Category Archives: artomatic

Ray's Hell Burger

I was both relieved and disappointed that my lunch meeting at Ray’s Hell Burger got postponed at the last minute on the same day the President and his Trusty Sidekick decided to drop by for lunch. The Daily Show coverage of the coverage is pretty funny:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M – Th 11p / 10c
Where’s the Chief?
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Economic Crisis Political Humor

The segment about Nixon and the burrito is funnier. Glad I realized they’re broken up into separate clips.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M – Th 11p / 10c
Nixon Has a Burrito
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Economic Crisis Political Humor

Samer, reports that the line tonight is outrageously long and snakes all the way out the door. No surprise there. Not bad for a place with an unofficial name and no sign out front. (Is there a sign out front? There didn’t used to be).

In unrelated news, if my phone rings one more time tonight I swear to god I’m going to smash it with a hammer. I’ve turned the ringer off my cellphone but I’m going to have to unplug the landline, too. It’s really the calls coming in on my call-waiting that drove me over the edge. Why do people call 4 or 5 times before they leave a message? If I can’t take your call, I can’t take your call. That’s why I have fucking voicemail. I figured out how to turn call waiting off on my cellphone and I believe that alone lowered my bloodpressure back down to it’s normal sluggish levels.

Return of the Fish

Wednesday’s Reliable Source contained two of my favorite artsy things – Artomatic and Thomas Edwards and his diabolically amusing electronic art pieces.

Seems Lenny Campello was watching TV recently and caught a McDonald’s ad featuring a wall-mounted fish singing to a man trying to eat a fish sandwich. Campello noted the similarities to a piece Thomas did 5 years ago.

Edwards’s work, a hit at the local 2004 Artomatic show, portrayed a school of flapping, mechanical fish, each turning to the viewer to gasp, “They’re eating my eggs!” or “I can’t breathe air!” or “Please let me die.” Coincidence? “Mickey D’s needs to get in touch with him soon,” Campello wrote on his DCArtNews blog.

“There are definitely similar themes,” Edwards agreed. But he added: “I am not the first person to hack a Big Mouth Billy Bass.” Though “I’m probably the first person to hack seven at a time in one coherent artwork.”

You can see “School of Fish Pain” in action here and read all about it’s creation.

Here’s the McDonald’s ad. Frankly, if I was ever going to eat a filet-o-fish, this might dissuade me. Kinda creepy.

Maybe not as weird as the official McDonald’s line dance they tried to role out in 1996, but still pretty awkward and unpleasant.

Onward and upward with the arts

Lots of other arty things were happening during this, the first weekend of Spring – although Artomatic registration is not open yet.

I’m a bit cantankerous because I want to start recording the soundtrack for a potential installation and a major construction project sprang up 200 yards from our recording space. Pile-driving and sound recording are not the very best of friends. We have a little time, but this kind of installation requires a lot of planning and construction that can’t be done at the last minute.

Did I mention that Artomatic registration is not open yet? It’s not.

David Fogel’s 88 hosted the 4 day Forward Festival at various locations. Artery 717 opened “Private Arts” a new show of work by 40 local designers showing off the art they create after their design clients go home. Anna U Davis closed out her show at Long View Gallery. Artomatic registration did not open, although Sean Welker opened a new show at R. Coury Fine Art Gallery in Savage, Maryland. Transformer Gallery opened Fabrication of Blindness/Fabricating Rain, an intriguing looking show. There is/was a whole bunch of music stuff going on this weekend that I’m too tired to blog about, but luckily dcist has a roundup.

We were going to go to many of these things – instead we stopped at Artery 717 and said hello and then drove by BeBar for X in DC, but by then I was too tired to get out of the car – let alone go inside – so we went home. It is indeed a life glamorous and exotic.

In far more important news, the pattern for the cables on the cute little ballerina sweater from Glampyre Stefanie Japel’s Fitted Knits are totally fucked up. The sweater looked wrong because it was wrong. If I’d just looked up the errata to the pattern to begin with I would have figured out why much sooner. It’s an eyecatching cable and the mistake is centered right at breast level – you’d think someone would have caught that before the book went to print. I’m just grumbling because I don’t feel well and I hope this would be a quick and easy project, not one I had to rip out and redo repeatedly. It’s a beautiful sweater and I love her designs.

And, of course, yesterday was National Corndog Day, as you may have read in the accidentally epic meatblog post, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Corndogs.” You can go read that while you wait for Artomatic registration to start – if you’re on the mailing list you’ll be the first to know when it opens.