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By Bill Altreuter

I doubt that I will ever use Twitter all that regularly, but I am past complaining that I don't get it. Twitter is to blogging as poetry is to essays: a concise medium that uses its concision as a means to deeper expression, and sometimes even wit.

It took following the right Twitter feed for a while for me to get it. That turned out to be @Discographies, which describes itself as a "definitive guide to an artist's body of work (studio albums only) in 140 characters". The format assumes a pretty deep awareness of the chronology of releases for each artist, so naturally a lot of these didn't connect with me, but consider the entry for The Clash: "1 thesis; 2 antithesis; 3 synthesis; 4 elephantiasis; 5 arteriosclerosis; 6 paralysis." Or how about this: "The Rolling Stones: 1-4 arousal; 4-6 tumescence ; 7-10 full engorgement; 11-14 satyriasis; 15-19 midlife crisis; 20-22 erectile dysfunction." One more: "The Decemberists: 1-3 "Wand'ring wide, we sailed our tales..." 4-5 "...o'er the topographic ocean." 6 "Safely home, we commenced to jangle." I mean, I am barely aware of The Decemberists, but that sums what I do know up pretty nicely.

The other thing that Twitter does is that it works in real time, which creates a sense of immediacy. During the Chicago mayoral election someone posted a series pretending to be Rahm Emanuel. I didn't follow @MayorEmanuel-- I didn't know about it until it was over-- but it was apparently a brilliantly hilarious magical realism take on a character who fully merits that treatment. As Mayor Emanuel fades into a time vortex (long story) he tweets what David Axelrod says: "'There must be something we can do...' But there's not. Only things that fucking suck never end: look at laundry, or dishes."

Most Twitterers will never rise to this kind of brilliance, but it is great that the medium exists for those who can.

Full post as published by Outside Counsel on March 03, 2011 (boomark / email).