Ok. A preface: I am now fully immersed in Twitterdom. I created one ages ago, and ignored it ever since. But for a few spare hours this morning I decided to give it some attention. I changed my background, uploaded a recent profile picture, downloaded Tweetdeck and then began to use TwitPic. And now, as with millions, I'm completely hooked. And having this outlet is making my mind and thought stream adapt to its possibilities. Everything I do is being assessed for its status post-ability. How can I add interest or humour to the fact I just pissed a little bit on the toilet seat? Or ate a Wispa Gold? It is, indeed, a tragic state of affairs.
Furthermore I'm finding my productivity decrease dramatically. Much like the link branching flits of concentration you experience when cruising wikipedia, I'm finding myself questioning and yearning for explanations of everything I peruse. I'm hungry for Twitter knowledge! Why is everyone talking about #ChocolateMilk? What is GoogleWave and why is it invite only? What does bit.ly mean? And who the fuck is Jaycee Dugard!?
Off subject: And why is 'TweetDeck Recommends...' always some of the most banal characters in cyber stardom? Like no offence to the following people... but I'm hardly going to waste anymore of my cavalier use of time on them. They are probably lovely. Except Will Carling.
Anyway, as per an example of my life flittering from beneath my very fingers... today, thanks to a jester related comment on Twitter, I decided to spend valuable time researching Harlequins. The 16th century European comic subject, as opposed to the Union egg chasers. I've always found them a little intriguing. With their similarity to clowns and jesters, but there is something about Harlequins that haunts me. They are inherently evil. Just attempt to draw one that is not. And the way they are intended to be deceivingly intelligent for their social class and sycophantic in manipulation. I just don't trust them. I often feel threatened by people who are much more intelligent than myself, so for Harlequins to be so covertly savvy frightens me to the core. I can see it now, much like a notable scene from Good Will Hunting. Me, on a pleasant night out at a swanky bar with friends, getting increasingly confident whilst spinning a factful yarn about say... Rasputin, only for a previously unseen Harlequin to drift from a shady corner and declare "Au contraire kind sir, I think you'll find he was born in Pokrovskoye" to the hilarity of my company and public embarassment of myself. He would probably then capitalise on this, by charming any potential love interests that I might have in attendance, as they were known to pursue any woman for themselves, should they chance another man trying to woo them. Bastards.
I may have overstated the intelligence a little. Although they were thought to be more intelligent then they should be... this doesnt mean they were that intelligent on an even scale. Think of the general servant class as stonewall dunces, and the Harlequins as a shade above. In their plays, a nature to be rather gullable is exploited, with Harlequin, on occasion, being convinced he is dead, and he himself often obliviously advises more naive characters into near fatal situations.
This is Harlequin and then below; Trivelino, who appeared alongside the original Harlequin in many later pieces of literature. As you can see, both most definitely retain those factors of an inherent underlying evil. An unclear face that masks any facially expressed intention, the trademark motley outfit and that patronising, blase stance. Don't you courtsy me! I know what you're capable of!!! And, so it turns out, the surfacing tones of wickedness are traceable. Thanks to a little known tool I like to call Wikipedia, it happens that Harlequin derives from a 'ye olde' French play comic called Hellequin, who was a "black faced emissary of the devil". And if you want some further scandal, Harlequin is Arlecchino in Italian. Which sounds a bit like Alicchino. Who was one of the many devilish demons in Dante's Inferno. This chills me right to my bleedin' core.
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