Gumtree: Serious Business No. 2... The Toy Poodle

For Sale: Purebred RED Toy Poodle 9 weeks old Female Puppy
Date Listed: 03/06/2010
Last Edited: 03/06/2010
Price: $800.00
Address: Mulgrave VIC, Australia

Red toy poodles are hard to find as not many people breeds them but they are absolutely beautiful. Regrettably, for sale is a purebred Red Toy Poodle female puppy. She is 9 weeks old. Very affectionate and intelligent and is currently undergoing paper training.

We bought her in good faith as an addition to our family and companion for our miniature poodle. However, when she was brought home at 7 weeks old, we realised that the size of Toy Poodle is not suitable for our family as we have 3 young active children, hence, the reason we are selling her.

Suits family preferably with older children, single people, couple or retiree.

Please contact May at 0430 --- --- if you wish to meet her.
…
From: Reply to Gumtree Ad (from theaccursedshare@yahoo.com.au) [mailto:post@gumtree.com.au]
Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010
To: may.nick@...
Subject: Reply to your "Purebred RED Toy Poodle 9 weeks old Female Puppy" Ad on Gumtree

Hello! The following is a reply to your "Purebred RED Toy Poodle 9 weeks old Female Puppy" Ad on Gumtree:

I'm interested in your dog. I have been told that red toy poodles have a very keen sense of smell, which will be useful in my profession. When can i pick the thing up?
Rodney
…
From: May Wong To: theaccursedshare@yahoo.com.au
Sent: Thu, 3 June, 2010
Subject: RE: Reply to your "Purebred RED Toy Poodle 9 weeks old Female Puppy" Ad on Gumtree

Hi Rodney,
Thanks for your interest. Tonight after 7pm or over the weekend is fine with me – please contact my mobile to confirm a time.

Cheers,
May
...

From: Someone Other May Wong
To: May Wong Sent: Thu, 3 June, 2010
Subject: RE: Reply to your "Purebred RED Toy Poodle 9 weeks old Female Puppy" Ad on Gumtree

Thanks May.
I'm taking the dogs pig hunting on Saturday, so i'll pick the thing up tonight if i can. I want it to get the smell of pig blood while its still young. I'm hoping it gets on with other dogs ok and doesn't yap yap yap too much as my pit bulls can be a bit temperamental when on the hunt and i don't want to waste 800 bucks. 7pm tonight is fine with me. Means i'll just miss the rush hour traffic in my truck. What's your address?
Cheers,
Rodney
…

From: May Wong To: Someone Other
Sent: Thu, 3 June, 2010
Subject: RE: Reply to your "Purebred RED Toy Poodle 9 weeks old Female Puppy" Ad on Gumtree

Hi Rodney,
She gets on very well with my mini poodle and is not yappy like other toy breeds. Our address is ----------, Mulgrave – not far from Wellington Road.

Please let me know the estimate time you will be here. Also, may I please have your contact no. in case I need to make contact.

Kind regards
May
0430 --- ---

…
From: Someone Other May Wong
To: May Wong Sent: Thu, 3 June, 2010
Subject: RE: Reply to your "Purebred RED Toy Poodle 9 weeks old Female Puppy" Ad on Gumtree


Hi May,
Its great that she's not yappy. Do you think she'll get along well with pit bulls? My wife is a bit annoyed with me spending $800 on another pig hunting dog, so I was wondering whether i could just test her out tomorrow and see if she gets onto the trail and gets along with the other dogs. If she gets hurt but doesn't look the goods for pig hunting, i'll pay the vet bills as long as they don't exceed a tank of petrol. Otherwise, if all goes well, i can give you an $800 cheque when i get back from hunting tomorrow night.
How does 7:30pm tonight sound? Also, do you have a cage i can initially borrow as i don't want the thing shitting in my truck and i've no hessian bags lying around.
Kind regards,
Rodney.
...

From: May Wong To: Someone Other
Sent: Thu, 3 June, 2010
Subject: RE: Reply to your "Purebred RED Toy Poodle 9 weeks old Female Puppy" Ad on Gumtree


Hi Rodney,
The puppy is only 6 inches tall (15.5cm) at the moment and will grow to about 11 inches tall (28cm). How do you measure the height of a dog? While the dog is standing up on all fours, measure from the floor to the top of the shoulder.

