With half of my Twitter friends in the political sphere and the other half involved with art, watching my feed during last night’s debate yielded an entertaining mash-up of both. One, from Washington, D.C.–based art journalist Tyler Green, referenced a contemporary art darling (who happens to be Mr. Björk): “It occurs to me that Matthew Barney was on the vanguard of incoherence as a strategy. Palin’s just following in his footsteps.”

So in the spirit of absurdity and art, a less-than-political rundown of assessments on the proceedings.

Situationists for Sarah! A group of protesters outside Washington University in St. Louis last night embraced the surreal nature of the event, which pitted a woman heralded for hauling kids to soccer and moose-hunting against a foreign-policy veteran who introduced many Americans to the word “Bosniak.” One held a Magritte-esque sign that read, “This is a sign.” Another’s countered, “This is an owl.” Artblogger Greg Allen comments: “What does it say about the election mediascape that a dadaist poster stunt could just as easily be a dog whistle for some invisible target demographic as a marketing tool for goldenpalace.com? Though there’s not a URL to be seen.”

[Photos by Brett Marty, FiveThirtyEight.com.]

The Accidental Comic: Alaska resident David Noon’s MnIndy commentary on Palin’s performance has generated some great comments, including one attributed to the band Falco (whose song “Rock Me Amadeus” Noon mentioned) and another, linked in a TPM post called “The Accidental Comic,” which focuses on Noon’s reference to “The Macarena”:

You do not understand how people (including myself) are drawn to Sarah Palin. Joe Biden did great last night because he lied at every turn. He is a talented truth destroyer. Take the Biden lies out of the debate and Palin was the obvious victor. Just like “The Macarena”, Sarah Palin will be involved in our culture for many years. And, in case you have not noticed Mr. Noon, many people rush to the dance floor when that annoying song comes on.

Wink and a nod: Gothamist points out Palin’s propensity for winking — which may fall under the directive “Do something cute” on the “Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart” (below) — noting that Biden’s been known “to use his eye suggestively.” The New York blog also links up Newsweek’s tale of two debates: “In one ring we watched Sarah Palin battling Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin. In the other we saw Joe Biden battling John McCain.”

Culinary Art: Not really about the debate, but what’s more absurd than a non sequitur mention of cheese steak? Here’s what chef Andrew Zimmern had to say about Palin:

“I saw that Sarah Palin was in Philly and stopped in for a cheese steak at Tony Lukes. C’mon, now. How can you trust this woman to be the VEEP if she can’t even get to a top-ten sandwich joint in the City of Brotherly Love? …I can handle the fact that she believes that dinosaurs and humans walked the earth together 4,000 years ago (LA Times). I can even forgive her for not being able to name a single news source that she regularly peruses or for not being able to name a single Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade (NYT, CBS et al.), but I CANNOT forgive her for wasting a meal on the road.”

Conceptual Art: And, rounding it out, some conceptual art — a visualization of keywords and concepts the VP candidates used, via GraphicDesignr’s Erica Smith. First Biden:


Then Palin: