Can't wait for his WANGA recap...

Judith's "cover" is a slow-read, and not like Miles' super-literate demonstration of takin' time to read (so brave!).

If I was bothered by anything in her drawing, it was that she didn't mirror "and." I would've wanted this:

Edirp
dna
Ecidujerp

"And" backwards becomes an actual word (an acronym, like WANGA). And like with WANGA, I'm finding it *way* more interesting "interacting" with this show in a predominantly textual form, because to receive it solely as a television program is torture.

I completely agree; I liked it, too. The judges were total assholes about her cover, which only helped to make them appear all the more un-insightful, unimaginative, and otherwise uniformly uninformed (and uninspiring).

On your 3rd point: you tapped into a beautifully serendipitous, unplanned, out-of-time, irrational moment of recognition while muddling through a poopy assignment. I think demystification has its virtues, but your coincidental road to discovering (and willingness to discover) a significant relationship between your "cover" and the author's similar wordplay is exactly the type of magical moment that shows like WANGA can't ever capture, do justice, or lend credence to.

@Judith: Regarding "crazy," I think that Paddy rightly noted that the editors took pains to present you as such because you were being critical of the show/challenge, but also because you were being "voted-off" that episode. After watching a lot of reality shows, you get familiar with the recurring "styles" of how editors will present a character that is going to be leaving. The "style" they employed on your last episode was to demonize you by making you out to be a zany, mumbling, rambling malcontent, which was unfortunately supplemented by the "OMG Judith is crazy" commentary by a few of the other contestants. It's hard to tell how much their comments were taken out of context, but the way that they were talking reminded me of how most typical, ultimately conservative people of that (my) generation speak about people/things that fall outside of their lame purview.

So, as much as Miles, Jacyln, Nicole, etc. are trying to work their artist-chic, moments like these exemplify how truly close-minded they are. Seriously: all Miles does on the show is appeal to the people in power (judges, viewers, interviewers) by invoking his nervous/boyish "eccentric" schtick - but then he'll throw his "fellow artists" under the bus the moment he sees an opportunity to further fellate the judges' egos (desperately raising his hand to dig @ Trong) or somehow make him seem more appealing to the equally cynical viewing audience (like when he made/rolled eyes at the camera after "enduring" your night-blooming "craziness"). The show is misrepresentative, but it's also not that hard to see what utterly self-interested, mundanely shitty opportunists some of your young-n'-oh-so-hip "competitors" are.

For what it's worth, you came off as an approachable, friendly, good-natured artist who didn't give a fuck about what other people thought about her or her work, but who is clearly invested in what she does (and has a mind/track-record to back it up). You never pandered - though you did snipe at Jaclyn in your "exit interview," but she's obviously an intolerable twit.

Given that she only participated in three "challenges," it's interesting to me that Judith's first and third projects both included alliterative text starting with the letter "P" ("Proud Pussy," "Pride and Prejudice") - it's also weird that "proud" appeared in her first piece, and "pride" in the third (they also both employed mostly purple/pink). She also flipped the words/images in both of these pieces (or "mirrored" them), which seems to have more to do with how she's been making those "ambidextrous" drawing series (like William Anastasi's "Subway Drawings" http://bit.ly/ba6Ef5).

I thought it was gross how her last episode was edited to emphasize how "crazy" she was, especially with the inclusion of interviews by the other contestants where they called her "crazy" (Miles segment really revealed him to be a backstabbing, camera-whoring little shit), not to mention the "fade-out" effect used while she explained her piece during the crit - a favorite reality-show technique to tell us how "rambling" a person is.

Oh. And the judges come off as really terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE. Simon de Pury: his crazed perma-smile and game-show-host hyperbole just comes off as resoundingly cheesy and insincere. China Chow: Pointless (and nice neck-scarf/feathered-boa/noose). Rohatyn: she just sounds like a deflating balloon and complete idiot. Powers: The more he talks, the less I care about anything he says (and BAD TAN). Saltz: Excessively cocks his head to the side and is irritatingly patronizing, but probably offers the "best" criticism on the show (which isn't saying much). Why can't I just look away? WHY?

It's still "nesting" replies, and I can still edit my first comment (though not the one you replied to, like you said).

@AFC: Please read my "edited" comment above. How do you feel about commenters being able to repeatedly change what they've written? Can you turn that feature off?

Also, the description of the some of the post images appears in the same font as the beginning of the content text on the main page (i.e. "Ryan Shultz puts his hands on his head in frustration" for the last WANGA post).

You can edit and/or delete your own comments now, and it doesn't appear to show when people do this (it just shows the "post time" of the original comment). This will require the honor-system so people don't exploit the crazy revisionist possibilities of this feature/flaw. For example: I could edit to be all "Hey! You should have the Guggenheim post on the front page," thereby making tom_moody look like he was biting off MY comment. I'm concerned about this - it could easily throw a comment thread into utter chaos if people were to exploit the "customizable" comments. But I like that you can go back and fix typos (and meddle with the space/time continuum).