  Comedy
This week: Conspiracies Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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Whenever you're faced with an explanation of what's going on in Washington, the choice between incompetence and conspiracy, always choose incompetence.
-Charles Krauthammer
Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game.
-Matt Taibbi
Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.
-James A. Baldwin |
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Put on your tinfoil hats, folks, and get off the grid; it's time to talk about conspiracy theories.
Who came up with the tinfoil hat thing, anyway? The idea that making a headpiece out of Reynolds Wrap to protect you from the government's mind-control rays?
Turns out it was a writer; naturally, a science-fiction writer, Julian Huxley, way back in 1927 (I wasn't aware that tinfoil was a thing in 1927, but hey, science fiction, right?)
Huxley, Julian (1927). The Tissue-Culture King. "Well, we had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect, and had prepared for ourselves a sort of tin pulpit, behind which we could stand while conducting experiments. This, combined with caps of metal foil, enormously reduced the effects on ourselves."
Today, nearly 90 years later, we still have people rocking foil hats for the express purpose of not succumbing to the government's supposed mind-control rays (the existence of which is implied but never proven). Every one of these people, without exception, is bugshit batty - to use a technical term employed in the practice of psychiatry.
But.
Are they nuts because they believe the government has mind-control, or are they nuts because the government has mind-control? Consider this hypothesis:
The government's mind-control rays affect different people differently. This is reasonable to assume, as everyone is different, and radiation that can cure one person can kill another, and mind-control rays are, by definition, radiation. So the ones who are more affected by it then get it in their heads to don tinfoil hats.
I think you can see the big problem with that hypothesis: how did they find out about the secret program of mind-control, and how did they decide to stock up on rolls of metal foil?
The answer, obviously, is that the mind-control rays themselves make people think tinfoil hats work like Faraday cages, directing radiation harmlessly past the head...
...when, actually, they work as amplifiers, boosting the mind-control signal.
Don't believe me? Think I'm joking? This is, after all, the Comedy newsletter, but sometimes true things can be funny too, right? Consider, then, this study by researchers at one of the world's most prestigious technical schools, MIT:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100708230258/http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/hel...
Money quote: "Surprisingly, these helmets can in fact help the government spy on citizens by amplifying certain key frequency ranges reserved for government use."
So, you see, the idea that tinfoil hats protect against mind-control rays is what They want you to think.
Unless, of course, the study was faked. That's always a possibility. Why would they fake it? Well, clearly, they were paid to, in order to get people to stop using tinfoil hats.
Or, maybe, that's what They want you to think.
From the above-linked article: We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings.
What to do about it? Well, I'd suggest moving to Antarctica, but all those "research stations" are actually mind-control ray transmitters. |
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Last time, in "Requiem for a Funnyman" , I talked about Robin Williams.
Quick-Quill  : A good observation. Comedians that have to be on point or feel they are nothing but an observer have deeper problems. Many actors are known for a role but don't feel they have be that role to be accepted. Its when the person is so insecure they feel they have to be a character to be accepted there is a problem. Like Robin, I think he stayed in character too long. When faced with the prospect of Parkinson's,he couldn't transition like Michael J. Fox who is a very funny person. When writing use this problem to round out your characters and their interaction with others. Maybe not the MC but a friend or someone he/she interacts with.
For some of us, "be yourself" is terrible advice.
☮ The Grum Of Grums  : Yes, the comic as outsider is a real and potent idea. I was acculturated (lovely word) in the UK many years ago, and Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock and Spike Milligan (among many others) are excellent examples of what you have described. Pain finds them, and sometimes, it's almost as if they open their arms to welcome it.
Perhaps, in their minds, it is what they feel they deserve.
And that's it for me for September! See you next month. Until then,
LAUGH ON!!!
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Comedy: September 24, 2014 Issue [#6565]
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