She gets on well with other dog but doesn’t like to play rough – sometimes dogs get a bit carried away when playing just like kids do. I would suggest that you bring along your pit bull tonight to see if they get along well due to their size difference and if she is suitable for you. I am sorry to say that I do not accept return and refund and I will only accept cash.

I do have a crate which you could borrow.

Kind regards,
May
...

From: Someone Other [mailto:theaccursedshare@yahoo.com.au]
Sent: Fri, 4 June, 2010
To: May Wong
Subject: Re: Reply to your "Purebred RED Toy Poodle 9 weeks old Female Puppy" Ad on Gumtree

Hi May,
That's understandable.
I'll just drop over tonight with my pig dogs and see how they get along. Its best, if you have kids, if they are not around, as the pit bulls don't like kids too much and i've had a little trouble with the council when they last attacked a kid who was moving too unpredictably around them. Also, do you mind if i bring a pig's head, as i want to get the dogs excited to see how they interact, and also to see if the poodle gets into the smell of the blood. If you can lay down some plastic on your kitchen floor it would save cleaning up the mess.
Cheers,
Rodney.
...

From: May Wong
To: Someone Other
Sent: Sat, 5 June, 2010 5:28:52 AM
Subject: RE: Reply to your "Purebred RED Toy Poodle 9 weeks old Female Puppy" Ad on Gumtree

Hi Rodney,
Sorry to let you know that my cousin just called and she said she will take the puppy.

Cheers,
May


Cheers,
May

Gumtree: Serious Business No.1... The Cubby House

Wanted: Cubby House and/or play equipment

Date Listed: 03/06/2010

Price: Free

Address: Bentleigh VIC, Australia

Desperately want/need some play equipment and a cubby house for our little one who is turning 2 soon. it would make a great birthday present for her.

Please call if you have anything for her.

Steve 0431--- ---

…

From: Gumtree Australia <donotreply@gumtree.com.au>
To: theaccursedshare@yahoo.com.au
Sent: Fri, 4 June, 2010
Subject: You have replied to "Cubby House and/or play equipment" Ad on Gumtree

Hello! You have sent the following email to "Cubby House and/or play equipment" Ad on Gumtree:

Hi Steve.
I might have something that would suit if you're interested.
Cheers,
Rodney

…

From: steve…

To: "theaccursedshare@yahoo.com.au"
Sent: Fri, 4 June, 2010
Subject: Gumtree

Rodney.
Thanks for your reply.
What do you have in mind?
Could you maybe send photos?

Steve

…

From: Someone Other <theaccursedshare@yahoo.com.au>
To: steve
Sent: Fri, 4 June, 2010
Subject: Re: Gumtree

Hi Steve,

I've had this great cubby house sitting around in the yard for years. Unfortunately i've a condition where i can't have any kids of my own who can enjoy it the way i did when i was a kid. I just want someone to take it off my hands so that their kids can bring it to life again! There's plenty of space inside to play, and the doors will work fine with a little wd40. There is still a bucket seat inside, which used to be real comfy... nothing a bit of vinyl restorer won't make new. The windows are long gone, but for an extra $50 i could tape some glad wrap or something over them.

I'm asking a slab of beer for it, which i think is more than fair since it cost a hell of a lot more than that when new. I guess you'll have to organise a trailer to remove it too. But you won't find a better cubby for your kid than this antique that comes full of great memories.

I live in Melton, which is only 20 minutes out of the city.

If you want to discuss this more then call me on my mobile.

Cheers,

Rodney.

...

From: steve…

To: Someone Other <theaccursedshare@yahoo.com.au>

Sent: Fri, 4 June, 2010
Subject: Re: Gumtree

Rodney.

Thanks for the reply.

I'd like to call to discuss but you haven't left your number. I'm also concerned a little because you sent me a photo of a wrecked car.

