Hot Wheels taught me how to file

Hot Wheels cars played a formative role in my life, along with Matchbox cars, their more sedate cousins. It was not just the pure "play" that made Hot Wheels so important: it was the way I learned to think about cars as objects of design and of culture, and the way I learned to think about any type of human-made thing as something that could be categorized and fetishized. I organized my Hot Wheels in their Hot Wheels carrying case (I kept the Matchbox cars in a Matchbox carrying case) and then reorganized them again and again, by genus and species: color, vehicle type, stock or custom, purpose, speed etc. In short, I thought of my Hot Wheels as a "collection" and I was its "curator" (both museum-centered terms I only learned later). And I came to appreciate the dichotomy between honoring fidelity to an "original" and honoring artistry and imagination. As an adult I am a collector of objects that are unaltered multiples, just like "stock" Hot Wheels cars (i.e. Bakelite radios, automotive brochures) and objects that are unique, like Chuck Barris' fanciful designs (i.e. contemporary art, unique taxidermy). And I am an inveterate filer and categorical organizer. Hot Wheels is are behind all of this.