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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)
"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
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Daily Blah for... Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Documenting the Alien
I suppose it started when we found a small, green plastic alien in the car. This was last Saturday, when three friends and I went to Mount Diablo State Park in the East Bay. Our initial intention was to do some good, hard cardio-friendly hiking. But we were all in a typically silly mood and, as it turned out, we were all carrying digital cameras with practically limitless storage capacity. So we started documenting our plastic friend's visit to the park: alien admires large tree. Alien casts long shadow in wind cave. Alien gets stuck in barbeque pit. Soon my friend Kaila cunningly decided to take pictures of ourselves taking pictures of the alien -- documenting the documentation. Then, because we are all self-referential children of irony, we scrambled to take pictures of the person taking pictures of the person taking pictures of the alien. There was a mad, confusing outburst of camera flashes. "Ha! I am more postmodern than you," shouted one of us, possibly me. (Of course, now I'm documenting the documentation of the documentation of the documentation. I win!)
All of which terribly childish behavior reminds me of the current Michael Jackson controversy. No, that's not because the embattled king of pop bears a marked resemblence to a small, plastic alien. It's because Jackson, fuming over his treatment at the hands of Martin Bashir as broadcast on ABC, has given the Fox network his own documentary. One that was filmed by Jackson's entourage during the Bashir documentary, and features Bashir praising Jackson's way of interacting children. That's right -- trying desperately to prove a point (or deflect attention from those creepy in-bed-with-kids revelations), Jacko is documenting the documentation of the documentary maker. Now Bashir, who tried in vain to avoid becoming part of the story himself, has issued his own response in the form of an ITV webchat. This in itself becomes a news story, which in turn becomes fodder for blogs, and here we are documenting the documentation of the documentation of the documentation of the original documentary.
My only question is: at what point do we realize how ridiculous this all is? When do we laugh and turn away? When does this feedback loop, this navel-gazing in a hall of mirrors, stop being news?
I don't know, but I can't wait to see someone emerge with a selectively-edited tape of Jackson's team selectively editing their taped evidence of selective editing.
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