Adventurismo

Yes, it's balmy here in Brooklyn (51ºF today). Last night the temperature dipped into the high 30s. It was so warm that I was able to stand outside the Pencil Factory on Franklin and Manhattan and engage in my first ever Twitter-geek conversation, snippets of which I welcome you to enjoy below, along with some photos of Patos, a surf beach in Galicia.

Beautiful beach, right? The best part was the surfer kids hanging out by their cars as the sun went down. A party beside the open driver's side door of a car is a party beside the open driver's side door of a car all over the world. Music fighting to escape the confines of upholstery, fingers of sunlight slipping back beyond the horizon, headlights silhouetting cigarette smoke and bodies, cans of beer, laughter... hurrah, youth!

Back in Brooklyn on Valentine's Day, my fellow tweeps (yeah, this term is equally distasteful to me. But as of this morning on Twitter, this is still how people who tweet refer to themselves (I did a #hashtag search (have you noticed that our social consciousness is ever more parenthetical? (I think it has to do with a new form of social intimacy fostered by the Internet)))), and I, well, we all shook hands (those free of mobile devices). We introduced ourselves based on Twitter handles, then actual names, then reverted again to Twitter handles.

@PlatoyPapel: Hi, I'm PlatoyPapel, well, I'm Jessica, actually, but I'm also PlatoyPapel.

@TomJones: What is that? That's really long!

@LafcadiotheLion (doing the math surprisingly quickly): Eleven characters.

***

@PlatoyPapel: I tweet about food and Spain and stuff...that I like and stuff.

@TomJones: I'm trying to think of what that is. Like, I want to ask...is there a particular region that you tweet about in Spain?

***

@MdmKnucklecrack: I love @millsbaker. He just basically calls people out on their sh@#. The other day, he had this tweet about designers...that was like...If you're a designer...you can talk about fonts...but if you talk about typeface...It was hilarious.

***

@LafcadiotheLion: And...I...just...followed you.

@TomJones: OK, great! Then I will have twelve-hundred and sixty-three followers.

@PlatoyPapel: Wow!

(phone buzzes)

@TomJones: Twelve-hundred and sixty-four! I must have gained another follower since the last time I checked. (Tweeps murmur encouragingly.)

@LafcadiotheLion: OK! So...I should be getting an email saying that you're following me...soon?

@TomJones: Of course, of course! OK, see you guys! Gotta run!

***

@MdmKnucklecrack: Oh! I think your phone just buzzed.

@LafcadiotheLion: Oh yeah? Oh no, I think it just died.

***

Lastly, I'll leave you with a photo of a pretty parenthetical rock formation on Patos beach that reminded me of the Richard Serra's Snake exhibit at the Guggenheim in Bilbao. Take a look to see what living inside parentheses is all about...Exploration or introspection? Intimacy? Isolation? (Very February stuff).

A freaky February results in tweeps popping up in clusters, as we have seen. It's nice to see some Internet snails exposing their feelers to the light (albeit from a streetlamp (myself included)). And even if the temperature really drops tomorrow, take heart! The season of parking somewhere with some people and popping open the driver's side door is not far off...