Want to scan and analyze the chatter of millions of conversations? Have an idea for a story, a song, a research paper, or are you a voyeur like me?
Go to Tweetscan.
Pick a word. Enter the word. Presto. You can even subscribe to the search and have it in your RSS feed.
Following the word walrus I have learned that they play an important role in the semiotics of the phallus (the beast not the magazine of course). And that those damn baby boomer idols The Beatles are quoted daily. We at The Walrus have a lot of work to do to remove that pantagruelian taint.
I also follow my own name and reply to everyone who uses it with a short explanation about how I am the real Chantelle. With each explanation I attempt to create the perfect and elusive self-obsessed, 140 character, haiku:
Bloody hammer finds
the lies that chantelle told you
selfish memes us two
The composition of my soul has been cleaved in two: One half social-net savant; the other A-list celebrity god-talker seeking divine counsel through a pop-cult telekinesis.
But everything that rises must converge.
A Hollywood A-lister has just joined Twitter: Diablo Cody (Academy Award winning screenwriter of Juno with the captivating stripper byline). This time the celebrity is real, not just a pretender scraping the Net and depositing an RSS feed into a Twitter account. And she’s great at it. Sharing just enough of her insider life to keep you panting for more:
I thought I was going to stay in last night, but I wound up on the patio of the Chateau at 2:00 a.m
And then Sharon Stone follows suit. Here comes Hollywood!
Look out, micro-celebrities Scobolizer and Leo Laporte. It’s like what happens to Ben Mulroney and Don McKellar (sorry gentle American reader, I know these names mean nothing to you) when the Hollywood cast of the Toronto International Film Festival sojourns in Toronto: Canadian niche celebrities get a train ticket to nobodysville.
The implications are enormous. (more…)
Are you sick to death of hearing about Twitter and not knowing what it is? Of feeling behind the times?
Here is a step-by-step Twitter video instruction guide presented by a pioneer lady. In just a few minutes you can be part of the modern era!
Twitter for Beginners: So Simple A Pioneer Can Do It from twitter howto on Vimeo.
Are you ready for even more? You’d better be:
On my way to LAX I passed a Pollo Loco that was no ordinary fried chicken extravaganza. It was a warning.
Leaving Los Angeles is confusing. Like Twitter, it holds so much promise. As soon as I land and see would-be The Hills cast members I am comforted. Surely being proximal to those whose biggest problem is running into old frienemies at Vice will rub off. I can walk their walk, talk their talk. (more…)
Just scanning the title of Janice Galloway’s Walrus article”Opera” makes me feel tiny because my only opera comes at me in 30 second snatches when I am listening to scan on the radio. But the Toronto Star’s Stephen Marche’s article on celebrity operatics got me thinking. He compares Britney Spears to Lucia di Lammermoor. He describes how Amy Winehouse is similar to Puccini. Neat. The problem: opera is not a meaningful point of comparison to me.
Instead of opera, my parents were blasting Little Feat and The Who in tinny Radio Shack speakers above the chicken coops. At school we sang about Tom Dooley and how We’re All His Children. I never heard opera until I saw Pretty Woman. Like me, Julia Roberts as the Cinderella prostitute had never seen opera. Verdi‘s La traviata made her cry. But I wasn’t planning to play sensitive whore for a middle-aged john. So ended my opera introduction.
I want to ask Stephen Marche what kind of opera would Web 2.0 be. I can’t guess because the only thing I’ve learned about it since Julia Roberts’ outstanding portrayal is that Edward Said likes to use opera terminology in is oh-so-self-reflexive cosmopolitan critical theories.
What I do know is fashion. So, I can tell you that Web 2.0 is eerily familiar to the fashion world. Early adopters battle the ugly hoards who drag down the prestige and edginess of a trend. Just look at Facebook. (more…)
The Walrus HOOPP Pension Debate
Be It Resolved That Canadians Are Incapable
of Saving for Their Retirement Needs Alone
12 pm, Wednesday, May 30 at
Hart House Debate Room, Toronto
The Walrus Glenbow Debate
Calgary’s Cowboy Culture:
Living Legacy or Just History?
6:30 pm, Thursday, June 7 at
Epcor Centre: Max Bell Theatre, Calgary
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