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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.
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Daily Blah for... Monday, January 03, 2005
Finding The Flood
It was like coming across a terrifying time capsule -- terrifying in terms of how recently it was buried.
I just this hour returned to Santa Monica from the amazing stillness and peace of Guadalupe Canyon, Baja California, all boulders and palm trees and majestic canyonside mountains and playa and natural hot springs under the stars.
Guadalupe is a resort, but an incredibly remote, bare-bones one -- considering it's just across the US border. To get through the final three miles of the journey, though, you pretty much have to have four-wheel or all-wheel drive. There's a long washboard playa road that will make your singing voice sound like Cher and shake your car to mush, followed by rock stairs fit for a giant's lair. It's not for the weak-hearted or anyone with loose fillings.
Once you get there, you see how the campsite wears this unfriendly moat well. Here civilization seems a distant memory, a bad dream. Here, the stars seem to say, is paradise. Here's a full moon rising, like a torchlight that turns the canyon into a patchwork of powerful deep blues and dark pastel greens. Here's a gentle breeze lapping the water around your neck, reminding you that this is where nature's thermostat is turned -- at least in winter -- to what feels in each hour of the day to be pretty damn near the ideal for human comfort. Here's a fireplace for when you get out of the hot pool. And here are good friends who insist on seriously Epicurean camping. Engineers, writers, programmers, lawyers, teachers, all heaping generious servings of the most sinful BBQ meats and treats (think crumpets and butter, and better) out of their coolers, cooking them on a dutch oven or propane stove, and serving to everyone else with relish.
A physical therapist brought hammocks. An electrical genius hung a multicolor array of Christmas lights round each of the three palapas, all powered by a battery in his van. If we'd wanted, we could have powered my laptop and watched DVDs. But for what? Didn't we have everything we needed? For entertainment, we explored each others' twisted sense of humor, played card games, and read books. We read books for hours without moving so much as a muscle, absorbed in only the way an utter nonelectronic, cityless peace will let you.
The cast-iron rule of the Mexican owners is NO MUSICA, NO ARMAS. This stentorian all-caps message was hand-painted on signs all around camp, and the distubing necessity of the second phrase -- culture shock if ever I felt it -- was the only hint of menace in this sea of tranqulity on my first two trips there. And this, my third -- at least until the second night.
Our second day there, also known as the first day we stopped naming days, passed with blissful lack of incident. I set up my tent, but ultimately elected to sleep out on the hammock again. (The stars are too nice not to look at; rooves are not necessarily civilization's best contribution to quality of life). Raindrops woke me at 3am. There'd been a light shower the previous night that the palapa protected me from, so I pulled cotton blankets over my head and carried on sleeping. It hardly ever rains here. This is a desert.
I was too far from the epicenter, too far from civilization, to know that the deluge had begun.
To Be Continued ...
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