Maybe you could call me on the number below

Steve

…

From: Someone Other <theaccursedshare@yahoo.com.au>
To: steve
Sent: Fri, 4 June, 2010
Subject: Re: Gumtree

Hi Steve,

I find it a bit strange that you see a picture of a "wrecked car". Imagination is what really distinguishes humans from other mammals. Where you just see a car, your kids see endless adventure. A cubby house needn't just look like a silly little square house. I had many great times in the cubby as a kid. My dad even taught me to drive in it when i was 12: how about that! I hope you are not the kind of parent who stifles your child's imagination by making them strictly identify every object with its ordinary, conventional, boring significations. A spade is not just a spade - it can also be a flag or a weapon. I use to make cubbies out of upturned mattresses and blankets. Do you tell your poor kid off for doing similar things, kicking down their 'pseudo' cubby, because it doesn't look like a conventional cubby house? I can tell you for sure that your kids won't find a cubby house that will harness the creative power of their budding imaginations more than this.

I tell you what: my mate Greg has a car trailer and if you give me your address we can drop the cubby off at your place this arvo for $100. I really want to get this cubby off my property. You can just swap me 2 longnecks of beer instead, as you're sought of doing me a favor by taking it off my hands and allowing some kids to enjoy it like i once did.

Give me a call and we can discuss it.

Best,

Rodney.

…

From: "steve

To: Someone Other <theaccursedshare@yahoo.com.au>
Sent: Fri, 4 June, 2010
Subject: Re: Gumtree

Dude, as an artist I am very successfully creative and do nothing to encourage that out of my beautiful daughter.

I am not interested in having an old wrecked car on my property though. Thanks any way and good luck with it.

Maybe 'pick a part' will be interested in your cubby house for scrap metal.

Cheers

Steve

…

From: Someone Other <theaccursedshare@yahoo.com.au>
To: steve
Sent: Fri, 4 June, 2010
Subject: Re: Gumtree

Steve,

It's a shame you do nothing to encourage creativity out of your beautiful daughter. Maybe you should reconsider my offer, as this cubby is a tabula rasa for budding creativity. It will be a sign that you are really committed to the creative imagination of your lovely child. I thought you creative types preferred things out of the ordinary. How wrong i have been to think that. I guess being artistic is just business like everything else these days. I've already called Greg and he has organised a trailer to rent for the day from a service station. Just give me your address and we can drop it off this arvo.

Kind regards,

Rodney.

…

From: "steve
To: Someone Other <theaccursedshare@yahoo.com.au>

Sent: Fri, 4 June, 2010
Subject: Re: Gumtree

Thanks but no thanks. This is not what I had in mind but thanks again for your efforts.

Goodbye Rodney

Steve

…

From: Someone Other <theaccursedshare@yahoo.com.au>
To: steve
Sent: Fri, 4 June, 2010 9:08:36 AM
Subject: Re: Gumtree

Steve,

Well its your loss. And your child's.

Since Greg has already picked up the trailer, can you throw us $80 to cover hire costs.

Regards,

Rodney.

The Great West Passage

Melbourne: A Pillar of Art

All readers either know or should know that Me!bourne considers itself the cultural capital of the 'straya-mate (That's Australia for you clear tongued foreigners). After taking for a stroll the plinth we found in a bin behind the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art last year, we discovered why: Melbourne is an art object, held atop a plinth. And if its on a plinth, then it must be... art!

No matter where the plinth was placed, it was found to be supporting the city. Here it can be seen proudly displaying, in "its own, self-diclosed area, which is is withdrawn from the context of profane existence, and in which [the] special laws [of art] apply", Melbourne's famous tram tracks, now stripped of their utility and rendered as... art.

Bourke St Mall wasn't excluded from becoming an object of artistic ponderability.

Last but not least, here is a view of the Melbourne-art-object from the ground up. Little did the inhabitants of the city know what had become of the ontological status of their habitus that night.

ANNA SCHWARTZ exhibits beyond the cube

In Melbourne, you are a nobody in the art-world if you haven't either exhibited in or been kicked out of Anna Schwartz Gallery. Thankfully Anna is showing some initiative and is extending her portion of the gallery-dealer system art-sausage factory beyond the confines of the gallery walls.

We have been told that this work is 'exploring the notion' - and what would a contemporary art work be if it wasn't exploring a notion - 'of time not as a continuous succession but as a non-necessary series of discreet, individually self-contained times, linked by the guiding thread of the tactile,' by which is meant skin, in this case animal skin.

