#Rays Rodney has a plantain tucked in his pants for team photo. That is all.
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) May 11, 2013
In either case, according to Rays beat reporter Marc Topkin, he really does have a plantain in his pocket.
Not so long ago — last gibbous moon, if memory serves — I availed myself of a Firefox extension that alerts you any time anyone Irish does anything on the Internet. Needless to say, when Mets infielder Justin Turner came to bat earlier this week, my computer grew arms and seized my tailored lapels. I clicked on the relevant Maximum Irish Caution icon, and it took me straightaway to this …
Let’s just say that, upon viewing Mr. Turner’s mien and bearing, I saw to it that the recommended protocols were followed.
Cincinnati Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips has established himself, among baseball players, as one of that sport’s most active users of social media — and his Twitter handle (@DatDudeBP) is one of the league’s most recognizable.
What the author has uncovered today, however, while reading French — that is, a language very similar to English, were English spoken exclusively by pornographers with sinus infections — is that the Twitter handle @DatDudeBP actually belonged originally to noted, if tragically underappreciated, Surrealist poet Benjamin Peret (1899-1959).
Recognized by progenitor of the movement Andre Breton as the most faithful to Surrealism’s core values, Peret was an enthusiastic user of Twitter, even some 80 years before it (i.e. Twitter itself) was invented — a startling fact on the face of things, but less so when one considers that the Surrealist mission concerned itself primarily with the construction of new realities.
Below, in fact, we find evidence not only of Peret using Twitter, but also how it might have served him in the composition of his work.
Here’s the first of three tweets by Peret from February of 1926. Translated loosely it reads: “For seven centuries he commanded his fourteen lobsters.”
New York Mets director of media relations Jay Horwitz is, by his own admission, “not real mechanical.”
In the message embedded here, though, he appears — wittingly or not — to have summarized Mets baseball in precisely 1/140th of the characters allowed by twitter.internet.com.
Unlike many others that have appeared in these pages, the following tweet actually is altered from the original — and in such a manner as might justifiably be denounced as puerile and sophomoric and even jejune.
And yet, as James Earl Jones once definitely wrote, “There comes a time when all the cosmic tumblers have clicked into place and the universe opens itself up a few seconds to show you what’s possible.” In this case, of course, “what’s possible” is a joke about Derek Jeter’s gentleman’s ass — nor is the present author inclined to contradict the universe on this matter.
To wit (click to embiggen):
Does anyone on Twitter have any questions about Cubs second baseman Darwin Barney? You? Yes, go ahead, sir.
Was Darwin Barney wearing an ascot during the Cubs game today?
— Danny J. Lee (@whatthedleeoh) April 17, 2013
Despite appearances, Darwin Barney will not ravish the help or drunkenly crash one of his motorcars into the hedgerow. Sometimes a gentlemanly appearance veils an actual gentleman. So it is in the case of Actual Gentleman Darwin Barney.
FREE hot chocolate and coffee for fans at tonight’s game!!!
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) April 12, 2013
As the tweet embedded here suggests, the Minnesota Twins — owing to the frigid weather hovering above their home ballpark — will be giving away free coffee and hot chocolate to attendees at tonight’s game versus the New York Mets.
What that same tweet neglects to note, however, are some other things that (a) are free, and which might (b) also appeal to ticketholders for this evening’s contest.
Like these three things, for example:
North–Central American English
Are you a professional linguist? Have you ever referred to yourself, in passing, as an “Armchair phonologist”? Are you interested in studying an /oʊ/ sound that is sometimes monophthongal and sometimes features a lengthening from [o] to [o:]? If that’s the case, consider attending tonight’s Minnesota Twins game, where the North–Central American English dialect will be ubiquitous — and free of charge.
The Boston Red Sox’ social-media strategy has taken a turn for the dark and harrowing, as the following tweet — entirely and in-no-way altered from the original — reveals (click to embiggen):
As Chairman Cistulli would say: The following tweet is entirely and in-no-way altered from the original (click to embiggen):
The following tweet is entirely and in-no-way altered from the original (click to embiggen):
