Yesterday, mayor Peter Kelly had other commitments, so deputy mayor Bill Karsten took over duties of presiding over the weekly council meeting. As usual, I was there and live-blogged the meeting via Twitter.
Today, I received the following email from Karsten:
Tim, I saw your crap on twitter last night, and I have had about enough of your twisted lies and shit! I’m asking you right now to stop it. I don’t care what umbrella use use to cover your ass….Stop it! Any Councillor who was even slightly prepared and read their report knew it was a good deal for all parties and was a no brainor [sic] to approve!
Barkhouse: “we’re talking about people’s livelihood” Karsten: Yea, so what?
Respectfully,
Bill
Sigh.
Well, Karsten may not care, but the umbrella I use to cover my ass is the ancient form of political commentary known as satire, employed by everyone from Aristophanes to Swift to The Onion. Elsewhere on Twitter, there’s Andy Borowitz, among many, many others.
Look, I don’t claim to be a particularly good satirist—I’m doing it on the fly at council, and I’m the first to admit that sometimes my barbs fall flat—but Hey Zues Fucking H Christo—who is it that follows my Twitter feed and thinks councillors are actually throwing cats and shoes at each other, or comparing bottled water to Hitler, or passing a bong back and forth between questions or reading the entrails of a goat as an ancient religious tradition performed at the beginning of each council meeting?
The whole routine is self-evidently a farce, and it boggles the mind to think even a preschooler avoiding nap time with the teacher’s aid’s iPhone could take it seriously, much less so someone elected to represent the good, hard-working folks of outer Dartmouth.
Sadly, however, this society is so tone-deaf that I have to spell it out, so most weeks, including this week, I tweet that “Exact quotes are in quotation marks. Everything else is my interpretation.”
In this case Karsten objects to, councillor Jackie Barkhouse had the heartfelt belief that the issue under consideration—a proposed labour settlement with unionized city employees—should cause councillors to pause and deeply consider the impacts to people’s lives, and so said as much. That statement, however, was passed over, in the real world without comment—it was simply ignored. And so I made the small joke that Karsten said “so what?” Clearly, he didn’t, because as I’ve explained a thousand times, it wasn’t in quotation marks.
But let me ask you this: given that Barkhouse was ignored, would it be better if Karsten had actually said “so what?” or is it better that he didn’t?
That question, friends, is at the heart of my satirical comment.
Last year I devoted an entire blog post to explaining my Twitter live-blogging, and then drowned myself in a thousand beers afterwards, lamenting the day I had to explain satire. And now I feel just as icky.
I don’t want to live in a world without satire.
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Council live-blogging, explained
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2012.
Carry on as if they were Normal Sir
A lack of satire is a lack of literacy.
His note is self explanatory.
Heaven help the humourless.
I love how Karsten refers to “…your twisted lies and shit…” then ends his missive with “Respectfully.”
I knew most of that stuff was satire, but I kinda thought the reading of the goat entrails might be true…
Was it happy hour when he wrote that email? Just asking.
In the specific item cited, he has a point. When you use syntax as follows: “Karsten: Yea, so what?” linguistic convention is that you are quoting him.
Moreover, the convention you cite (“Exact quotes are in quotation marks. Everything else is my interpretation.”) is not one you use consistently. Otherwise, we would expect ‘As expected, for Via Rail “modernizing” = “cutting service”‘ to mean some official actually said “cutting service” (which I somewhat doubt).
Moreover, Tweets are separate independent entities, so you can’t put a disclaimer in one tweet that covers another. If someone looks up ‘Karsten’ they see the tweet but not the disclaimer.
There’s room for satire on Twitter (obviously). But this is a case where you’re putting words in his mouth. You’ll find that the examples you cite (Swift, Onion) don’t do that. Satire is parody. It’s not misrepresentation.
None of my remarks are intended to dissuade you from tearing Karsten (or anyone else) to shreds. Actually, I encourage it. 99.9 percent of what you tweet is stylistically fine. That one tweet was not.
I think the problem is moving back and forth between investigative journalist and twitter satirist. They seem mutually exclusive pursuits.
No one wants to hear knock knock jokes from the undertaker.
The situation is compounded because it is hard for power to enjoy or incorporate humour and satire in its system of control.
All that said, no matter what the reason, Mr. Carston’s email is beneath what we would expect from a Councillor.
He’s worried about what October may bring.
He would have been more effective if he had politely pointed out that your comment was open to misrepresentation and asked you to post a short note that the comment was in jest and that he had never uttered the words. Now he looks like an angry twit.
Aristophanes, Swift, The Onion, Tim Arse-Biscuit.
Guinness, Airshows, Hummers, Dose of clap.
Bacon wrapped filet, Turducken, Jambalaya, Brussels sprout quiche.
Watching 1970’s German soft-core, Riding the ferry in the fog, Swimming in Lake Banook on a hot day, Chewing on tinfoil.
One of these things is not like the others. Capisce?
At least Mr. Carsten recognizes “crap” (direct, accurate quote) when he sees it. Puts him head and shoulders above the rest of council and the pond life in the media gallery.
He was probably still pissed about being ripped off at the Bluenose that morning.
“No one wants to hear knock knock jokes from the undertaker. “
Wait, I would definitely love to hear that.