Monday, August 29, 2011

introducing the tweedles.

so, i once heard that werner herzog passed on a chance to make a documentary of wwII.  if this is true, and not something that i've made up, herzog, fab german film-maker, would go on to say 'why focus on something that's been so scrutinized when there's so much other unknown coolness out there to investigate?'  and for me it's like that with facebook.  what's there to talk about?  it's been done to death.  but on the other side, i guess: why not once more then?  and anyway, i haven't heard quite this conversation yet.

i surf the web, like you.  i'm not quite as savvy as my students, who've grown up connected.  but like you, i'm connected now.  we go to our favorite spots.  we check fb frequently.  we waste some time.  weren't we just laughing the other day about the way that people sometimes write exactly who they've been spending time with?  ...had a great time last night with abc anchor dan harris and fellow colby alum klaus kinski.  for whose benefit is this information? it'll probably come to that for me if my memory gets much worse.  labeling the people in my life.  but no.  hopefully not.  anyway, funny little things, status updates.  soon they'll read ... spent one quarter hour with jenniferlovehewitt (mother's maiden name dreyfuss). repost if your mother has a maiden name.

anywho, i'm in a little pattern right now where i visit two pages every time i log on to fb.  it makes me happy, in the most decadently judgmental of ways.  i call these two blokes, one of whom i know, the other i do not, tweedle dee and tweedle dum.  their status updates ... bring me to a happy place.  that's really the best way to put it.  like a long-time smoker who's so far away from the law of diminishing returns, i do this now from habit.  and like the smoker, i don't expect any more than what i know it can give me.  it's no cure-all, but it's very soothing to put myself out of my mind, and so immediately.  unlike a book, or even tv, the tweedles feed this urge without really asking for any kind of commitment.  in an age of pitch to me quickly because i'm already onto something else, the tweedles treat me well.  if they suddenly decide to spurn the web, though, you might find me going cold turkey in my room.

so, these guys: one is always putting up misspelled country song lyrics (no deep cuts, though). the other is just a lost soul at the moment.  i see these things and, sigh, i judge.  as a very imperfect creature, i judge.  it's not that i wish these lovely lads ill will.  i feel bad revealing these things to you.  but more than that, i wonder if i'm the weirdest fish in a sea of weird fishes.  do we all do things like this?  don't you have your version of this? your own tweedle dee and tweedle dum, perhaps?  or have i strayed too far beyond checking out people's pics and relationship statuses?  oh, and i definitely witnessed one of the craziest fb verbal brewhahas to ever grace the book. 

2 comments:

  1. If Facebook is a weird, tangled garden that we are all wandering around in, then there is surely a lot of half-eaten & discarded fruit laying about. I have a few kinds I like without just taking a bite & throwing the rest away. But isn't part of being in the garden about hoping someone will take more than one bite of your particular fruit? Ok, maybe I should have thought that metaphor through more fully because now it just sounds creepy & sexual. Oh well.

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  2. haha. creepy and sexual. two words you never want to hear your psychiatrist reveal about your sessions in open court. i like it: fb is a garden. we get in and meander down our own little paths. every now and then somebody writes, 'i've been hacked'. this is like getting stung by a bee. and not in a good diana ross way. thanks for reading. good to see the evel keel's back from the electronic mists.

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