Further, 'the work recalls the minimalist interventions of Dan Flavin, but replacing neon, which is an overused and therefore exhausted medium in contemporary art, with the light of the sacred, namely animal flesh. Hence, through the intersection of discreet self-contained moments of time and the sacred light of the flesh, the work phenomenologically exposes the viewer to a deep sense of eternity that is always present once one escapes the illusion of successive, linear temporality'.

Interested buyers can contact the dumpster behind the Coles supermarket, Spencer St, Melbourne, which proudly sponsored the artists by donating the materials.

D'oh!

Art today is all about communication.



















Not only about communicating with art history, as this comment on the ready-made lobster phone is doing, but about communicating with the art consumer. Is it suggesting that commoditised communication, hand in hand with a technology that, steered by the capitalist desire to forge new forms of communication and to turn every form of communication into a source of profit, has become a Homeric cry of D'oh, a mere reiterative chattering where nothing is ever said, where everything is half-baked, yet where this nothing-said takes the form of an excess of chatter?















Or is this work just a ball of dough dumped upon a telephone? You, the art-consumer, must decide for yourself.

Mounted Branch

This poor plinth, one pillar of the art world, was found hiding in the bin behind the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA). Maybe this itself was an artist's installation, which the saving of the poor plinth ruined (one need only place the dumpster and it's contents inside the gallery, and of course be an artist, for such to become art). Be that as it may, this plinth and its surrounds bewitched us with the presence of Robert Morris, and soon we could not fathom where the art began and the body ended. (The Mounted Branch is, of course, the Mounted Police Barracks across the road from ACCA and the Victorian College of the Arts... necessary to keep in check the revolutionary nature of contemporary art)

In this photo you can see how the act of being luggage at a tramstop has been transformed into a mysterious art object.

Here a waiting commuter has sacrificed their inviolable corporeality to becoming art.

Art today is very transportable. One even finds it in the very air that inhabits cultural Melbourne's famous trams.

Yet art, especially if performative, is serious business and therefore hard work. This living sculpture is taking a nap... or is he/she?

Fishing in Footscray

Fuck Capitalism!

Click To Play

The cult of the new is, despite certain claims to the contrary, as intrinsic to the contemporary art market as it is to capitalism. Maybe this is because the former is dictated to, albeit with a large degree of mystification and reified self-denial, by the latter. In each case, which is the same case, we may feel left behind by the succession of the new. Despite the seeming futility of rebelling against all this, we must, as they say, 'keep the flame alive'... especially after finding an old fold-up battering ram and some Dionysian spirit... or rather spirits.

you missed a bit

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hoover me

no use crying over spilt milk

Paul Celan's Death Fugue is, of course, one of the greatest poems of the greatest of all Post-War poets. This milk may not be black milk, but nonetheless it was found to be cracked and left lying on a street corner by a stranger who obviously abhorred cracked containers of milk.


After some photos, we took this milk home and we did drink it, but not before it managed to leave a trail, not unlike a trail of candy, that the cats of the culture industry could track us down with.


Thankfully gravity is on our side, and the cracks between the pavement provide an ample maze for any liquid Ariadne's thread to lose itself within, and to lose those cultured cats who hope to follow it to 'The Next Big Thing'.


Dreams of success can provide no reliable Ariadne's thread in our present world, unless ones enjoys following the threads of steel wool used to clean soiled coins. Maybe a love of mutability, affirming the mutability of love, and an expenditure without hope of earning interest in this life nor 'interest in eternity', however, carries a gravity all its own, and 'It is enough, the freight should be/ Proportioned to the groove.' (Emily Dickinson)

entertain me

Telstra - Ostraya's formerly publicly owned telecommunication's giant- has opened a premium Melbourne retail outlet: T [Life]. Communists, as the colloquial wisdom runs, prefer to drink herbal T- lets shorten Tea, for marketing purposes, to T- because they don't like proper T. Telstra prefer to place life in brackets behind the T their company logo drinks, and me, naturally for any advertising expert, follows in brackets after any mention of entertain. I'm not sure whether life and me are thus quietly subordinated, within the Symbolic, to a Name of the Father adhering in T and entertain, although a good cup of T can be entertaining, but is less so if one drinks merely out of fear. But what becomes forgotten in all this is the anthropocentrism of telecommunicative technologies, ergonomically speaking. For horses, although insultingly measured in hands, have no hands, and hooves are certainly something no mobile telephone manufacturer considers when designing telephone ergonomics.


