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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.
Oh My God, the RSS Feed Actually Works!
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
Friends, Bloggers, Countrymen ... lend your ears to these people. I come not to bury them, but praise them.
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My TIME articles
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Daily Blah for... Friday, April 07, 2006
Day of the Wikimen
In his latest Live Journal, anarchist extraordinaire Aaron takes the throwaway idea I had at the end of my last Blah about V -- why not use a graphic novel as a movie script for once? -- and runs with it like the mad creative genius he is. Result: a proposal to film the supposedly unfilmable classic Watchmen with a multiplicity of amateur directors and visual effects artists, whose scenes would be voted on, Wikipedia style. The vote-winning scenes, all lifted straight from the book (which is pretty neatly divided into scenes already), would make it into the movie. You wouldn't need sets; the whole thing would be shot in front of green screens and finished in post, Sin City-style.
It would be a hard project to pull off without a single guiding creative force, but not an impossible one. You'd have to have a core group of unknown actors willing to stand in front of a green screen with a remotely-controlled camera for just about anyone who wanted to book them, but how hard would it be to find that kind of dramatic dedication in LA, city of eight million aspiring waiters? Casting, too, could be conducted by a vote. The first take would look like a dog's breakfast, but as the same scenes were re-edited by the group, a unifying visual style may start to emerge, organically. If it doesn't work, we've lost nothing, since Watchmen is never likely to be filmed anyway. If it does, we've just changed celluloid history -- and made lone, overpaid directors an endangered species.
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