Saturday, I rolled out of bed and straight to the gym, then booked it downtown to meet at Romni Wools to wish her a happy Orthodox Christmas and use my birthday gift certificate (thanks, G!) to procure myself the raw makings of what are going to be some ragin’ turquoise merino armwarmers (don’t judge me; I like armwarmers so shove it).

After getting my knit fix at Bathurst, I ran back to Spadina to meet Alastair and for the pleasure of being turned away from Robin Pacific’s totally ridiculous art show ‘Shelf Portrait: a disappearing archive’ held at the ‘Redhead Gallery’. The premise of the exhibit was that this woman, who has been collecting books her whole life, was “rendering an act of generosity into a work of art. By which they mean giving stuff away. Robin Pacific’s entire archive of 1,670 books, collected over 30 years, was given away –free– to the first desperate book hounds to wedge themselves in the door.

Each book was catalogued and inserted with a bookplate: “This book is a gift to you from Robin Pacific.” In exchange for signing their name beside the title of the books on catalogues hung on the wall, visitors could take an unlimited number of books home with them immediately. Shopping bags (for used book retailers, presumably) and disposable cameras (to document the insanity) were provided. I’m framing all these verbs in the past tense, even though the exhibit is technically still on until January 27th, because my guess is that the exhibit was an empty room by 5pm Saturday afternoon.

Free books + Torontonians = death match blood scrum. Ridiculous, I tell you. That was my first ever experience being shut out of an art show opening due to intense overcrowding beyond fire capacity. There were so many people there that we could barely get in the front door, let alone down the winding hallways to the back of the building where the lineup for the exhibit actually began. I spotted my friend Yvonne looking distressed as she pushed by the crowds at the front door and ran to give her a hug. She said to me, in her most charming Jamaican patois, ‘Badness! To-tal bangarang. Dooon’t bother.’ So we didn’t.

Instead, we stood aghast, watching herds of hopeful bibliophiles shuffle by, looking more forlorn with every new human obstacle they squeezed past. They looked as though they were on their way to some sort of existential abbatoir. I engaged in some heated speculation with Alastair and as to how I was going to make a name for myself on the contemporary art circuit with my smash-hit, sold-out, one-day-only show called ‘Greed Portrait: a disappearing bank account’, which would involve me setting up artistic piles of cash, then advertising the “exhibit” on CBC, Breakfast Television and the Globe & Mail, then video taping the subsequent massacre at the Opening Reception.

The downside is that it would be costly to implement but I bet I could write my way into a Canada Council for the Arts grant (give me 2 hours and a word processor, and I could prepare a proposal that would make you agree that I need your kidneys more than you do). Plus, if the CCA gave me any hassle about forking over their dough, I’ll just send them a black postcard with the words “YOU GAVE JULIAN OPIE MONEY FOR STRIPPERS” written on the back in red ink. That ought to do it.

Plan B would be the much more visually and philosophically evocative homage, ‘Mystery Portrait: a bunch of disappearing brown bags’ exhibit wherein I fill 1,670 brown paper bags with random crap -plastic kazoos, brown bananas, bullion cubes, dead birds, paperclips, rusty tweezers, animal feces, expired vitamins, religious flyers- and then every attendee gets to take one sealed bag and open it when they get home. The bag would also contain brief instructions informing the participant where they could e-mail a digital photo of them giving me the finger once they realize they’ve been had.

Oh, contemporary art. How I’ve missed you.