Mobile phones, bottle openers. -Murakami radio-

　　In the 1960s there was a French film called Man and Woman, directed by Claude Lelouch. Do you know it? Boys and girls at the time were completely numb to this film. Of course, nowadays they are neither boys nor girls anymore. I was watching this film the other day, and there was a scene where Jean-Louis Trintinian, the lead actor, takes out his mobile phone in the car and holds it to his ear. I thought, "Wait a minute, how could there be a mobile phone in this day and age?" and when I looked closer, I saw that it was just an electric shaver. So he had just spent the night in the car and was shaving off his straggly beard. I thought, 'Hey, don't do anything deceptive', but of course, people back then didn't know that mobile phones would eventually appear. When you think about it, when there were no mobile phones, people did not find it particularly inconvenient not to have a mobile phone. It was a normal state of affairs not to have a mobile phone. If there had been no beer bottle opener, I wonder how inconvenient it would have been. If you ask me if I would be fine without a mobile phone, I am not sure I would be so sure either. Of course, it would be convenient to have a mobile phone, but I can only say that when I didn't have one, I didn't feel inconvenienced without it. Civilization is a strange thing, isn't it?

It becomes convenient while creating new inconveniences. I personally prefer a beer bottle opener to a mobile phone, but that may just be because I like beer. But come to think of it, I don't even use a beer bottle opener anymore. In the past, the local liquor store used to deliver bottled beer by the case, but nowadays I buy canned beer in bulk at mass retailers at a lower price. Cans are lighter and more convenient to carry, and you don't have to dispose of empty bottles every time.
But you can swear fair and square before all the gods of the world, beer tastes much better in a bottle than in a can. As proof of this, if a can of beer were served in a sushi restaurant, most customers would file a complaint saying, "Are you kidding me? In spite of that yet everyone goes home and (presumably) drinks a can of beer without complaint.

Even I, who think this is a deceptive way of life ・・・・・・, open the pull ring and drink a can of beer at home, making a pathetic heckling sound. I'm always defeated by practicality and ease. Sorry. But a crumpled empty beer can is kind of sad, don't you think? Don't you think so? Whenever I look at the aluminum cans I drank last night in the morning, I feel inexplicably empty. I think to myself, "Oh, I've drunk so much again. Compared to that, empty bottles always stand upright and look clean. Sometimes I think back to the days when we didn't have mobile phones yet and we used to drink venerable bottled beer with a bottle opener. Those were pretty good times. If you ask me if it was more fun than now, well, I'm at a loss to answer.

Murakami this week.

There was a sign in our neighborhood that read: 'We don't need any suspicious people in our town.' I can't believe they suddenly said that.