Photo: Kathleen Moriarty.

We’re not really going anywhere, but you could also say that we’ve already gone. Since the beginning of June, we’ve been writing our posts at this blog’s new sister site, designed for the iPad and for tablets to come, The Daily Blague / reader. We may be crazy, but we believe that the sort of thing that we have to say is best comprehended when read on a hand-held device, preferable one with a readerly-sized screen.

We’re beginning to believe a lot of other things, too, and, like our decision to close the tablet blog to comments (we can’t imagine actually writing on an iPad), most of these new beliefs trend away from the original purpose of the Web log; so much so that we wonder from time to time why we maintain a blog at all. Perhaps it’s nothing but inertia. The Daily Blague has been running uninterruptedly, and with new entries almost every weekday, for over five years — six in November — and we’re afraid that we’d miss it, even if nobody else would.

One implication of accommodating The Daily Blague to the iPad is that we no longer write for the reader who has just arrived at the office and is checking us out before getting down to work — if, indeed, there ever were such readers. We’re no longer turning out a morning edition. The Daily Blague is much more like an evening paper, best read, we think, on the homebound commute, or after dinner in lieu of “television news.”

So, as we gradually resume posting our weekday feature, the Daily Office, we’ll be composing the entry throughout the day, in response not so much to the news as to our thoughts about the news. Every morning, a blank template will appear at The Daily Blague / reader. In the course of the morning and early afternoon, the hours will be filled in with links to Web pages that we think you’ll find intriguing, together with a word or two from us about why we think so.

Here’s how to tell when we’re done with the day’s Office: the last thing to be completed is the date in the header. When we’re done, “2010” becomes (say) “28 June 2010.” It’s subtle but not obscure.

Then, an abbreviated version of that Daily Office entry — one without all the block quotes — will appear at this address, at the old Daily Blague — the next morning. Among other things, this will allow you to sleep on your comments. Which we hope will be many.

Thanks for reading! And remember: The Daily Blague / reader.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 10:30 am and is filed under Have A Look. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.