I happened across this web site purportedly run by the Saatchi Gallery in the UK. There was an interesting Q&A with famed British gallerist Charles Saatchi. I enjoyed reading this last part of the interview so much that I've copied it here for your reading pleasure. Not surprisingly, his assessment of the characters who populate the art world is gloriously -- and humourously -- accurate:

"Q: What do you think of the art world?

CS: David Sylvester [the late critic] and I used to play a silly little game. We used to ask ourselves, which of the following - artist, curator, dealer, collector or critic - we would least like to be stranded with on a desert island for a few years. Of course, we could easily bring to mind a repellent example in each category, and it made the selection ever-changing, depending on who we ran into that bored us most the previous week. Anyway, we pretty much agreed on the following:

Dealers
An occupational hazard of some of my art collector friends' infatuation with art is their encounters with a certain type of art dealer. Pompous, power-hungry and patronising, these doyens of good taste would seem to be better suited to manning the door of a night-club, approving who will be allowed through the velvet ropes. Their behaviour alienates many fledgling collectors from any real involvement with the artist's vision. These dealers like to feel that they "control" the market. But, of course, by definition, once an artist has a vibrant market, it can't be controlled. For example, one prominent New York dealer recently said that he disapproved of the strong auction market, because it allowed collectors to jump the queue of his "waiting list". So instead of celebrating an artist's economic success, they feel castrated by any loss to their power base. And then there are visionary dealers, without whom many great artists of our century would have slipped by unheralded.

Critics
The art critics on some of Britain's newspapers could as easily have been assigned gardening or travel, and been cheerfully employed for life. This is because many newspaper editors don't themselves have much time to study their "Review" section, or have much interest in art. So we now enjoy the spectacle of critics swooning with delight about an artist's work when its respectability has been confirmed by consensus and a top-drawer show - the same artist's work that 10 years earlier they ignored or ridiculed. They must live in dread of some mean sod bringing out their old cuttings. And when Matthew Collings, pin-up boy of TV art commentary, states that the loss of contemporary art in the Momart fire didn't matter all that much - "these young artists can always produce more"- he tells you all you need to know about the perverse nature of some of those who mug a living as art critics. However, when a critic knows what she or he is looking at and writes revealingly about it, it's sublime.

Curators
With very few exceptions, the big-name globetrotting international mega-event curators are too prone to curate clutching their PC guidebook in one hand and their Bluffers Notes on art theory in the other. They seem to deliver the same type of Groundhog Day show, for the approval of 50 or so like-minded devotees. These dead-eyed, soulless, rent-a-curator exhibitions dominate the art landscape with their socio-political pretensions. The familiar grind of 70's conceptualist retreads, the dry as dust photo and text panels, the production line of banal and impenetrable installations, the hushed and darkened rooms with their interchangeable flickering videos are the hallmarks of a decade of numbing right-on curatordom. The fact that in the last 10 years only five of the 40 Turner Prize nominees have been painters tells you more about curators than about the state of painting today. But when you see something special, something inspired, you realise the debt we owe great curators and their unforgettable shows-literally unforgettable because you remember every picture, every wall and every juxtaposition.

Collectors
However suspect their motivation, however social-climbing their agenda, however vacuous their interest in decorating their walls, I am beguiled by the fact that rich folk everywhere now choose to collect contemporary art rather than racehorses, vintage cars, jewellery or yachts. Without them, the art world would be run by the State, in a utopian world of apparatchik-approved, Culture-Ministry-sanctioned art. So if I had to choose between Mr and Mrs Goldfarb's choice of art or some bureaucrat who would otherwise be producing VAT forms, I'll take the Goldfarbs. Anyway, some collectors I've met are just plain delightful, bounding with enough energy and enthusiasm to brighten your day.

Artists
If you study a great work of art, you'll probably find the artist was a kind of genius. And geniuses are different to you and me. So let's have no talk of temperamental, self-absorbed and petulant babies. Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on. I love them all."

Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian.

In his post-war memoir "The Enigma of Hitler", Belgian SS General Léon Degrelle writes that the madman who orchestrated the genocide of 6 millions Jews was a dedicated vegetarian "...because it meant the death of a living creature."

Wow. I scratch my head at this massive, inexplicable contradiction. An enigma, indeed.

Oh, c'mon. Admit it. You've got one.

Whether you're a swinging singleton or happily coupled, you've got a list secretly compiled in your head. You know the one I'm talkin' about: the List of People I'd Like to BLANK [insert euphemism for sex here].

Perhaps it's not as straightforward as fantasy blanking. You may have placed this fantasy figure on your List because you feel they'd be an interesting person. You may imagine engaging in thoughtful conversation with this witty, charming and charismatic Object of Desire. And then you'd BLANK.

