost comically opposed elements. I was just following my interests and curiousities. And yet it seems appropriate, this electronic meeting of east and west. Very global-melting-pot. Very turn-of-the-21st-century.
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