Get out your big red sharpies and mark the calander, JuxtaExposed.com made it’s first appearance in a major newspaper today. I am of course talking about none other than Washington DC’s own Express, the free daily newspaper paper that brings joy to the hearts of many a weary commuter morning after morning.
   
My pondering of the cultural insensitivies of Sumo fat suit wrestling made it into the “Blog Log” in Tuesday morning’s publication (thank you Jenn for the heads up). My ultra-scientic calculations lead me to believe that because this was so far near the back of the paper (page 32 of 35) that only commuters with a 35 min+ Metro ride would have gotten far enough into the paper to get to the Blog Log. However, with over 700,000 riders on the Metro everyday that has to mean that at least a couple thousand people got far enough (or started reading at the back perhaps) to see the JuxtaExposed reference. That is pretty cool.
   
Here is a photo I snapped of the Blog Log…because I’m a dork.

   
The NoMA BID and Artomatic hosted the “Blank Canvas” Media preview of the new space for Artomotic 2008 yesterday, and I, as an esteemed member of the media, was able to get a sneak peek of the space. Artomatic will be taking up 8 entire floors of the new Capital Plaza building at the corner of 1st St. and M St. NE. From the press release Artomatic is billed as “a creative community that collaborates to produce and present a free arts spectacular.” 2008 will be the 6th installment of Artomatic since it was started back in 1999 and displayed at the historic Manhattan Laundry buildings on Florida Ave NW.
   
Artomatic has grown steadily from then and has gained significant media and artistic community attention. The event will run from May 9th to June 15th and over 50,000 visitors are expected. Of the 1,000 artist spaces available to register over 600 visual artists, 80 performance artists, and 80 bands have signed up. The growth of Artomatic has this year attracted bands from as far away and NY and Texas. It should be quite a spectacular event, but of course the main reason you should attend is to see my photography exhibit (and then purchase the prints). Also, they are going to have an “interactive” tattoo exhibit if you are in the market to get some ink done.
   
The “Blank Canvas” event gave me the opportunity to scope out the raw space, appreciate the tremendous views from the 12th floor, and take a look at the cute little model they had of a typical floor plate. The friendly folks from DC On The Fly were at the event to provide refreshments; I had some turkey chili that was spectacular. These are the guys with the funny little green electric vending carts that have begun popping up around the city.
   
As a start of the “Blank Canvas” event they had a litteral blank canvas available for visitors to do some painting on. Here is one of my masterpieces and here the other.
   
I am greatly looking forward to this event.

I found my favorite new piece of graffiti (a scribbley tag, really) this morning: “YOUR SALARY MEANS NOTHING”. This is on the top of a building in Woodley Park on Connecticut Ave. I can’t imagine that it will last very long up on the face of this building but it made it through the day so that made me happy. I enjoy “public service messages” aimed at making people think a little bit. They snap you out of your daily zone for just a moment.
   
I’ve come across a few similar messages scrawled around DC that I thought were worth snapping a photo. On an overpass near the Kennedy Center we found “THE BUBBLE WILL BURST”. I found “Save Our City” with a nice rendition of the DC flag. This freshly painted white wall that used to display a fun and colorful mural off of 18th St. in Adams Morgan asks “Where’s the ART?”. These messages don’t have a “style” per se so it is tough to tell if they are from the same hand but they help to add some interesting character to the daily urban fabric. Of course I’d never support the destruction of O.P.P (Property, that is).

Cakelove is awesome.

That is all.

Oh, and you get a free cupcake on your birthday (with proper ID, no scamming!), which is extra-awesome.