two "funny" paranoid(?) conspiracy ideas (and a bonus one)
RMJon23
So I'm reading Frances Stonor Saunders's 1999 book _The Cultural Cold
War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters_, and inter alia, I find
that the FBI had a file on William Carlos Williams, which described him
as "a sort of absent minded professor type" who uses "an
'expressionistic' style which might be interpreted as 'code.'"
So when WCW was appointed Consultant in Poetry to the Library of
Congress in 1952, the contents of his file were enough to deny him a
security clearance.
There may be sombunall of you who read this about WCW and say to
yourself, "Jesus MFing Christ and his gay son Clyde, what the fuck did
they make of 'The Wasteland'? Verily I say unto you, fellow traveler,
pick up and read! Read and crack the codes!
Moving on...
Modernist painting was described by a Republican congressentity from
Missouri, George Dondero, sometime in early 1950s thus: "All modern art
is Communistic. [...] Cubism aims to destroy by designed disorder.
Futurism aims to destroy by the machine myth [...] Dadaism aims to
destroy by ridicule. Expressionism aims to destroy by aping the
primitive and insane. Abstractionism aims to destroy by the creation of
brainstorms [...]Surrealism aims to destroy by the denial of reason."
Creation of brainstorms? Takes one to know one. Firsthand experience,
eh Dondero?
I swear I'm not attributing to Dondero what de Selby nemesis Von
Hanfkopf may have written elsewhere...[?]
These ideas about modernist art were (and still are) pretty commonplace
in the US, where the collective sound of the (M)asses is Slim Pickens,
screeching out "YEEEEEEEEEE HAWWWWWWWWW!!! (To our non-Unistat readers,
I'm born and bred and living in Unistat. Make of this what you will.)
William Hauptman published an article in the Oct. 1973 ish of
_Artforum_, "The Suppression of Art in the McCarthy Decade," in which
we learned that certain entities claimed that "ultramodern artists are
unconsciously used as tools by the Kremlin."
Friends: Let us pause to consider the horrifying ramifications, much
less the far-fangled physics of it all.
Okie-doke: This one's even better...
Same article, F.S. Saunders quoting from it:
"Abstract paintings were actually secret maps pinpointing strategic
United States fortifications. 'Modern art is actually a means of
espionage,' one opponent charged. 'IF YOU KNOW HOW TO READ THEM, modern
paintings will disclose the weak spots in US fortifications, and such
crucial constructions as Boulder Dam.'" (my emphasis)
Fellow RAWphiliacs: Henceforth you'll never look at paintings while
stoned in a museum the same way again. (That is, unless, while stoned
you were ALREADY looking for strategic fortifications in a Kandinsky or
Klee. I confess I found this perspective all by myself. While stoned,
among Other Things.)
To arrive at such Truths is to invite the Lovecraft horrors, fellow
Weirdos. 'Tis true and I so wish it weren't! (I said "invite." THEY may
have other Plans.)
A third conspiracy I found in this book I will call "The Allen Ginsberg
Dream Conspiracy, Starring T.S. Eliot and J.J Angleton." But you
Illuminati already know this one...
-rmjon23 de Los Angeles
"The superfluous is very necessary."
-Voltaire