Hence a quiet protest appeared amongst the entrance to T [life], which we were fortunate enough to capture the results of. The communicative technology here utilised against anthropocentric telecommunicative devices is, like the body, much more ancient and reliable than the all-too contemporary technologies it critiques. And there is no contract involved, which means no credit check! But horses, like all who have a cultured stomach, are also very sensitive to art and art history. But we shall allow the audience to decide on whether or not the critique is naively avant-garde or ironically sentimental, or just plain horsing around.

one potato, two potato

Click To Play

At first we thought we'd found the hiding spot of the 7th Earl of Lucan, Richard Bingham, who has not been seen since murdering his children's nanny one November evening in 1974. But no, we'd found some bags of art, otherwise known as potatoes. Alas, there was, thankfully, no blight involved: capitalist overproduction had dispensed with the spuds, whose apparent uselessness, as production's unsightly excess (they were, afterall, unwashed potatoes), was now free to become apparent as art.

The Earl's of Lucan, apart from being famous for disappearing after committing in-house murders and leading the disasterous Charge of the Light Brigade, were also involved in Ireland's Great Famine, 'owning' over 60,000 acres of Land. The Irish Landlords- English nobility who very often hadn't placed a foot in Ireland- and their tyrannical Middlemen made conditions so bad for their peasant cottiers- celts who had once freely grazed cattle across the land- that single crops became the norm. Thus a single potato disease could wreak terrible suffering, famine and death, and lead to an Irish Diaspora. Some say the English are responsible for genocide. Well, that's a bit of a simplification of a highly complex and exploitative chapter in colonial history. But what does precise history matter when we have, here, art and entertainment! Art that can so allusively exploit, um, i mean problematise and explore notions of colonisation, economic exploitation, the Irish/Australian convict connection, the history of the readymade, happenings, art povera... and bags of dumped, um, potatoes. Does being unwashed make them abject?

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Who cares what lies beneath the cobblestones, anyway, when there are some very complex art objects opportunistically placed amongst a found barrier atop the cobblestones! We don't need a Paris Commune, for we have art to capture all our radical sentiments, and art institutions to re-construct, critique, reference and, um, exploit radical historical protests within! As you can see by the politically interested gazes, we have thoroughly created a situation whereby art can radically liberate untrammeled desire!


Now we shall all be free to wear brown polo shirts, khaki shorts, and beautiful, rustic sandals, all in the culturally tanning glow of art!

anyone for bagels?

These bagels were hankering to inflict a damming cultural critique upon the late-modern urban environment. But the bakery who failed to sell them during the day, at night dumped them in the trash. Lucky for the bagels, whilst passing their bin we happened to smell their revolutionary potential. So we liberated them and released their force- in a very orderly manner- upon the Melbourne CBD. Look at the hypnotized spectators, fixed by the penetrating eyes of the bagels.

Is it a homage to Carl Andre? Is it art? Is it a geometrically aligned collection of Bagels? Is it a terrorist threat? Were they liberated from a bin?

For 30 minutes, crowds gathered and dispersed, basking in the cultural capital of this artifact which, not readily falling beneath any other explanatory sign, passers by called 'art'.

No-one dared disturb the gaze of the bagels.

That is, until one of Melbourne's ubiquitous street cleaners decided to review the installation for Art Forum...

bed skating

This minimalist object- otherwise known as a perfectly good single bed- was found nestling amongst trash in a Melbourne alleyway. Here it has been mysteriously transported to a new exhibition site- a tram stop.

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Note the avid young gentleman who kicks the art-object. Being a loyal supporter of dematerialized art, he took the presence of the bed as an affray upon his critical sensibilities. So he kicked the bed in a privileged example of relational aesthetics. Then he called us faggots (two men upon a bed may be OK in private, but there is still some way to go until such behaviour is publicly accepted).

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A subtle performance.

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Public art at its most engaged... and engaging!