Senstive, bloggy musician John Mayer—when not giving impromptu interviews on a SoHo streetcorner explaining to a gaggle of press why he dumped his girlfriend—is feeling alone in our brave new online world. "That's the problem with people today," he opined at a concert last night. "Everyone sits in dark rooms and sends each other links, but it's a connectedness without really being connected." Shut up, dude! Artists and writers have been complaining of the alienation of big cities and a lack of connectedness since forever. John, intellectuals of the past have some advice for you:"There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it." -Roland Barthes "I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up." -Susan Sontag And, finally: "The surest sign that two people no longer speak the same language is that both say ironic things to one another but that neither senses the irony." -Friedrich Nietzsche [NY Observer]