Daddy Types: May 2007 Archives

May 2007 Archives

May 31, 2007

Chef Robuchon Beanie Baby Almost Done

With just over five hours to go before the auction ends, this Chef Robuchon Beanie Baby bear is clocking in at $1,625. According to Jennifer the Snackologist who posted about them last year, Ty made just 200 of these...
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From The Sweet Sweet Cradles Of Mrs Nanna D.Itzel

So I'm searching through the forums at Design Addict for something else, when I come across a discussion about collectors' greatest finds. Way down the page, below the heated discussion about the ethics of stealing a Ronald-colored Saarinen chair from...
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Missouri Toddler: 'I Will Tap Dance On Your Mandala, Buddha!'

Tibetan Buddhist monks create their elaborate mandala paintings out of sand to symbolize the impermanence of all things. After days of painstaking work, the monks destroy the mandala and release its sand into the nearest body of water as...
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May 30, 2007

Combi Transition High Chair: Kids Table In Disguise

This turned up during my toxic car seat search for Combi Mango the other day, though the Mango color is apparently discontinued. It's a wild-looking high chair that comes apart and transforms into a play table and chair combo,...
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Better Homes & Gardens For Dolls, Circa 1972

Hey-o, a fantastically mod doll house--with a floating fireplace, no less--that you make yourself with tinted and transparent acrylic, balsa wood, an ice cream carton lid, and some blocks? Damn right it's better. You know what'd be even better,...
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Oh, Don't Mind Hari & Parker, They're Just Hanging Out. And Watching You.

What's that, you didn't get the memo that it's Onkar Singh Kular Week here at Daddy Types? Don't sweat it, neither did I. image via wmmna Truth be told, it was the adorable little eyes of Hari & Parker peeking...
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RUN! HIDE! JPMA Says Toxic Car Seats Are No Problem!

When I first saw the reports a couple of weeks ago of some hippie treehugger study that found significant levels of toxic, even carcinogenic, chemicals like lead, chlorine, and bromine in a whole range of car seats, I was like,...
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Jack The Dripper & World Cup Rattle: PSP Toy Concepts By Onkar Singh Kular

Last summer, Royal College of Art research fellow Onkar Singh Kular exhibited two proposals for PSP video games and tie-in merchandise at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London. For The End Of The Road, a driving game where "players...
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On Sushi, Mercedes-Benzes & The South

So yesterday, while setting up for the kid's pre-school year-end pajama picnic [where the kid ate sushi and edamame with chopsticks, btw, a bit show offy, I admit], I moved a fellow parent's Volvo XC70. Smooth. And such a tiny...
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Fighting The Kids Menu Industrial Complex

From the NY Times:I came to the realization that America is in the grips of a nefarious chicken-finger pandemic, in which a blandly tasty foodstuff has somehow become the de facto official nibble of our young. ... ConAgra manufactures a...
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WonderWood, WonderWood, We're On Our Way

If your summer travel plans take you to Amsterdam, you may want to schedule a trip to WonderWood, a veritable temple to plywood and wooden modernist design. The incredible, little, 1950's children's bucket chair made of molded ply with...
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May 29, 2007

Lil Black Malfi

So Mark2000's post, "What's Wrong With Smiling Malfi?" shows up in my reader, and I'm thinking, "Uh-oh, another kid found out why Malfi's are sold to adults, because that cushy soft naugahyde isn't chew-proof." But no [well, yeah, there...
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Graco, You Wanna Take This Outside?

Happy freakin' Father's Day to you, too, Graco. Oh, and you're welcome. My dad asked me what kind of portable crib he should get for the beach [our kid sleeps in her own bed, but my sister's 1.5yo needed a...
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Stone Cold Derek Lindsay Stars In Disorderly Conduct 41: Big Mac Attack

The 4-plex at the beach this weekend was showing Spiderman 3, Pirates 3, Shrek 3, and something else I forget, and I'm thinking, how can a summer movie season filled with repetitive, mindless, hypercommercialized, in-your-face sequels ever be entertaining?...
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Pepsi Generation One Kid Shy Of A Six-Pack

Here's the tip for all you National Zoo visitors out there: if you don't want me to criticize you for turning your entire brood of small children into walking billboards for the noxious corn syrup-and-caffeine-filled junk food that's going...
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Cold, Smelly Fusion: Diapers As Fuel In Japan

Treehugger links to what sounds like a non-story on DigInfo, a Japanese independent news video service. The headline: a Japanese company called Super Faiths has developed a technology for burning disposable diapers as fuel! Before you get your kid's...
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Whew, I'm Not Crazy. Pancake Mountain IS The Best Kids Music TV Show Ever.

