catfunt: the site they should have silenced

If I were a proper blogger...

Then there would be links and an extensive set of notes on the day's speakers and discussions at last Saturday's Tate Symposium Put About: Contemporary Independent Arts Publishing, an excellent event to mark Bookworks' 20th anniversary.

The one thing to know about independent art book publishing (and here we're mainly talking artists' books) that all the speakers repeated is that a) you'll never get rich and b) you'll probably start out reasonably well off and end up very poor.

'Bring it on' say me and Yol. As long as we're together we'll always be rich. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

More useful than my wife-directed sycophancy (I think she's buying my Christmas present this week. Well, she keeps talking about taking a trip up to Primark soon anyway) here's a list of some of the speakers and their websites.

Sina Najafi, editor in chief of Cabinet. Cool guy, smart and intelligent despite using PowerPoint for his talk.

Ingrid Swenson. She's a director of Peer.

Jeremy Deller. Go and see his stuff at Tate Turner prize. 'Nuff said (whatever that implies).

Christoph Keller, manic depressive German arts publisher. Currently leaving his company, Revolver, who publish the excellent sounding collection of Adolph Hitler's writings on art 1933-39.

Mathew Higgs set up a music 'zine as a young teenager. He chaired and is now high powered in New York.

Michael Bracewell rambled and was top entertainment. Has a book on Roxy music coming out next year. My friend Alex fancies him. I told him too.

Dr Cornelia Lauf, very very smart. Co-founded Two Star Books.

Lionel Bovier, publisher, curator, critic, Renaissance man. Founded JRP/Ringier Kunstverlag. He also wore a scarf indoors, a practise the English regard as a sign of continental homosexuality.

Stephanie Moisdon. French, founder of Bureau des Videos. Largely incomprehensible to panel and audience alike. Truly lovely and very very French. Wanted to be a Lacanian psychoanalyst originally but was considered 'too lucid'. (OK, I made that last bit up.)

LIDL BEING LIDL...

And what with Christmas getting near the special offers at Lidl are all kids' toys shit like this or for something completely different, this. For the man in the house I guess.

And won't he look very nice in them and the matching suspender-look-tights. Boom-boom.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

I've had enough of foreign exchanging small dicked cum-encrusted hermaphrodite sluts advertising cheap cigarettes on catfunt so I'm in the process of closing all the comments on old entries. You'll still be able to leave libellous drivel on the latest ones though.

Hackney Fireworks

Here's a picture of a bunch of guns that'll be featured in the Arty Annual, out on 19 December. It costs 10UKP, has 288 pages of the best new writing and drawing by UK artists. You'll be able to order it shortly from the Arty website. And now back to tonight's programme...

Oh dear... (part two)

You wonder (well I do) what Sam Taylor-Wood has done to the Guardian group of newspapers. I thought the Guardian's review of her White Cube show was bad but wait until you read the one that was in The Observer. I haven't looked to see what else has been written about her elsewhere but that would smack of a degree of professionalism I lack and, to be honest, a greater interest than I have.

The Guardian Guide and Time Out Films

When did the Guardian put the Guide online? Has it always been online (there is a weird and complex thing where the Guide homepage doesn't get updated)? There are many Saturdays when I don't buy a newspaper because of the entropic effect it has on my weekend. My chief regret would be not reading Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn (this week on John Lydon). But, as I learnt from all furore about the Kill the President column he wrote a few weeks ago when the yanks wanted it banned and the Guardian caved in, I can read it online. Phew!

And while I'm on the subject when did TimeOut put 16,000 film reviews on the website that are taken, I assume, from the big paper film guide that they sell? This is what they said about Shoot the Pianist which is what I plan on renting next.

The Incredibles is, well, incredible

Went to see The Incredibles tonight and it was probably the best (new) film I've seen this year - funny, lyrical, humourous yet tinged with darkness and great characterisations. The animation is excellent which you'd expect but there's a whole visual Ken Adam/James Bond theme and richness that runs through the film (Ken Adam was the production designer of Dr No and a raft of other 007 films and famously Dr Strangelove). I guess if you're designing hideaways for evil madmen bent on world domination then there aren't that many places you need to look for inspiration. The swooping camera moves in the action sequences are equally well matched by a John Barry-esque score.

I haven't seen My Summer of Love as yet and it sounds like the only film that's even going to come close to the incredible The Incredibles.

Highbury home of the Arse

Could be Arsenal playing anyone in pale blue from this photo really. Anyway it was a very exciting game, lots of chances but also lots of mistakes. The man behind us kept shouting "Jesus Christ Arsenal what are you playing at?". I thought he was going to have a heart attack. Having gone 49 games undefeated and then almost lost two on the trot there is a danger of Man Utd syndrome amongst the fans. That'd be where they phone in local radio chat shows and go "I don't pay £50/£75/£100 every week to see them play crap and almost lose."

Oh dear...

This is one of the nastiest reviews I've read of any art show anywhere. The Guardian's Jonathan Jones on Sam Taylor-Wood's exhibition at White Cube. I think it managed to get one star out of five simply because the Guardian's content management system doesn't allow no stars. Oh dear, indeed.