Where's the music?

I went recently with a friend to a late Friday night party at the Guggenheim museum and it was packed with hipsters, wannabes, art lovers and lost-soul bloggers. I thought, beforehand: great, a chance to interact with my fellow sufferers, an opportunity to share ideas, to flirt with art admiring women, a reason to listen to the insufferable intellectual ramblings of posers. Alas, no such luck. The "DJ" there played "music" at a volume that made it impossible to hear this mass of potentially lovable cranksters. We couldn't have been more isolated from one another if we'd been waving from offices that happened to face each other in neighboring skyscrapers. I don't see the point of blasting "music" in this way, unless it's to assure that none of us ever gets to know each other, that we continue to live with some underlying, anxious fear of ideas...

By now you've stopped reading this blog because you have something better to do, like watch the episode of "That Girl" you DVR'd and because you have no attention span -- so I'll continue for those few who perhaps can't afford the glorious luxury of Tivo (and for myself). You're wondering why I've put the word music in quotes in the above paragraph. Is it because I'm a pretentious windbag? Yes. Is it because I'm a brainy cultural critic of the first order? No. Is it because the "music" this supposed D.J. was cranking could only be described as "music" by the most generous (read: stupid) listeners. Every "tune" (there were no tunes, no melody, no harmony) was exactly the same: just a driving, techno beat and some hazy, unintelligible lyrics. So I was left wondering: is red meat really that bad for me?

I was wondering that, because I was distracted to the point of convulsive confusion. If you're going to drown our brain cells in a sea of ear-splitting sonic thunderclaps -- I'm talking to you, Mr. DJ! -- then why not at least attempt to fill our leaking brains with music. You remember music, don't you? Notes? Songs? About heartbreak, drugs, sex, heartbreak?

Could it be that the folks at this not-so-culturefest actually preferred this technocrap to music? I hope not, but probably. If so, I'm left questioning what the hell happened to these poor innocent, brainless twits. Has our culture reduced our intelligence to the level of single-celled organisms, responsive only to a thudding, repetitious, clanging beat? Perhaps.

So let me reevaluate. The evening was, after all, a rousing, raving, modern-day success: no thoughts, no possibility of communication, no music, no intelligence, no progress, no growth, no love, no heartbreak. Are we turning into a culture of zombies, incapable of thinking for ourselves? No -- duh! We're CHOOSING to turn into a culture of mindless drones. And that's what's got me drinking three cases of pepto before bed each night. That and the tasty, chalky smell. Mmm, Pepto Bismol.