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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.
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
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My TIME articles
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Daily Blah for... Thursday, April 10, 2003
Go, Stuff, and Multiply
Where did all this stuff come from? Why am I not seeing light at the end of my packing tunnel? Why do I keep opening closets and finding new things I never knew I had? Did I really buy that many khakis, or are my clothes sneakily mutliplying behind my back? Is it something to do with Spring? (I should have known it was a bad idea leaving those suave and elegant trousers and those racy jeans to get better aquainted).
More likely, my stuff quotient has now simply outpaced my poor overworked brain's ability to categorize and cross-reference it all. This makes sense. The older we get, the less brain cells we have, and the more things we acquire (an with all the passwords and account numbers and user names we're required to remember in this postmodern life, it's a wonder we have any memory left over). This is one of those cruel ironies of life, like losing your beauty sleep in order to attain wealth so that when you're old and wrinkled you can use your wealth to attain beauty. Personally, I'd be all for annual government inspections that measured how many functioning memory cells we have, calculated how much stuff we could feasibly remember having, and took the balance away from us to give to charity. Why not? We'd never know the difference.
Finding Home
As usual, it turns out John Carroll said it a lot better than I did. (Thanks, Kathleen.)
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, April 08, 2003
A Moving Experience
Funny, but moving week seems to be the most contemplative, spiritual time most of us in secular society allow ourselves these days. It's frenetic, to be sure, but there's also time to stop and think. To look at those brown-taped boxes and wonder: is this all there is? Can my life truly be defined by the contents of a Ryder truck? Of course it can't.
Home is something more, something intangible. It never seems to exist for long enough. We try and arrange everything in our lives so neatly; we circle the wagons of our possessions and we invite those people least likely to hurt us inside the circle. What we're really trying to do is will this ethereal spirit of home into being. But what do we do with it once we have it? Do we use our well-feathered nests to hide from our true selves?
I haven't had to move in three years. This is the most well-established home I've had outside of the one I grew up in. It's a wrench, tearing down a nest, even when you know you're about to build a new and better one. But I used to do this once a year when I lived in New York, so I know -- when the house is stripped bare, so is the soul. Moments like this are precious, because they are about the only times you realize that your home is not your address, nor your bookshelves or computers or even walls. Their permanence is an illusion; they can be shipped off, lost or destroyed at a moment's notice. A stable home is not the twigs of the nest you hide from the world in. A stable home is the only thing we always have: other people.
Daily Blah for... Monday, April 07, 2003
Do You Know Where You're Going To?
Yes, I'm going across town to Noe Valley, probably the most neighborhood-like neighborhood in San Francisco. It's almost too cute. Every time I go visit the new place, I meet three more neighbors. On one end of the block is a park and playground; on the other, a grocery that still gives credit. There is also a very, very purple house on my block; possibly the most purple house in the city. Everyone tells me the microclimate is terrific there, and it's true: I haven't seen so much as a single cloud so far. And it's close to just about everything: 24th Street, the Mission, SOMA, the Castro, the J-Church that takes you downtown, the freeways.
Now if I can only get this herkin' pile of crap over there without a hitch ...
Do you ever wonder how much of the stuff we cart around through life is really, really worth hanging on to?
Daily Blah for... Sunday, April 06, 2003
Pontification Postponed
Apologies to those tenacious readers who take the full name of the blog at face value. I'm afraid the Blah is going to get a lot more sporadic over the coming weeks. You could, if you live in San Francisco, come round and help me pack my junk into a terrifyingly large pile of cardboard boxes. In return, I'd happily give you the real-life equivalent of a blog by yakking endlessly about anything that came into my head.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, April 01, 2003
Night of the Living Deadline
Alcoholics go on binges. Journalists pull all-nighters. When they're done, both solemnly swear never to do it again. But they will.
I've been pulling all-nighters since I was writing history essays in college. Once a week, without fail, I'd see the dawn from a pile of musty books and scribbled notes. Now I work for a weekly magazine, it's the same routine. I may not always see the dawn, like I did this morning, but one night a week is invariably cut short somehow.What is it about a deadline that makes me want to rub right up against it, that makes me avoid stringing sentences together until the last possible moment? Somebody make me stop. I'm getting too old for this.
I'll tell you what it is. Deadlines get the adrenaline pumping. The brain ceases its chatter and begins to focus. When I'm on deadline, even if I haven't slept for a day, it's like I have the power of twenty writers. History tutors and editors are invariably impressed with the results. I've tried writing stories in advance, and those tend to receive less acclaim. They just don't have the same oomph.
In one of his Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, Douglas Adams -- another writer who had habitual problems with deadlines -- invented something called a Crisis Inducer. The idea was you could get from point A to point B much faster with a device that can make you genuinely believe someone is chasing you. What I need is a Deadline Inducer. I'd turn it on first thing in the morning. Fear of an editor's opprobrium is about ten times as strong as a double espresso.
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