The Digest. 12.22.08.

Celso. (Photo by Punk Dolphin.)

Hey Folks: After today we’re shuttin’ down the taco stand and taking some much-needed time off for the holidaze. See you after New Year’s! xox, C.

• Knitting for psychos. (Hrag Vartanian.)
• The art industrial average is so far down the crapper it’s gonna take a Trainspotting-like move to dislodge it. And it ain’t any easier for museums. Related: Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Miami to close. (Art Observed.)
• MOCA’s problems aren’t just financial. They’re architectural, reports the LA Times’ Christopher Hawthorne.
• Dear NYT Arts Section: For the love of all that is sacred, please hire someone to make your Twitter feed at least mildly interesting.
• Late addition: Art Fag City is having a fundraiser to keep her site going. (It’s a non-profit donation, under the umbrella of Momenta Art — so it’s tax deductible.) 
• The hanging of President Bush, National Portrait Gallery edition.
• The map quilts of Leah Evans. (NotCot.)
• Art Merch Alert: Tom Sachs has an online store. And he’s selling hand-embossed skateboard wheels and custom sharpies (???) for $12. (Art Observed.)
• The (Exhausting) Day in Year-End Round-Ups: New York Mag’s Saltz-master and Modern Art Notes‘ Tyler Green give us their top ten, the LAT’s Christopher Knight gives his best and worst, Richard Dorment at the Telegraph rounds up the worst, and Holland Cotter and Roberta Smith of the NYT do their year-end thing, as does Martin Gayford at Bloomberg. Last, but not least: Peter Plagens picks the most representative work of art of the Bush era (and it’s a Koons!…which he describes as “a cloying cliché presented as profundity”). Stay-tuned for my obligatory year-end list this afternoon! 
• If you’re in SF and you have nothing to do over the holidays, hit Gallery Paule Anglim to check out Bruce Conner’s Looking for Mushrooms, one of the most stonerrific pieces of video art ever. And don’t forget to pack the Maui Wowie.
• Lovin’ Design Observer’s weekly image picks.
• A 1950s illustration Flickr pool. Love the German Pez ad. (NotCot.)
• Today’s Graff: Slow in Budapest.
• Thanks to Wooster Collective for the nice year-end shout-out! Sweet…
• The joy of not being sold anything.
• Princess Zaha’s giant clam will tour the world no longer due to financial troubles. (Hrag Vartanian.)
• Related: The NYT reports how starchitecture was all fun and games, until the money ran out.
• An inventive reuse of Israeli military architecture. Think bingo.
• Photo of the Day: The Sydney Opera House under construction in 1973.
• Trippy floors: the Casa Yaya in Madrid.
• Your moment of Jingle Bells played on 49 microwave ovens. (Coudal.)