Breakfast at Einstein's

I went out for breakfast to-day because my ceiling fan just killed another light bulb.

Sometimes Twitter reminds me of works like this by Kerouac;



On the one hand, these public forums for very short reports on mundane activities seem like a means to address people's desire for validation in a society that really only acknowledges the extremely strange or talented. But it also seems to be touching on a latent need for a sort of idle atmosphere of human animals, like apes just lounging in the jungle with one another.

But there's a potential for mono no aware, something that seems present in Kerouac's haikus as much as they are in various Japanese haikus I've read. "My rumpled couch, the lady's voice next door," as one of Kerouac's goes. It seems to be just two arbitrary pieces of information, but there's an elusive sadness about it. You can tell Kerouac's aiming for this as a couple of his haikus reach for it rather bluntly, but it's these pieces where the size of the feeling is just very delicately implied that work best. The whole somehow transcends these plain parts.

Elsewhere in these pockets of potential mono no aware in pop culture, I'm reminded of what makes Azumanga Daioh superior to Lucky Star. Compare clips yourself; Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star. I couldn't find a clip of Lucky Star I could watch to the end without my mind completely drifting off, so if it gets interesting near the end, I apologise for the phoney comparison. But from what I can see, Azumanga Daioh has something subtler, a barely perceptible pattern of mood under the characters. Both series feature goofballs, but Azumanga Daioh seems more like The Three Stooges directed by Ingmar Bergman, while Lucky Star . . . It's like a deliberate attempt to make the world seem smaller and not as frighteningly interesting.

My tweets from last night;

I can't find a Starbucks where I'm unknown.
Coppola's arrabiatta is great.
Pasta sauce I generally condone.
I seem to be doing everything late.

Which means I slept in late, too. But this time it's because I started to feel sick whenever I got in bed. I seemed to be okay sitting up. So many people I talk to lately seem sick--I was puzzling about it when I clicked on Huffington Post and saw a massive red headline that was something like, "SWINE FLU! RUN FOR DEAR LIFE YOU POOR HAPLESS FUCKING BIPEDAL SPECIES BUT YOU CAN'T ESCAPE!" Do I have swine flu? I guess that could be it. I somehow think I got it from my oolong tea.

And I've already twittered to-day;

Waiter singing along with Eminem.
Or he killed his wife and called me a "fag."
Altoids downsized since I stopped buying them?
I guess the mint market's begun to lag.

They were really pissed off at me at the bagel place, so I don't think the waiter's impromptu performance was an example of him being a carefree young gangsta with a song in his heart. I had the gall to show up ten minutes before closing time, which was 4pm. Who the fuck closes at 4pm in this age of 11pm Starbucks?

I'd better get to drawing. Here are a couple favourite tracks from movie soundtracks I've really been digging lately posted for no reason at all;

Blue Velvet main title by Angelo Badalamenti

"Scotty Tails Madeleine" from the Vertigo soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann