Culture Feed is the blog for arts and culture in the Bay Area – produced by the culture desk of The Bay Citizen. From breaking arts news to event coverage to YouTube videos, Culture Feed aims to bring you the best in culture from around the Bay. Please drop us a line and let us know what’s on your radar.
Last year, local designer Ericson deJesus sat in a café, flipping back and forth between his Twitter account and a New York Times article on Laurence of Arabia. Overly-caffeinated, the two ideas began to merge and he found himself wondering what it would be like to follow the well-crafted tweets of a historical character.
Today, with the launch of Reorbit, deJesus and the project’s co-founder, Dawn Danby, answer that question. The two describe Reorbit as “an experiment in social media theater,” a place where historical and literary figures are re-imagined in a new context.
“Reorbit challenges writers to inhabit a character, create an alternate history or future, and re-tell their story in a contemporary way," says Danby, who also curates the project.
DeJesus and Danby gave few guidelines to writers who proposed work through the open submission process. Allowed to cross boundaries of time and space, the writers are limited only by Twitter’s 140 characters.
“Finding good writers is easy,” says Danby. “Finding good writers who understand the format, have a clear concept, really know a character in a deep way, and who can compress ideas into a limited space: this is trickier.”
Among the first cast of characters chosen for the initial launch are a tween-age Samuel Beckett (@tweenBeckett) who is struggling to find his voice in a Justin Bieber universe. “Ugh, I hate writing. But if @justinbieber can do it, how hard can it be, right? Now I just have 2 wait 4 followers. Ugh, I hate waiting, too.”
San Francisco’s great eccentric, Emperor Norton, (@emp_norton) frantically tweets about government, and is thus far the most active Reorbit voice. “I stand with the Vigilance Committee. It is time that men of property come out against vagrancy and lawlessness.”
The most complicated play is a three-part dialogue between Franz Kafka, Charles Bukowski, and JD Salinger (@singlewhiteauthor). Imagined by local author Tiffany Bukowski, the three literary heavyweights are placed in a modern-day San Francisco, all vying for the a date with the same girl. A slurry Salinger tweets, “found outs a good pal is gettng murried. andz i am curenSDly wasteed on two of @DirtyOlBukowski's miller high lives”.
Reorbit is accepting proposals for the next launch, which may include Danby’s own character, the voodoo queen Marie Leveau. Until then, Danby and deJesus are busy culling through more submissions and expanding their platform for Reorbit. “There is so much more that can be done,” says deJesus. “And we will.”
