Video for the Day: "Do You Ever Yearn?"

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.—Last week, I found myself in an especially daydream-y mood (I attribute it to reading a slew of updates/watching a slew of videos from the recently concluded Ebertfest and suddenly finding myself regretting not making a point of trying to go this year), and I suddenly flashed back onto this precious moment from a fourth-season episode of Seinfeld:



In context, of course, this is a bleakly, pitilessly hilarious moment, with Kramer just about demolishing George Costanza's conception of "living," and George—the neurotic's neurotic—unwilling to budge when Kramer tries to persuade him to go an adventure to California. But, in some ways, the moment also sums up where I'm currently at in my own life: wanting—indeed, yearning—to break out of a feeling of seemingly neverending stasis, itching to go on some kind of adventure, whether mental or literal. Like Kramer, I sit and yearn rather often—except that, unlike Kramer, I often do it at a day job...or at the movies (though that could inspire a whole other, longer post)!

Also like Kramer, I'm jaunting off to California for a stretch of time. So there's another point of connection there!

Yes, even the gleefully misanthropic Seinfeld—still a brilliant show after all these years, says I, despite those unfortunate final two seasons—was capable of moments of a hard, cold, defiantly unsentimental poignancy.