In a God-Father scene, the execution order was carried out as cut-away from the black-tie wedding scene.
Lately, President Obama in Brazil attending state dinner (while France-led air strike was carried out over Libya no-fly zone ), and two nights ago at the White House Correspondents’ dinner (while the takedown was carried out in Pakistan). Hollywood materials. (at this edit, Hurt Locker’s Oscar-winning director was slated to direct “killing BL”).
Then there was Tom Clancy‘s Dead or Alive just out late last year.
People are confused and intrigued more with reality than fiction. China news agency published a different version, and I am sure, in the dark corner of Islamic extremism, we will find a Moon-Landing type of conspiracy to vent their anger.
Meanwhile, our Reality-Show star (as of this edit, he withdrew after the birth certificate debacle) wanted to run for President.
And our current one could be cut out of Hollywood billboard (with the God Father’s sound track, of course).
One reality that should overshadow everything else: Twitter rules the day, as far as scooping.
140 characters is hard to beat.
Until some young guys in a garage come up with another disruptive technology, Twitter is King of the Hills.
It jolts you out of your seat. Sparks a conversation. Triggers further inquiries into said topic.
To Tweet is now our 21st-century verb, as common as Xerox and Google (whose re-org charted a new course, that of “knowledge creation” as oppose to just Search, or document handling as Xerox).
Our attention span can always handle one more tweet. And one more.
Same 24 hours a day. Same sleeping pattern and daily habits. But a tweet can always enter and intrude our lives.
Until we can no longer do without it.
There are lots of lessons in short-burst communication. Use imagery that strikes the chord, like :
“I will be back!” (in this case, the same actor, making a real Hollywood comeback after trying his hand at governing).
Reality finally has another way to creep into our lives, in new format.
No more newspaper on the train. Just me, and my tweets, 140 characters at a time. Until eternity.
No one wants to be left out of the loop.
Now, the meaning of “up to speed” just gets more refined, or should I say, re-calibrated. Up to the second.
We will sort it all out later. Is he dead or alive? The guy who broke the story had to tweet good-night “I did not kill him, now can I catch some sleep”. Twitter is our 21st-century communication conveyor belt, and excellent source of materials for Chaplinesque school of comedy. Communication in short bursts. Think in chunks of 140 characters. I was told there was a margin of allowance, but the limits were set for optimal transmission and reception.
For sound bites such as “I’ll be back” or “Dead or Alive”, we don’t even use up all the Twitter’s allowance.
Last Sunday night, a short burst of tweets i.e. we’ve got him, was enough to turn college students into monkeys. Catharsis it was.
Thang Nguyen 555 