I realize that some of the people on your List are people you actually know ... your neighbour, your best friend's boyfriend, etc., ... but I'm not referring to those people. I refer only to the pure, unattainable fantasy figure -- the celebrity -- whose image and/or public persona is so compelling as to inspire those lusty thoughts. Of course, you don't have to be Freud to understand that the object of your desire is a mere screen onto which you project all your deepest, sublimated desires. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Save it for the couch in your therapist's office.

I thought I'd share mine with the world, for no reason greater than it'd be a fun exercise. Incidentally, I've already shared my List with Richard, and his with me. Charlize Theron topped Richard's List, in case you're curious.

This is in no particular order of Blankabilitiy.

1. John Cusack. "Guy I Most Wanted to Date in Highschool". The American actor Cusack's made a career out of playing the loser. The motor-mouthed smartass. The deluded, immature boy-man. He's the classic Reclamation Project, and female moviegoers just eat it up. Cusack was introduced to audiences in the big-hair decade of the 1980's in the teen romantic comedies of "Sixteen Candles" (he had a small cameo), "The Sure Thing", "Say Anything" and one of my personal favourites, the dark-humoured "Better Off Dead". It was the latter film that truly endeared this actor to me, and I've had a not-so-secret crush on him ever since. Though he may not be classically handsome nor totally buff through his body, that fact alone seems to be a great part of his appeal. Cusack's persona is one of the smart, cynical rebel that you might've known in high school. He feels quite accessible.

2. Tom Waits. "Guy With Whom I Can Imagine Getting Completely Annihilated". Genius can make you sexy. Take singer/songwriter/actor Tom Waits for instance. He ain't pretty, not by a long shot. Waits himself acknowledges his lack of conventional good-looks with characteristic self-deprecating humour in Goin' Out West: "Well my friends think I'm ugly, I got a masculine face" and in the song's classic chorus:

Well I know karate, Voodoo too / I'm gonna make myself available to you / I don't need no make up / I got real scars / I got hair on my chest / I look good without a shirt.

Yeah, baby. Waits' is totally hot in my books. I love his poignant, "been drinking cleaning products all night" poetics and trademark deep, gravelly voice.

3. James Marsters ("Spike" on the now-defunct TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer). "Guy With Whom I'd Most Like to Spend a Cursed, Undead Eternity." Ever since Bram Stoker penned "Dracula", the fable of the vampire has been associated with both sex and death. To date, there have been a number of serious scholarly examinations into the cultural phenomenon of the vampire and their apparently timeless sex appeal. The fact remains: vampires are damn sexy. The sexiest of these fanged hotties is the character "Spike", played by James Marsters. Marsters' postmodern interpretation of the undead includes the requisite all-black goth attire, bleached-blond hair and eyebrow-piercing. Even the fake British accent adopted by Marsters for his character (undead eurotrash) sounds sexy.

Sexy people are represented by all nationalities, races and ethnicities. Why limit oneself when there's a global buffet of hotties in the world? The only group of people with whom I'd pass the harsh judgment of being wholesale ugly are the aboriginal people of Australia. I mean no offense to any Australian Aborigines who read this or any you may know personally. But seriously ... WOOF!

4. Tony Leung Chiu Wai. "Guy With Whom I'd Most Like to Share a Bowl of Noodles." Often referred to as the Clark Gable of Asian cinema, Hong Kong filmstar Tony Leung first came to my attention in the visually stunning martial-arts epic "Hero", where his hapless character is repeatedly stabbed (by way of retelling the same story) by the object of his affections. My favourite film in which Leung has appeared, however, is the fast-paced crime drama "Infernal Affairs" where the actor sports a black leather jacket and scraggy facial hair. While Leung's signature "sad-eyed, doomed lover" expression makes an appearance throughout this film, it's the scenes in which he lightens-up and cracks a mischievious smile where he is at his most charismatic.

5. Aamir Khan. "Guy With Whom I Might Consider Sitting Through a Cricket Match". One of the main heartthrobs of Bollywood, I first encountered Indian actor Aamir Khan through his roles in Deepa Mehta's "Earth" and the Oscar-nominated film "Lagaan". Although I enjoyed the film less than "Earth", Khan appears his most lean and buff in "Lagaan" where he portrays a poor man who plays for the honour of his village (and the Indian people as a whole) in a cricket match against those wicked, arrogant British. A heavy-handed "brown people good, white people bad" film, but the interspersed Bollywood-style musical numbers are toe-tappin' fun.


Oops .. sounds like Ridley has just awoke from his nap. I'll continue this (no doubt) fascinating List later.

Call me a shoe fashionista. Call me vacuous, vapid and frivolous (though I wouldn't advise you do so in my presence). The ice caps are melting. War is raging. Injustice runs rampant. However...

...I just received my first pair of Fluevogs. See photo above.

When you are fashionably shod, life can't be all that bad.