03 April 2006
ART: Artists Need Surgeon General Warning
Imagine what happens when she wanders the streets.
Spending time with artists can take years off your life. This is a little known health issue that affects thousands of Americans. Artists possess dangerous levels of psychotropic electromagnetism. Within these energy fields people invariably begin engaging in "risky behavior."
"Risky behavior" may include fist fighting, weeping at the terror inherent in beauty, touching foreign language speakers while weeping, and most despicably, paper mache projects. In layman's terms artists constantly experiment with creative destruction. Occasionally those around them get swept away by these experiments.
In a safer world artists would have to display, in a prominent location, an explicit health warning. Something to the effect that: "Artists cut life expectancy on average 7-10 years." Or, "Danger, artists emit unsafe levels of mischief, joy and fantastical obsessions."
The sad fact is however, even if artists were required to display these risks with a forehead tattoo, people will still indulge in this most luxurious and wanton of vices. Artists are like a wild fling with a stranger behind a 7-11 dumpster. Exultation typically results as the brain surges full of dopamine and serotonin. But this blinds one to the numerous risks. These are not limited to existential anguish while not wearing pants.
If you cannot help yourself and take that magic carpet ride, there are a few things you can do to ensure your survival. First, never touch absinthe. Absinthe plus artists equal an untimely plunge from an industrial rooftop. Also, keep your wits about you, every hour yell loudly at the artist, "I know Satan is your master. I deny you three times so that you may not steal my soul."
The apt metaphor for hanging out with artists is the myth of Icarus. Icarus got mighty close to capturing total energy. But in doing so he was undone by unimaginable amounts of electronic radiation. That is, his wings melted off and he did like Wile E. Coyote 10,000 feet straight down.
Whilst you plunge with much purpose and acceleration, consider that a moment ago you were infused with universal infinity, and reflect that while artists are worthy of condemnation, at the end of the fall you have nobody to blame but yourself.
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