I don't know much, but I know what I like, and I don't care what you think, which, when it comes to kids, really makes a mess of the whole idea of transmitting musical taste. Still, Roger Moore's excellent...
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May 28, 2007

The Wrong Store, Wrong Artist & Wrong Toy Car

One of the "you had to be there" events during New York Design Week last week was the opening party for The Wrong Store, a closed up, curated display window/concept store which was inspired by Maurizio Cattelan & co's...
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Kid-Sized Molded Ply Chair By Gerald Summers [Yes, That Gerald Summers. No, Not That Chair.]

Gerald Summers was one of my first great modern design epiphanies, and my first big disappointment. When the groundbreaking exhibition, "Design 1935-1965: What Modern Was" came out in 1991, I discovered Summers' stunning armchair in the catalogue [which got...
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KidsModern@ICFF: The Show That Keeps On Giving

Just when I thought I'd seen everything, Susanne from KidsModern surprised me with a couple of great finds at ICFF. She just posted a photo of Indiana-based Inmodern's upcoming Ecotots collection: a little slot-together table of FSC-certified, formaldehyde-free laminate. There's...
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May 25, 2007

Daddy's Not Typing For A Few Days

Daddy Types, Daddy Packs, Daddy Eats Popsicle At Kid's Pre-school Class Party, Daddy Drives To North Carolina. We're heading out for the weekend, and early reports from the Outer Banks reveal that none of the neighbors have their WiFi set...
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Vegan Cupcakes Solve Like Five Parenting Problems At Once

What if you had the key to perfect parenting, idyllic childhoods, world peace and the end of industrialized corporate farming right in the sidebar of your blog? Because there's a whole category of Vegan Cupcake links on the award-winning...
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Bollx! Brit Gov Docs Nix Preg Drinks

The "just a glass of wine with dinner" and "me mum said somedays, the only thing she could keep down was a Guiness" crowds just got a little thinner today. The UK government just changed their official recommendation about drinking...
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So Chicks DO Skate. In Germany. On The Mama Board.

A bit of friendly, unsolicited advice to the makers of the Mama Board: If you're gonna go and do something as awesome as engineering and manufacturing and marketing a skateboard that can latch onto a stroller, DON'T give it...
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Sick Photoshopped Children's Book Covers

It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while, I kind of wish we were all a bunch of sick, high, funny, dorks with mad Photoshopping skillz and too much time on our hands. Scrolling through these wildly inappropriate...
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May 24, 2007

Road Trip! Rainbow Valley Mall Playground By Friends With You

So apparently, last December while I was busy staring at Skywalkers, their insane beachfront art blimp parade in Miami Beach, the art/toy/play collective Friends With You was busy opening Rainbow Valley, their first indoor playground--right in front of Sears...
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Maurice Sendak Watches The Learning Channel

NOW I remember why I had this Maurice Sendak interview sitting open in my browser tabs for three days. I guess when I said Sendak was weird, I meant perceptive, while simultaneously making me realize how weird I am. Because...
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Actually, I Would've Expected A Stokke

Dateline, SEATTLE: Shouldn't there be an adapter for this? This is What We've Become: Woman Pushes Baby on Segway [gizmodo via dt reader antoine]...
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Have You Seen Me? E-27 Re-Serve High Chair Still Being Sold From Renderings

I just noticed that the UK baby gear store Tiny Dodo is selling the cool but seemingly mythical Re-Serve high chair by Berlin-based design studio, e27. The powder-coated steel high chair has a removable 600d nylon seat cushion [isn't...
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Mmmm, MB C63 AMG Wagon Spy Shots Make Daddy Smile, Too

September in Frankfurt, anyone?Mercedes’ new-generation C-Class will be available in C 63 AMG guise with the firm’s sophisticated 6.3-litre V8, capable of pumping a massive 520 bhp but likely to be tamed to around 400 to 420 bhp for...
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Maurice Sendak On The Revolutionary Nature Of The Carrot Seed

