Monday 1 March 2010

140 characters

One of the best things about 100 days for me is that it has introduced me to the wonderful world of Twitter. There is something horribly cringe-inducing about talking about Twitter and I can't even bring myself to use the word 'tweet' unless I'm talking about real birds. But as wanky as it sounds to say it- I love Twitter.

I love that I am more informed about news and politics than I ever was before. I love that I am exposed to the best the internet has to offer from the amazing jokes to the joys of fat fashion. I love stalking minor celebrities. I love reading about random people's lives. I love that I can chat with other 100 days people. I love that the 100 days people I have met since in real life were just as lovely as their tweets *shudder* suggested.

Fitting what you want to say into 140 characters is hard though. Especially if, like me, you tend to go on a bit. Re-editing my comments so they fit in the limit has led to no end of horrendously formed sentences where I didn't re-read to check if my sentence scanned. Mind you I'm not much better at proofing blog posts- I wrote 'photo's' yesterday when I only wanted a plural.

The master of the 140 character post though is undoubtedly Greg Wohead who has provided us with a brief yet perfectly formed play everyday for the last 90 days. I got in a quite intense drunken argument about Greg's plays with someone at a party a few weeks ago. I was explaining the 100 days project and used twitter plays as an example of what people were doing. The person I was talking to claimed that 140 characters was too short to be a play. I quite vocally disagreed and dragged him upstairs where I had signal on my phone to read some of the plays and prove him wrong. "Look you only get a couple of lines but they are characters- you get a sense of who they are, you can imagine what happened before or after, they are art, they make you look at the world in a different way, you are better for being exposed to them, there was one about baked alaska, it was amazing" I slurred. I think he probably only agreed with me to shut me up but I was right: Greg's plays are brilliant. In his own words 'themes range from grief to ageism to Jonathan Taylor Thomas and back again'. There is a lot going on in those 140 characters.

I've tried on several occasions to write my own. This is the best I can do.

Jen: I wish we had more than one saucepan.
Tim: Why don't you buy another then?
Jen: Yeah but I bought the second plate.

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