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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... Saturday, September 06, 2003
What's So Funny?
American Splendor has to be the most uplifting movie I've seen all year. Which is odd, given that the plot revolves around an incorrigible curmudgeon (hospital file-clerk and autobiographical comic-book creator Harvey Pekar) who inhabits the most depressing parts of industrial Cleveland, fights with his third wife and ultimately gets cancer. But if you've seen it, you probably know what I'm talking about. And chances are you can't adequately explain why most of the audience was laughing heartily at the above, either.
Partly it's because we know everything really happened, which somehow takes the sting out of the movie's tail. For one thing, we know Pekar survives because he – the real one --is there in the opening scenes, as curmudgeonly as ever). The director’s deadpan style is refreshing; there is none of the emotional manipulation we've become eye-rollingly familiar with in Hollywood-style independent weepies (cf. Billy Elliot). But mostly, I think, we’re laughing because of Paul Giamatti's scowl. Giamatti takes Pekar's doom-and-gloom disposition and runs with it like a madman. The facial expression he wears throughout the entire flick deserves an Academy Award by itself. Lip curled, eyes wide, one brow several miles above the other, it is probably best described as a freeze-frame of a man discovering a pubic hair on his toothbrush. This is exquisite comic exaggeration, allowing us to see how ludicrous we look when we're convinced, however momentarily, that life is out to get us. Come on, Harv, you keep wanting to say, it isn't as bad as all that. And then you realize -- it isn't, is it? It never is. Hence the odd sense of uplift on leaving the theater.
Get it? Ah, never mind. Just go see the damn thing. You’ll know soon enough.
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