Having this library copy of The Carrot Seed in the house got me to digging for more Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson titles. Maurice Sendak gets a big shoutout on the dustjacket, too, and it turns out Sendak illustrated...
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The Thilde Pocket: Saddlebags For A Crib

So Pia Eriksson's idea for designing the Thilde Pocket was to buy her and her baby daddy some more time in the morning, by giving the kid [Thilde, obviously] something to entertain herself with. See, it just velcros over...
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Fire Chief Car In A Box, Baby! Pristine Creative Playthings Fire Chief Car On eBay

Christmas: chief in a box Hanukkah: chief in a box Kwanzaa: a chief in a box Birthday party in the Fifties that someone ended up skipping, and so the present went undelivered and was stored in a cool, dry place...
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Vintage Swedish Play Screen By Stephan Gip, c.1970

Wait, you mean the Stephan Gip? The guy who designed the original trapezoidal high chair that has been knocked off and sold to every sitdown restaurant in the Western Hemisphere, that Stephan Gip? Yep....
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May 23, 2007

CPSC Henhouse In Need Of New Fox As Baroody Withdraws Nomination

Michael Baroody, VP for the National Association of Manufacturers, has withdrawn his nomination for Chairman of the Consumer Products Safety Commission after it was clear that he would not have enough votes to be confirmed. A similarly conflicted and unpopular...
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Dost Thou So Hunger For This Sirch Ply High Chair? Yea, My Liege

How many thousands of my designblogger subjects Were at this ICFF asleep! One and that Canadian saw this seat of yours, And they hath brought us smooth and welcome news. Why rather, Sirch, than relying on smoky cribs, Or upon...
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ICFF Linkbait: MocoLoco Kids Roundup

MocoLoco has a nice roundup of kid-related design from this year's ICFF. There are nice shots of the HiLo high chair, and more shots of the YiAhn bassinet, too. Also, bunk beds. Lots of bunk beds. Nurseryworks and Argington are...
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"A Count of 10": Psychedelic Henson You CAN Show The Kid

I knew I'd seen that trippy rubber band mouth guy somewhere before. He was counting archaic, computer animated blobs on Sesame Street. Also, his name is Nobody. whoa. A Count of 10 [youtube] Also: 4 Related: Scanimate [scanimate.net]...
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Jim Henson? Crazy, And Thank Heavens For It

No word on whether he was vegan, but the evidence is incontrovertible: Jim Henson was crazy. A crazy genius. Who else would go on The Johnny Carson show with three rubber bands, a roll of Saranwrap, a slide projector, and...
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May 22, 2007

Bitter? I Hardly Knew Her. DesignUberBlogger Says 'Sorry, You Misunderstood.'

Note to self: if you've just cleared 500 B&W press kit photos of designers in way too serious poses from your gmail, take the kid to the park and clear your head before visiting any designblogs. Alissa at Unbeige felt...
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Tour De Form: Alfred Mahlau's 500-pc Wooden Hamburg Harbor Playset

Unglaublicht. If you haven't clicked through to the pictures in that 1964 Form Magazine article about toy design yet, get going. We'll wait. ... ... OK, So now you've seen that there is no more over-the-top wooden toy in the...
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Whoa. UglyQuilt

So David Horvath and Sun-Min are having a kid, and the folks running the Ugly Doll business figure they oughta get them something nice. Or maybe make something. Like, say, an Ugly Doll quilt??? Holy smokes, that is awesome....
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F Is For Fabulous: Vintage Wooden Sand Train By F. Linau, Hamburg

In 1964, Lieselotte Pee, the noted play and pedagogy expert and member of the Arbeitsausschusses Gutes Spielzeug [Good Toys Working Commitee], wrote an extensive article for Form Magazine about the state of toys and design. I have no idea what...
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Happy Shiny Vegans Having Fun Without Cupcakes

Before anyone else falls for that handmaiden of the Farmer's Market Industrial Complex, Nina Planck claptrap about how vegan is no way to have a baby or raise a kid, have a watch of this documentary from Current TV....
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Sweet Creative Playthings Playsets O'The World On eBay

Anal retentive parents of 1975 who made your kids keep track of all their toys and store them in the original boxes, we salute you. Three Creative Playthings People 'N Places playsets hit the eBay the other day; in...
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What Would Spoiler T-Shirts For Kids Look Like?

