you kids remember Art-o-matic, yes?
When it took over what we called "the old Hechinger's building", what our parents called "where the old Sears was, you feeble-minded shithead". Back in 2000 when most of us were 14 except for Tom who was 11, this was something horrifying yet intriguing like a museum of cartoon pornography or one of those "new" ice blenda mocha drinks. We stepped into that concrete wigwam and saw wild art. The Goons played. That's what I remember.
Then it happened again. Two years later. This time crosstown, highlighting the New Southeast, where 8 year-olds roam in violent gangs riding Razor scooters and sell fake ecstasy to dumbass ravers trying to find Foamqueer dance night at Nation, although the ravers refer to it as "Nations". An old EPA building was hollowed out and allowed free-range for "artists" like a day old chili-dog bouncing around the stomach of the Budha. I went to that rendition with my father, traversing the maze-like exhibits, finding the artists desperate enough to give out chicken wings so you could look at their stack of transistor radios with some yarn unifying them. There was tons of cool shit, by the end of it, I had a good time, and learned the most important lesson of art; you can seriously pass off anything as art in that context. It wasn't all flowers and 8x10 glossies for all of us at the Art-o-Matic that year. The experience inspired a sonnet from the ugly, murderous and furiously jaded side of gone-but-not-forgotten CiM blogger John 'Ma$e' Lichman. Ask him for the first couple chapters of 'Wousabi Ignited' and you'll get a fantastic tale set at the Art-o-Matic involving bohemes and the proverbial spiced ham of every emo boy before it got all trendy.
So word on the street this year, that the DC art-mind-fuck-orgy known as Art-o-Matic will indeed happen this year, taking over the the building we all used to known as the Capital Children's Museum. Totally fucking rad. I can't wait. Yeah. The old Children's Museum, where I would go to Mexico town for its hot chocolate and the tortillas produced in a small hut CHIP-BY-FUCKING-CHIP. Then were the medallions of yarn in hot wax, too many children were injured in the process and the whole section was scrapped sometime during my teen-years, but what do you expect when you give kids hot wax, a hammer, and a four inch fucking nail? Ah the Children's museum. The old Animation sector near the old buble lounge where the air was full of as much soap as it was carbon-dioxide. I hear they're moving the Children's museum somewhere else, but where?
Posted by jruss at October 2, 2004 07:34 PMOh man! I remember the hot chocolate and tortillas!!!!! That was fucking awesome. Haven't been there in such a long time. I imagine the bat cave isn't quite the same, nor are the mazes or the aztec temple, but that was one hell of a place.
Posted by: DHI at October 2, 2004 08:11 PMAnd also that was where I first found out why they were called "tortilla chips".
Where can you get Mexican hot chocolate these days?
Posted by: DHI at October 2, 2004 08:12 PMI remember once I got the bubble in the bubble room all the way over my head and it stayed for what I thought was 30 seconds, that was fucking awesome.
Posted by: DHI at October 2, 2004 08:13 PMI could go on like this forever but I'm hungry.
Posted by: DHI at October 2, 2004 08:17 PMThey're moving it someplace downtown that no one will ever go to because it's downtown but it's not opening till 2008 so an entire generation of kids will not know what it's like to get lost in the weird suffocating tunnel thing under the fire station and get really claustrophobic.
Posted by: thompson at October 2, 2004 09:10 PMYeah, there's so much to say about the children's museum. like section by section, I could go on and on. I wanted to mention that live fucking goat they had in the part that was like a Mayan temple, that sandy fucker, there was a live goat. Live fucking goat.
Posted by: JRuss at October 2, 2004 09:48 PMword, man.
i almost didn't see this entry, but i'm glad i found it, this thing jarred some memories.
tenley art-o-matic will always hold a special place in my heart. twas the joint we would walk up to from austin's house in the bitter cold and chill out in the art exhibit that was actually an easy chair in a small room, with a sharpee and a blank wall-- yes, we contributed to some art that day. it was right next to the "20 years of dischord" wall, but that was before i gave a fuck. i just remember a bunch of records on the motherfuckin wall.
childrens museum? shit- that place could take a lot of the credit for whatever filmmaking skill i have. their claymation camps got me started back in grade 4. those fireman tunnels were my favorite exhibit, yea, and i was always terrified by the "dia de los muertos" room, with the glass-bound skeleton. Is it just me, or was that museum disproportionately Mexico-centric?
Whatever it was, i'll be happy to get back there for art o matic when I am in town... i wonder if any of the old shit is still there... the front-of-metrobus, the weird room with the phone booths that nobody ever wanted to go to but was a necessary midway point between the looney tunes district and the tortilla woman... i think somebody told me they were moving it to dupont? am i pulling this out my ass?
Posted by: sw at October 4, 2004 12:38 AMNo, I believe that is correct. Douche-pont Circle will be the new location.
Posted by: Cortez at October 5, 2004 06:45 PMhttp://www.cocaineinmotion.com/diblog/archives/000809.html
Note that I mentioned the tortilla chips long before you.
Posted by: DHI at October 7, 2004 05:47 PMGeben mir bitte eine http://monika-levinsky776.com/ Brotchenawq
Posted by: Johny Bravoawq at August 17, 2006 02:18 PM