If You Spend No Other Money on Magazines This Summer

You -- yes you college sports communicator; you -- networked media person; you -- college administrator (yes, I know you lurk here); MUST run, not walk, to the newsstand.

Remember, where once upon a Kindle you bought magazines and newspapers?

Cuteness aside, James Poniewozik's in-print column for the June 14 Time Magazine is a tour de force on the digital force of nature known as Twitter.

The Soul of Twit covers the @BPGlobalPR feed -- a little dated with the previous post's news about the even better move by BP itself -- but in a classic piece of why magazine can remain relevant in a real-time media age, Poniewozik dissects the reasons behind the growing impact of 140 characters. One of two quotes:

As Twitter became popular, some writers pooh-poohed it: What could you say that's worthwhile in 140 characters or less? As it turns out, an awful lot.

For the record, that was 150.

Poniewozik goes well beyond the manner in which a form can reflect its literary age. Here's the second lift -- the one that should get real PR folks attention:

Because Twitter lit is immediate and telegraphic, it's suited to social commentary. Because it's first person, it's a natural for parody; fittingly for a service named for a bird noise. Twitter attracts mimics and mockingbirds.

Locally, we've seen a little of this (the fake Houston Nutt account comes to mind). Forget taking the time to create the www.fire[YourCoach'sNameHere}.com. Tweet them up.

I am reminded of two observations. The first is personal. I learned the economy of character and word working for about 20 years as a writer for Street & Smith's Magazine. At the outset, when typewriters and dinosaurs still roamed the earth, we were provided lined paper with a fixed width to compose. A top team in the league would only be allowed 20 lines, a certain number of characters. You learned quickly how to shorten, how to hone, how to edit. I find myself grateful for those verb selection skills every time I Tweet.

The second is a riff from Poniewozik. He recalls the shaping of printing and the pamphleteers -- some beautiful analogies that I again encourage you to go buy -- but he seems to run right past the social lit engine that best fits Twitter: the Japanese fascination with haiku. God bless Wikipedia, the 17 moras limiting the length of the composition, forcing the squeezing of an essence into what appears to be an inflexible form.

And when employed by a deft wordsmith, the 140 word riposte assemble into another grand Oriental cliche -- death by a thousand cuts.