Inappropriate Tweets and Facebook Status Reports.

Culture Shock has fallen woefully off the pace this month; therefore, I've decided to tap the Strategic Blog Post Reserve (S.B.P.R.) tonight, even though doing so requires me to dredge up material that should continue festering in the dark corners of my hard drive.

The S.B.P.R. includes posts that are:

(1) ill-conceived;

(2) poorly written;

(3) irrelevant;

(4) boring; and/or

(5) offensive to the delicate sensibilities of our readers.

This post displays all of the weaknesses cited, but I won't let that stop me.

If you're a user of Facebook or Twitter you've certainly run across status reports or tweets that are cryptic or nonsensical.

And then there are the reports that are ripe for salacious misinterpretation. Over the past few months, I've been making note of Facebook status reports and Twitter tweets that could be double entendres, especially if read with a wink and a smirk. Perhaps some of our readers will recognize their own words (names changed to protect the innocent, etc.) among the following:

(1) June is making Ginger Peach Blackberry Pandowdy with my honey.

(2) Jack got in twelve holes before the storm came through.

(3) Mary just had an equipment malfunction.

(4) Let the flooring begin!

(5) Wonderful evening for a ride. Warm but not too hot.

(6) Bill has already gotten a little behind at work this morning.

(7) Jim is back in the heat of it.

(8) Man, I could really use a swift and ball winder.

(9) Mike just divested himself of an onerous burden.

(10) Joe is going to spend the day waxing his car.

(11) Headed to the Polish festival!

(12) I think I have to spackle a wall now... ug.

(13) I wanted to see what would happen if you stripped the fanciness away, and just did it on a bare stage with chairs.*

* That last one was courtesy of Portland Center Stage's artistic director, Chris Coleman, tweeting in response to a question about his staging of "Ragtime" -- which just opened this past weekend.

Please feel free to add your own to the list.

A Money Idea

As recently reported in the Detroit Free Press, the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan launched a matching grant initiative that raised $3.75 million for arts organizations, though it was beset with some serious technological snafus.

The Foundation committed to give 50 cents for every dollar donated to any of 75 arts organizations, up to a maximum of $1.0 million total. Gifts eligible for the match could range from $25 to $10,000 and had to be made through an online system. Among the 75 eligible groups were major institutions (such as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra) as well as smaller, grassroots organizations. Each organization was limited to a maximum of $200,000 from the Community Foundation pot (or a total of $600,000 when combined with the donor gifts).

The selected arts groups promoted the matching grant to their patrons and donors in advance, with encouragement by the Foundation to use new social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and e-mail blasts. Apparently they all did so with gusto.

As the story reports, the grant program easily met its goal of generating $3 million in contributions ($2 million from donors, plus the $1 million match), but not without hitting some major snags:

What happens when 10,000 people all at once try to donate to the arts through a single Web portal? Gridlock, furious patrons, embarrassed officials and a classic good news-bad news story that saw $3.75 million raised for local cultural groups but also left a trail of anger and frustration throughout the arts community.”

The community response was so great that the online system quickly bogged down. Not only did donors run into logjams and long delays, but the credit cards of some were mistakenly charged more than once. The matching funds ran out by 3:30 p.m. after the online system opened that morning at 10:00. The Community Foundation felt so bad about the technological glitches that it added another $250,000 to the pool at 6:00 p.m. That additional match was gone within three hours.

The article doesn't mention how the 75 organizations were selected. Did they have to apply to be on the list? Was there some other due diligence performed? For every group selected, did five others feel screwed for having been passed over? Should I have made an effort to find answers to these questions? I'll answer just one of those questions: Yeah, if I was actually an investigative journalists, so get off my back.

Could Portland pull off something like this? The Oregon Community Foundation has over $700 million in assets (according to its 2008 annual report), compared to the Community Foundation of SE Michigan’s $539 million. Hmm, what do you think?

Speaking of using social media for arts marketing and fundraising, I wonder how Portland Center Stage did with its one-day sale of any 2009-2010 season ticket for $25. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you missed out because today was the day.

The Reading List

Quickly making the rounds on Facebook is this elucidating exercise: List fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you.

Participants are challenged to take no more than fifteen minutes to list the first fifteen books they can recall. It's a glorious opportunity to demonstrate (i.e., show off) how well-read one is.

As a voracious reader, my challenge was to narrow the list to only fifteen titles. I immediately eliminated childhood favorites such as "The Sticky Book of Sticky Things." Then I crossed off all of the college text books that shaped my world-view, starting with "Marxist Semiotics and Liberation Feminism in the Age of Reagan."

Having trimmed my list, I then took extra time to jot down some notes to accompany each entry. Readers are welcome to add their own favorites to the list.

Here goes:

The Stabby Butler
Warning: Don’t read the title first.

Sometimes a Great Motion
Not what I expected, but still good.

Don’t Grow up to be a Cowboy
A collection of motherly advice from a woman who knows.

Too Old For this Shit
If you think this is Danny Glover’s memoir, you’d be wrong.

The Cat-Faced Killer
Spoiler alert: It was the dog.

One Flew Out of the Cuckoo’s Vest
Again, I don’t know who Kent Keesey is, but the man can write.

The Necromancer of Wembley Falls
Can’t remember the plot. Necromancy? Remember being scared.

By the Beard of Xerxes!
A history of Babylonian revolt. Gripping.

14 Days to a Pustule Free You!
Took 15 days, but hey. No pustules!

Harvey Fenster and the Harrowing Glibbet of Howth
If you’re a J.K. Rowling fan, don’t miss this one.

Lady’s Knight
What can I say? I’m a sucker for Gothic Romance.

Lady Chatterley's Hovercraft
A steamy look at the future.

Pleasure Island
A coming-of-age pirate adventure. It's "all hands on deck" as a young man learns secrets from Billy Bones and encounters Long John Silver.

Flaubert’s Moustache
The natural history of a Frenchman’s upper lip. Engaging, though it droops at the end.

Pride and Prestidigitation
Elizabeth Bennet meets a surprisingly arrogant Harry Houdini

Is it live, or...

I admit, I Netflix. And I Facebook. And I Twitter. All of those nouns that have become verbs; I do them. So I'm part of the virtual world, home entertainment world, e-world. But I'm also part of the group of people who attend live performances; in fact, I know I'm an anomaly in that while I have not been to a movie in a movie theater in at least 18 months, I've been to at least three or four live performances per month in that same time. And while I do use Netflix, my current movie has been on my coffee table for about six weeks. So much for the "bargain."

You get the picture: I have a distinct preference for a live experience when it comes to my entertainment. I have a TV; I watch it. It's a 19" Magnavox, boxy little number. But I don't find it all that compelling.

Anyway...I think I had a bit of an epiphany yesterday. I was over at a neighbor's house for morning bagels and coffee, and we started watching GPS on CNN. And we watched it on a HUGE HDTV, with amazing sound, and using TIVO. Holy cow...

Have you seen Fareed Zakaria in HDTV? And heard that voice in enhanced sound? And skipping all commercials?

Now, I watched some of the election debates at the same neighbor's house, but I obsessed on things like the wrinkles in Joe Biden's shirt, and how you could see each one. And a little on his shiny teeth.

But Fareed...that's a completely different plane of experience. Those eyes...

My conclusion? The live performance experience is, in fact, threatened by home theater. No question. When Fareed is on, that is.