Star struck

I've really got to find some motivation to write in here more often now that I don't have the at-hand inspiration of sleep deprivation and the amusing things it does to the body to analyse. Perhaps I just don't lead a very interesting life out here in the country.

The resort here set up its own Twitter account quite a few months ago. I tried to get the other staff interested in tweeting but nobody, and I mean nobody at all, has any interest in being involved. They don't see the point. In fact, we were talking about deleting the account until someone driving past one day set their phone to collect tweets from people in the area. He was surprised to find someone tweeting near him when he was in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and pulled in to visit. As a result we had a decent sized church reunion held here with a much bigger one planned for next year. So Twitter became an accepted, however grudgingly, form of promotion.

I'm not the most technically capable nor knowledgable person you will ever find. I resisted Facebook for ages, and I don't have my own Twitter account because I just don't enjoy people's company enough to want to interact with them 24 hours per day. I enjoy Craig time, I love having space to hide away to myself, reading books that don't need to be charged, listening to albums I need to physically place on a turntable or in a CD player. I'm not about to argue that the world shouldn't be speeding along its technological path, and I'm not about to start marching in the streets to prevent the mass slaughter of CDs, but I'm also not going to deny I love kicking it old school.

But I've been listening to some lectures from SlowTV that discuss Twitter, and I've slowly been learning what it's supposed to be about. (Phil here tried to tell me yesterday that it was about whatever anyone wanted it to be about, but I disagree, I think that if the majority think it's about something then that's what it's about. You can disagree but you're not going to be communicating with the rest of the Twitter world who don't agree with you.) To date I've just been updating with the most banal and esoterical snippets you could imagine. I mean, I try to post interesting things but for god's sake, we live in a place where the highlights of some days are that we got eight eggs from the chickens instead of seven.

But apparently it's all about sharing and caring. Posting lots of interesting links and retweeting lots of interesting tweets. I've been contemplating spending more time on there so that our resort personna attracts more friends and hence more promotion. It just makes sense.

So I added a couple more people, namely the journalists Leigh Sales and John Birmingham. I read both their work in The Monthly regularly, and like the cut of their jib, so to say. (On a side note, Phil told me that Leigh Sales is a regular at the Bodymindlife Yoga Studio he runs in Surry Hills - small world.) The next morning I logged on to find, much to my shock, John Birmingham was following us in return.

I love the guy's writing. He Died With A Felafel In His Hand is the obvious hit, however I absolutely adore his "unauthorised biography" of Sydney, the vast Leviathon. In terms of research and information it's as compact as Robert Hughe's The Fatal Shore, but with a much sharper sense of humour. Okay, so Hughes's tome has no sense of humour. Birmingham has the attitude of an illiterate larrikan except he can actually write. It's a wonderful mix, especially when you're reading his fascinating political articles.

I noticed him following us and double checked to make sure it was the real Birmingham (links to his articles, notes on his drunken escapades - yep, definitely him). I then started thinking, "How can I continue to tweet the tweets of the past with John Birmingham reading them?" Suddenly it's not just a throw away comment to bust out before signing in a group booking, it's a literary creation that has to be good enough for the eyes of a revered and respected (if only by me, I think only one other person here knows who he is) author.

I now plan on working on my tweets for at least two hours per missive, and send it off to Jude who lives here and is an editor in her own right for checking. I'll attempt to keep character, plot and a thematic brilliance that not only enlightens on life here at Jasper's, but consists of clever societal undertones and comments on the wider world we live in.

Christ, and I thought writing stories was a challenge.