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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 ... 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... Thursday, May 08, 2003
How to Be a Bad Guy
More jealousy-provoking news from the my-job's-so-cool dept.: yesterday afternoon I got to go to a free showing of X-Men 2 at the Metreon. A local special effects company called Discreet had provided much of the software that made the movie, and -- contrary to their name, it would seem -- wanted to show off the results. Me, I wanted a few hours of guilt-free entertainment in the middle of my work day without officially goofing off.
I was also a fan of the first movie, and of the sensitive way Bryan Singer handled the mutant Marvel universe without sniggering at it behind his hand. In with the leatherbound superheroics, Singer seamlessly blended believable realpolitik -- in the shape of Senator Kelly and his McCarthyite mutant registration bill. X-Men 2 starts promisingly enough along these lines, with a mutant assassin attacking the Oval Office and the inevitable 9/11-style backlash that results. But this time round the villain, William Stryker (Brian Cox), turns out to be more disappointingly cartoonish than Senator Kelly. Stryker is an improbable cross between Dr. Mengele and John Ashcroft; a mutant-hating scientist who found the time to experiment on his own son and simultaneously -- we're never told how -- managed to worm his way into the White House in some sort of National Security role.
The longer the movie goes on -- and it does go on, about half-an-hour more than it should -- the less believable Stryker becomes. Which is a shame, because the central premise -- human race starts next stage of evolution, politicians play to knee-jerk panic and prejudice -- is, sadly, very believable indeed. The more we can place a villain in the subtle, shade-of-grey world of our experience, the scarier he becomes. I'm surprised at Singer, because he seemed to get it. What was that great quote from the Usual Suspects? The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist. (And before you write in -- yes, I know that was originally a line by Baudelaire).
Speaking of subtlety -- and being discreet -- I was relieved that the special effects didn't try to wow you into submission. Particularly impressive were the shots where Cerebro displays every human being and mutant in the world. The figures start out as innumerable red and blue stars in the firmament and slowly come into soft, dream-like focus. Marvelous.
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