Self Curation?

So I spent quite a lot of yesterday walking along the river here in London, which was nice because it gives you a sense of space in this otherwise crowded city. And I went to the Tate Modern which has rehanged/hung/organised/sorted out its collection. They've organised the gallery into pretty random categories - Poetry And Dream, States Of Flux, Material Gestures, and Idea And Object - which don't really make much sense, and don't parlay into anything. And they have a whole room for Richard Hamilton which I thought was excessive because he is rubbish. But all the art looked good, and there were lots of nice middle class people enjoying themselves as appreciators of art. (And some pretty amusing groups of school kids trying not to laugh or blush at the nude stuff.)

For some reason I got stuck looking at a video that a Latin artist called Sierra had done of four prostitutes having lines tattooed on their backs. He had paid them each a fix of heroin to have the tattoos done. According to the little plaque next to the video, his idea was to illustrate how people get stuck by their social and economic status and don't get to make their own choices. It worked, although they didn't say if the women got the heroin before or after they had been tattooed. (I can't tell the difference between someone who has just taken heroin or who is waiting to take some. Although I guess for them they are two very very different states.)

Fired up to my navel with my middle class gazing, I walked further along the river to see my friend Jim, who - amongst other things - dared me to try and get the word parlay into the blog today. Actually, we talked a lot about writing my blog and also about his project which involves a different sort of much more accountable writing. I've mentioned before about the self-validating process in blogging. Writing in my blog about talking about my blog would take that process a whole step further up my own arse, so I won't bore you with the discussion we had about househusbandnot, other than to say that after talking about it for a while last night I ended up thinking that I should stop writing househusbandnot, and then changed my mind, and then changed my mind, and then changed my mind again. So here I still am.

Not sure what my point is today, other than the fact that we self-validate too much. Poetry and dream in states of flux with the material gestures of ideas and objects. Shit, I'm turning into Nick Serota.

Incidentally, got this comment back yesterday after my rant against The Daily Mail:

" Yes, the Daily Mail is evil, evil. I had to read it every day when I worked in a press office and 3 copies on Mondays. The scariest thing is how many people read it who you previously thought were reasonable individuals. You should wrap all your copies up in a different material so as not to attract the wrong sort."

Good on you fellow ex-press officer. You should check out http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/toys/dailymail/