Twitter and Kerouac

Would Jack Kerouac like "twitter"?  That is the question.  I like twitter for it's simplicity.  Jack might use it to write haikus.

BIG snow melts away

Cursor blinks at start of line

What should be written

To see if there would be a response I began posing questions about Kerouac and his writings in twitter's 140 character "update" field, not knowing if anyone would read, let alone answer, them.  I labeled these questions a "Kerouac Kwiz."  The first "Kwiz" asked for the name of the real person who was the character Japhy Ryder in "The Dharma Bums."  A couple days later a twitter person responded with the correct answer, Gary Snyder.  Could this  happen on FaceBook?   Of course this required a second and more difficult Kwiz:  What poem did Snyder read at the famous "Six Gallery" poetry slam.  Another twitterer supplied the answer -- "A Berry Feast."  This person, a librarian, had discovered the Kwiz when searching twitter for Gary Snyder.  As they noted, they couldn't resist answering and now they are "followers."  I've posted three more Kerouac questions, but so far no more answers. Like so many experiments this may go no farther, but it is an example of the odd way that the internet can at times function.   

 

More random thoughts.  I promise I will get back to actually looking askance but with times as dark as they are it seems appropriate to keep it light for a while.  There is nothing lighter than "twitter."  I've signed up for this interesting web phenomenon.  For being as apparently simple as it is (essentially blogging with a limit of 140 characters) it is surprisingly powerful.  For example I'm following "KansasJayhawks."  This provides me with every little detail about K.U. athletics from dozens of sources.  Another (what to call them -- Tweeter?) I follow is "Jack_Kerouac", someone who posts (or what  Twitter calls  updates) quotations from "On The Road."  Most of those who use Twitter simply answer the question posed at the empty field -- "What are you doing?"  That seems to be the original intent of this "social networking site."  But as happens on the web, users get creative and come up with unanticipated uses for any new tool.  If you haven't signed up for "twitter" give it a try (Find it at twitter.com).  Beware, it might become another time sink.

I will no doubt return to the theme of the obscene wealth gap,  but for now I'd like to take up a happier subject -- William Shakespeare. I became a Shakespeare addict when I visited the Folger Shakespeare Library's exhibit at the old Museum of Natural History in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park (I can't recall what  year that was).  Something about his universality clicked and I've been a bardolater ever since.  I have 111 books about Shakespeare, try and see at least one of his plays every year and we are members of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, OR.  The photo of the title page of the "First Folio" to the left was taken by my granddaughter, Laura when she was a "student abroad" in London, last year. I've done all I can to give her a love for Mr. William Shakespeare and I think  it's worked.  Her favorite is of course, "Romeo and Juliet."   

Where does the time go.  My last post was in 2007 and here it is February 2009.  Much political water has passed under the blogging bridge since then.  We now we have a president who admitts that corporate executive compensation is way out of line.  That the gap between rich and the rest of us is a Grand Canyon wide.  What's worse is that many of the executives being paid the huge bucks have, by greed and stupidity wrecked our economy.  It seems that it takes a disaster to bring about change.  Let's hope that president Obama can right the economic ship before we sink into a full blown depression.