Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Christmas Wish Fulfillment

Betti Pugh of Wales is responsible for climate change

Artswipe has really been going down on the silly season, so apologies if you've been experiencing abandonment issues due to my irregular movements here at blogspot dot com. As most of you have really learnt a thing or two from my special brand of pedagogical blogness, I have been feeling real pressure to come up with something new in a world so secondhand. And all I can think about is some Christmas commentary.

I love this time of year. Christmas albums emerge and you watch middle-of-the-road American singersongwriters deep throat new arrangements of Sleigh Bells for Santa. Suburban street electricity gets amped up while neighbours war over whose fairy light studded anal rope looks best with or without climate change chic. Inhale those greenhouse gases baby! Then there's shopping for presents you want for yourself but try out on others so the novelty can wear thin before doling out the cash for a repeat purchase in the January sales. Carols by candlelight is always moving and this year I will dedicate everything I sing to Belinda Emmett.

Christmas is all about family, and this year Artswipe is going to try harder to workshop lifesize replicas of the family I want to call my own next year. They will be cut from goldleaf and glue with just a little twist of papier-mache. I'll arrange this family like a nativity scene and cradle their mild-mannered muteness. I can't decide if I want to be kin to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes or Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Of course it would be nice to let Madonna and Guy take me in but Kaballah is Jewish which means no Christmas presents. And since my art cave rebirthing experience has unleashed what my therapist calls "infantalised eggnog flavoured wish fulfillment" I may as well enjoy Christmas the way I used to when I was actually a child. Meaning, I will fucking scream if I don't get a new fucking iPod or fucking palm pilot this year you people who have taken it upon yourself to call yourselves "parents." You're not my parents! If you were, you'd cut the crap about Santa not feeling so flush this year and spill the consumer culture booty somewhere near where the world is cut in two by what is usually called an "equator", but what I call plain old fashioned self-centredness.

So what will be my new year resolution this year? As I've been negotiating newness and emergence ever since I saw the youngmeat Primavera exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art this year, I have decided that Artswipe resolves to be the next NSW young Australian of the year. As art openings are just too cool for cocaine these days I'm not sure if any art anyones have a chance of being any kind of young-anything-of-the-year.

When I think of those three words "of the year" I feel compelled to make a list itemising every goddamn good thing I witnessed in 2006. Come to think of it, journalism actually gets really clever this time of year with the writerly kind clamouring for attention in the taste stakes with their end of year best of lists.

And as I failed journalism at uni but excelled in new media, I've blogged the best things:

1. Bindi Irwin's starmaking funeral speech
2. Ian Thorpe's coming out of the water speech
3. Lindsay Lohan's Robert Altman speech (and she thinks she can play
Stevie Nicks onscreen)
4. Paris Hilton
vomits on stage while trying to sing her own song
5. Oprah episode entitled
"Oprah's Favorite Sandwich in America"
6.
Jason Donovan announcing his 2007 comeback album
7. Tuning into
TVS and other parallel universes
8. Britney Spears' vagina falls out
9. Naomi Campbell hitting her maid on
the head with a mobile phone
10.Celebrity racism ala Mel Gibson and Michael Richards (especially as seen on YouTube)


4 comments:

lauren said...

well there's one of christmas wishes granted
"i wish artswipe would post another blog soon.."
hope you have a bloody marvellous time artswipe and i trust you're looking forward to the big end of year bang: new year's eve on channel nine 20 to 1 of the worst 20 to 1s!

Anonymous said...

Oh come on ... Katie & Tom? Angelina & Brad? Madonna & Guy? How in god's name could you forget Jordan & Peter?
As for the year's low-lights, for me it was Britney who plumbed new depths. Unfortunately I now know what she had for breakfast; a Caesar ... hold the dressing!.

Skanky Jane said...

Gotta love a list! And I never knew that Britney Spear's vagina fell out. (The things I learn here!) Or is that an item from your Xmas wish list?

I've not put a Xmas tree up in yonks but the new Mr. Jane enjoys the season and having educated me (at length) as to the eclecticism of Christian rituals, (plus the fact that I found, while walking, a brand new, never been opened, boxed Xmas tree), we now have one in the (decked) hall - blinking frosted lights and all.

BTW - that Michael Richards clip is a ripper!

Merry Xmas Arty,

SJ xx

Anonymous said...

and we envy the lives of the rich and famous...?????