FANZINE

…to use the the term Stephen Colbert prefers.  If you want to follow this editor’s twats – I meen tweets on Twitter, I’m doing it @ caseyfanzine. Like many, I didn’t quite get the value of it all at first, but it’s a darn good tool. Especially for writers, bloggers, and journalists, as Market Watch’s Jon Friedman writes here.  Yeah there’s a bunch of “I had some soup today, made me sick” and “Guess what jail Linsdsay Lohan is in now! tiny.url…”  kind of things, but also a good scroll into the collective unconscious, and a good source of ledes. The critic’s job I guess is to be the good guide and filter, but also to take part in the Big Dialogue. So tweet on I say.  For those still unbelievers out there, follow Paddy Johnson’s posts on Art Fag City; she’s been doing it for ages, and the growth of her site’s fanbase I believe may be partly due – beyond here dedicated reporting – to her expertise in the landscape of web 2.0.  Me, my dinosaur egg is just hatching.  And I’ve learned best of all, you can always tweet: “I’ll be away for two weeks in the woods, strolling and reading books” and that way people will know why they don’t see you on Facebook or get your emails returned for a spell. And then you can actually get some real work done.  Doesn’t that make life easier?

PS- Another point, for anyone interested in poetic forms, well the classic sonnet is 140 syllables (wiki it if you don’t know) and Twitter’s limit on character input is 140 characters, not a jot or tittle more.  So I see a challenge there, for OCD people (like myself at times, not literally) who fancy the occasional poetic constraint.  Should start a facebook twit poetry group… but not today as it’s too sunny and nice, and for the first time in a few days I’m glad not to be in a dank venue in Austin crammed together en masse watching the latest bands du jour at SXSW.  Almost packed up last minute and split for it. Maybe next year.