FNORD

FNORD

Let's get our conspiracy theories on... Or rather the destruction of all of them. This is to say that I hope to discredit the value of seriously talking about conspiracies at all. While this is probably impossible, I believe there are some places where I can hope to make a dent. Let's start with the use of them under a serious context in artistic form, as it is a HUGE WASTE OF TIME.

We'll start with the video below of Robert Anton Wilson, who is the co- author of the Illuminatus Trilogy, one of the world's most popular pieces of conspiracy fiction. His ideas on conspiracies strike a good chord in my opinion.

Here's a simple question, since it is 2009 and pretty obvious that the whole world is changing faster then ever before:

Can conspiracy theories stay out of music and art in general? Unless of course they are part of it in a fictional way that may allude to real life?

I think through the entire 60's, 70's, 80's (91' actually ;P), 90's and now the new century rappers and rock bands (even mp3jays who've never owned vinyl and probably everyone else in the art business) often make music that touches on some conspiracy or another. Sadly, it probably goes back before that. While its all entertaining I think its a bit stale.

It is fun to think one has an exclusive insight into a secret world for sure, but its also just a way to be somewhat lazy too. We live in a world with real problems, often devoid of enough attention artistically or otherwise. Thinking some secret bunch of guys/demons, lizards or aliens are in charge of everything is obviously an oversimplification at best. I'd rather talk about solar panels, wind turbines, clean water and other things then trying to figure out something that is obviously useless. What if there is a conspiracy afoot, can you or I change that? Does a song (or a painting) that alludes to its existence do any more then dumb down all of us. Sadly I think the answer to this is "no."

I hope the other zombies will agree, the next folks should be the musicians and other artists who read this. Can anyone put out something with pop appeal or applauded respect that takes time to articulate how complicated everything really is? Within a world that is rapidly changing, and even if the lizard secret society of aliens run the block, we can at least tackle the issues that we can do something about.

Sure high school type insider talking and attempts to be "cooler" and be more in the know happens, this is probably true about every class/type of humans everywhere. But its pretty obvious that there are bigger deals then who knows or can do what folks. We zombies aren't trying to be "cool" we are trying to entertain folks and have a little fun presenting some new ideas. The internet, and the changing art world are fascinating. There's a lot more at our fingertips then ever before, and I personally enjoy a chance to bring all the stuff I find, be it humorous or interesting to anyone who reads this blog. I hope the art world has the same attitude. In short I will argue that the presence of conspiracy theories based on fear in art (in music in particular) is in and of itself a conspiracy. It is basically a bunch of scared artists trying to scare us too. I applaud the creative energy, but c'mon artists, its a bit lame and quite frankly its really useless right now. The goal of this art seems to be to make us all dumber and unwilling to look at the world around us objectively. This instilled and well packaged fear of the bogeyman could obviously limit our ability to make our own decisions. What if there are no evil guy/lizard/aliens? Wouldn't you have to make your own decisions? Is that scary? It shouldn't be.

word...

-Schmootzie