No Small Talk, Episode 11 “Point Break With Elephants”

The famed author, Chuck Klosterman, created intricate questions in an attempt to avoid “small talk.” Per his words: “Some people are extremely good at making small talk. These people are better known as ‘idiots’. “

Having all their conversations be nothing but small, Matthew Ryan and Stephanie Sottile thought it’d be fun to answer some of these questions:

1. 1. 1. Let us assume that you have the ability to telekinetically change culture when you actively experience it. Your mind can now dictate what you see and hear. For example, if you were listening to Pearl Jam’s Yield and you wanted the music to be heavier, it would immediately sound as though Mike McCready’s guitar had been tuned differently in the studio. If you were watching The Office on NBC and decided that Jim should marry Pam (or Karen, or both), you could make it happen- all you would need to do is think about that specific desire. You could stare at an oil painting and unconsciously change the color contrasts. If a PG-13 romantic comedy grew dull, you could force it to evolve into an eroticized NC-17 thriller. You could (essentially) write books as you read them, eliminating certain characters and redirecting plot points as they occurred in the text. However, such changed would only apply to your experience; you could kill off Han Solo at the end of Return Of The Jedi, but that would not change the movie for anyone else. All other people would possess the same personal psychic powers as you.

   Would you want this ability? And- if this became reality- would art retain any meaning whatsoever?

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