Above: Photograph by Kevin Van Aelst for NYT.
This piece in this weekend’s NYT Magazine by my friend Virginia Heffernan on the poetry of Facebook status updates gave me a new appreciation for what on first inspection seemed a rather awkward form of public expression. Heffernan writes,
Status updates are part of a Twitter-like feature that induces members to publish their answers to the question “What are you doing right now?” Responses, which are confined to 160 characters, then show up on the Facebook home pages of the updater’s friends. My Facebook page went from a solemn chronicle — a record of who had changed their profile photos or listed a new hometown — to a collaborative epic in the style of Frank O’Hara:
Micheline is off in search of sneakers. Kristin is getting that pedicure, but they didn’t have I’m Not Really a Waitress. Had to go with In the Mood. Sean 1:20 and stumbling home. Thanks 2 all that came, especially those that contributed jager or tequilla. Jenny is keeping Beelzebub at the stave’s end.
Following Heffernan’s kicker and hot on the heels of yesterday’s Frank O’Hara reading, here is another O’Hara classic, “Lana Turner has collapsed!” which I reread recently in the excellent new collection Selected Poems: Frank O’Hara.
