Our hero and his faithful comrade Gus are meeting for coffee in Brooklyn.
"The mason marks tell volumes," says Art Guy. "What is the relationship between mason and capomaestro, what's the lingua franca, is the east end sanctuary given priority over the crossing and western parts?"
"I can't remember," says Gus, playing around on his iPhone.
"Well naturally we don't know yet, but it raises these interesting questions, and others. The Arab influence on the support structure, the muquarna crossing vaults."
"Crossing vaults," says Gus, still preoccupied with his phone.
"Are you listening to me?" says Art Guy.
"Oh, sorry Mr. Guy, I'll be right with you," says Gus. His concentration focuses as he changes the phone's orientation in the air and begins typing at the screen.
"Take your time," says Art Guy, assuming that Gus is dealing with a pressing emergency.
Gus bursts out laughing.
"Gus, are you speaking with someone on that thing?"
"Tweeting actually."
"Can't you do that later? I was hoping we could discuss upcoming research."
Gus puts down his phone. "But this twitter is more interesting than you."
"I'm sorry?" says Art Guy.
"You had my attention at first, Mr. Guy, but then you started droning on and on. Then i got this tweet, and in the competition for my attention, the twitter won."
Art Guy doesn't understand. "Whatever," he says, "but put it away. It's rude to talk on the phone in the company of someone else."
"It was rude," says Gus, "8 months ago. Now it's a model. Wired and wireless communication compose a presence as real as physical occupation."
"I don't remember voting for that," says Art Guy, not being sarcastic but genuinely believing this was something you might vote on. "What is this twitter about anyway?"
"It's about Romanesque architecture," says Gus.
"I'm talking about Romanesque architecture!" says Mr. Guy. "What could the twitter possibly be saying that is more interesting than muqarnas?"
Gus seems intrigued.
"Let's put it to a contest," he says. "My tweet says 'Conques example of barrel vaults.' What would you say to compete for my attention?"
Art Guy sits back and reflects. Everyone knows about the Romanesque and barrel vaults. But what about the exceptions? What about the use of Burgundian pointed arches?
Our hero says, "As far as the Norman Romanesque is concerned, the Burgundian arch has its most exotic adaptations in the Greco-Arab inhabited region of Sici-"
"That's 140 characters," Gus interrupts. "I didn't know what to make of that. Very long-winded, and what's Sici?"
"You didn't let me finish!" says Art Guy.
"The twitter took 33 characters to tell me something. You took 140 characters to tell me nothing."
"You know what your problem is, Gus? All this new technology is reducing your attention span. You're just like those curators at the Tate with their 'less is more' exhibition."
"Which exhibition?" says Gus.
"Remember? From my blog a couple years ago? You were there."
"Oh," says Gus. "I didn't know you were still updating that. You need to include some advertising, track some twitter accounts, embed some apps, a few flickr links, and some flash media graphics."
"I feel like a dinosaur," says Art Guy.
Gus laughs again.
"What's so funny?" says Art Guy.
"It keeps linking me to 'lemmings with stone masons.' If you're not careful, they fall off the scaffolding."
"Alright, call me," says Art Guy, getting up, "or text me, or whatever it is one does, when you want to discuss our next assignment."
Suddenly Gus's phone starts playing a hip-hop alert.
"Thats my art museum update app," says Gus. "Hold on, Mr. Guy."
Gus is alarmed by what he reads.
"It looks like we have a case. A robbery. At the Brooklyn Museum."
"What was stolen?" says Art Guy.
"The Egyptian collection."
"Impossible."
Gus looks up. "It was a digital robbery."
(to be continued...)
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