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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
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"Better than Xanax." - Lessley Andersen, journalist
"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
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Daily Blah for... Monday, August 09, 2004
Poet of Procrastination
I just finished reading my second Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence. My first experience of Dyer was his most recent book, Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It, a rambling travelogue that kept me giggling on various forms of transportation all the way from Liverpool to Berlin. Rage is all about his half-assed attempts to write a study of Lawrence, and what they're both about is his inability to sit still, to focus, to concentrate, to experience anything without an anxiety attack and a sudden desire to sit in a darkened room watching telly. Dyer comes across as extraordinarily honest writer, the most honest I've ever read, and what he is most honest about is how bad a writer he is, which by some inexplicable transmogrification --the kind that makes even my most jaded self marvel at the power of this craft I chose -- turns him into a good writer.
Sure, there's a little protesting too much going on. Dyer is a good writer; he has an ear for rhythm, an eye for the beautiful minutae of life and a nose for comedy. He's extremely well-read, sometimes stooping to the snobbish habit of identifying authors on their first appearance by their last name only, as if we must all know who they are. Most of all, he's suspiciously unafraid to tackle his darkest moments in the most self-deprecating light. So what does he really suck at? Research. Research and discipline. He takes a hefty volume of Lawrence on vacation to a Greek isle, and wastes no time in sitting down to read the collected letters of Rilke (that's Rainer Maria to you). If there is the slightest crack of light in the gloomy prison of the task he has appointed himself -- no matter how necessary or desired that task is -- Dyer will escape through it, then spend the next page or so in anguished and highly amusing guilt. He is the best poet we have of that very modern malaise, procrastination. Most of the laughs were, for me, cathartic ones. And amazingly, I had the desire to write about it straight away. Thanks, Geoff.
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