Do you like to push your writing to the extreme? Well next Saturday at Grand Union you will have the chance to push your pen wielding fingers to their very extreme with a 12 hour, all night writing extravaganza.

‘Part 12-hour exam, part club night, part endurance writing event’, the organisers BAZ and Hooky Street Press welcome all those who cross the path of the location to take part and give their unique responses to the proposed subjects. A little more info:

BAZ are busy at The Event. They’re hosting Love in the Snug (an alternative festival hub) where you can also buy the in-joke stuffed Mills and Koons, which is:

A Brief Introduction to the Saucy Secrets of the Birmingham Art World

I did and can confirm it’s simultaneously amusing and baffling (I’m pretty sure some of it’s flying way over my head). They’re also hosting Curate Me Out on Saturday, 7pm at the Lamp Tavern:

Shamelessly pilfering the format’s of ITV’s Take Me Out and Blind Date, Curate Me Out will see BAZ setting up three curator-artist ‘dates’. This live performance event complete with a professional compere, bright lights and music jingles acts as a post-performance party for all who have attended The Event

The Birmingham Post have a an interview with Chris Poolman (one half of BAZ) about all of this.

Getting to wander around Curzon Street Station (although there’s some good stuff in there, I have to admit I was excited enough about the building itself), finally making it over to The Lombard Method, Simon Faithfull’s window piece at Grand Union, meeting the guys behind BAZ (and Athletico Tortured Artists), Crowd 6‘s exhibition and all sorts of other bits and pieces.

Not that it was all my cup of tea, necessarily, but then that’s all part of the fun too. Charlie Levine’s written a post of her own about what’s going on – she’s got pictures.

The Event is on until 30 October. If you don’t know your way round (and even if you do) it’s worth joining one of the guided tours.

BAZ are a semi-satirical ‘think-tank’ sporadically documenting the Birmingham Art World

I mentioned The Baz Top 20 Most Powerful People & Organisations in the Birmingham Art World thing a couple of years back. Little did I know they’d updated their website with some videos and a musical based on the Grants for the Arts application form. Barmy, but some of the videos made me laugh – I liked the one for The Lombard Method.

This is for the Birmingham Art Zine (BAZ) launch night, 5 November at The White Swan in Digbeth, 6-9pm:

BAZ are well aware that a room full of people reading a small pink text heavy magazine – looking to see if their names are mentioned – is not really a recipe for a great night out so we’ve gone for a short opening so you can all get on down to Mark Essen’s gig at The Anchor afterwards

They’ll also be taking part in Grand Union’s artists’ publishing fair as part of The Event on 6 November 12-9pm.

There’s a whole bunch of stuff to explore on BAZ’s website, PDF’s unfortunately, so I only made it through a few. Titles like ‘Ikon sculpture tried to eat my missus‘ are pretty compelling though. The intro to ‘The Editorial‘ gives you a good flavour of the sort of thing:

It’s been another hectic year in the Birmingham ART World: the emergence of a hard-line rap and gangster culture amongst feuding art institutions; the ensuing war and bloodshed, punctuated only by games of Institutional Cricket; the rise of Northfield as the cities ‘real’ creative quarter; Berlin trying to steal our ART scene; the building of the worlds first ART themed adventure park in Ladywood; The Public being converted into the world’s largest public toilets; and the rapid spread of wild animals in Birmingham ARTISTS studios.