“all true art is of necessity samizdat, and thus destined to languish in obscurity, ignored by the nekulturny hordes of bourgeois apparatchiks”

I had forgotten about our (meaning you guys who read me, as well as myself) group review of “The Gates”. But Mitch referenced it today – so I went back and re-read it and found tears of laughter streaming down my cheeks.

For those of you who didn’t participate, here is how it happened.

I saw Christo’s The Gates – and thought it was hysterical. I loved it – the whimsy, the over the top-ness – whatever – and kept reading posts from bloggers who seemed truly ANGRY that The Gates were even attempted. It was not a response to the actual art – it was a response to the attempt. They were PISSED. I did not get it. Not that you have to like the Gates – but the anger seemed misplaced and, in general, I get sick of people who just have a constant chip on the shoulder about anything artistic – there is always a sneer in the tone of such people – and so I wanted to stick it to them. Sticking it to humorless hostile people is one of my favorite pastimes.

Curly and I were laughing about the angry people – and she said: “I may have to write some grandiose post about how I discovered the Meaning of Life through the Gates (even if I hate them) � just to chap people�s asses.” hee hee So that’s what we did – everyone participated (it’s all in the comments section of this post). The game will immediately become clear. The comments are so so funny – some people just submitted WORDS to be used, others whole phrases … It’s so beautiful. So I put them all together into one review.

And here is the final result. Our review – culled from the comments section. Too many gems to pull out – the whole thing strikes me as brilliant parody. I almost wanted to submit it to, like, New Criterion and see if they would publish it – thinking it was real.

I love everyone for playing that game so hard and so well. Too too funny. Thanks for the reminder, Mitch – that was hysterical, reading it again.

The funniest thing was – that when Mitch originally linked to it, way back when – some chick in his comments section thought it was serious, and got all bitchy about it – not realizing that she completely did not get the joke in the first place. I was like, “Uhm, the whole thing is a joke, ma’am …” and she responded with something along the lines of, “I guess my sense of humor isn’t ‘sophisticated’ enough then.”

The best thing about that exchange was that her chip on the shoulder response was EXACTLY my point with the whole game. So I guess I can say “mission accomplished”.

I still can’t get enough of our bullshit artistic-critic language – SO FUNNY. Brilliant, people, brilliant!!