Ignore this Posting

What with it nearly being the middle of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and what with me managing to bend the Space/Time Continuum (hint: coffee) in order to see not only every show physically possible but also some with clashing timetables, some separated by vast distances and even some not technically in existence yet, it only makes sense that I'd use this important and user-friendly Web 2.0 online outlet for critical expression and link pasting to offer you, the reader, my hints and tips and dire finger-waggling warnings regarding shows to see for fun and profit. I picture you as a querulous circle of young Dickensian chimney sweeps, eyes and ears eagerly (if metaphorically) upturned in the faint hope of a morsel of comedic recommendation which may be dropped your way. For this reason, I will not offer such recommendations here, for it will only encourage you. Get a job.

I will write some reviews some time soon though, once I manage to be both awake, coherent and not actually in a comedy show.

For now though the Comedy Fest seems the perfect time to write about something totally different: modern art.

With nary a shadow of foreshadowing, David Shrigley is coming to town for an exhibition. Shrigley is one of my favourite artists, especially his hand-drawn doodles or text-based scribblings. He's very very funny, and very very original. Faux-naive drawing is pretty popular these days, but it takes a sharp mind to make the stuff memorable. I think his stuff is memorable. He also does film, painting, photography, spoken word and more.

Go see him at Kings ARI Gallery (1/171 King St, Melbourne) from Saturday.

In New York recently, street art has been the target of a vandal/artist being dubbed The Splasher. This is a great story: well-known, highly praised graffiti is being defaced, and people are debating whether vandalising what are essentially works of vandalism (though aesthetically accomplished ones) can itself be aesthetically defensible. It's fascinating.

See some examples of Splasher's work here and here, and read more about the case here.

Also: Kurt Vonnegut died this morning. Good writer.