Oliver Moss's new t-shirt design, Spoilt, just debuted on Threadless, and it's awesome. It contains a whole slew of movie spoilers [which map pretty closely to the text-only Spoiler tees from Theater Hopper, but Moss adds some graphical touches,...
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May 21, 2007

Why Are All The Crazy Parents Vegan?

If 2006 was the peak year for meat-eating meatheads to leave their kids with the valet parking guy, I really hope 2004 was the high watermark for vegan parenting stupidity. That's the year Coney Island vegan dad Raphael Spindell kidnapped...
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Design-Curious Bloggers Pushing Strollers Flee As ICFF Opens To "Public"

Here's how Unbeige--which, though I read it regularly, I never realized is THE EPICENTER OF THE DESIGN UNIVERSE--opens their blog roundup from ICFFOn the last day before the ICFF floor was opened to the public, bloggers rushed to cover the...
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Another Entry In The Sad-Funny Clown Lit Canon

I've never been able to look at party clowns the same way since reading Gene Weingarten's long, too-revealing, can't-look-away article about The Great Zucchini in the Washington Post. Fortunately, Bill Goodwin's first-person tale of birthday party clowndom is more self-aware...
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YiAhn Bassinet @ICFF: Toy Box In Disguise

For most folks, a high-priced, high-design, purpose-built bassinet with a useful life of a few months just doesn't make sense. If you're gonna drop a few hundred dollars or more on a sleek bassinet, it had better keep earning...
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The Kid Gets Library Card, Signs Name, Holy Crap

We've been reading a lot of Thank You Bear the last couple of weeks, and I have to say, it's just great. It's beautiful, it feels great to read it, and the kid loves it. The MBA in me...
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Euro II High Chair: Because There's No "A" In Tripp Trapp. Oh Wait...

There are quite a few high chairs out there that are inspired by the Stokke Tripp Trapp. After all, it's been around since the early 70's; half the high chair designers in Europe probably sat in Tripp Trapps when...
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May 20, 2007

And Povl Kjaer’s Rockingsheep Is Not Like Taxidermy Because....

This has been on a few blogs, and I just got an email about it, too, from DT reader/ICFF scout Ed [who, for the record, is not the same "ed." who comments on the comments]. Povl Kjær's Rockingsheep is...
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ICFFSpotting: Hot Cot At Notcot, Nume Design, And More

The online galleries are starting to fill up with design eye candy from the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in NYC this weekend. There are a few baby- and kid-related snaps in NotCot's first upload: At first I was distracted by...
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The Pierre, 2 East 61st St at Fifth Avenue - NO

The restroom under the stairs in The Rotunda has plenty of room, but no changing table. Worst case, I'd use one of the benches along the hallway to the Fifth Avenue entrance. It's pretty low-traffic. see the whole Daddy Types...
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QT Hotel, 160 West 45th St [Between 6th & 7th Ave.] - NO

The bathrooms on the 2nd floor, up the stairs or elevators to the right, have room, but no changing table. Try the pool deck and/or if it's not crowded, a banquette in the lounge....
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Daddy Types: Please Feed The Advertisers

The sun is out. At the zoo, the sloth bears pace back and forth entertainingly; the otters frolic before the glass. And in the sidebar to the right, Daddy Types advertisers ply us with their adorable tricks and stand ready...
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May 19, 2007

Nintendo Baby Rattle

I gotta say, I'd like this Nintendo Controller baby rattle more if it was on etsy, not craftser. Until I can buy one in ten seconds, it's just sewing machine people rubbing it in my face, and that gets...
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Sir Ken Robinson At TED2006: "Gillian Isn't Sick, She's A Dancer."

Let me preface this by saying I haven't ever seen Cats or Phantom, but I'm sick of them. And even I was choked up when I watched this. The British education expert Sir Ken Robinson spoke at TED last year...
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May 18, 2007

ICFFWatch: Offi Lays An Ovum Bassinet

Has it been a year already? Designer Heidi Newell showed off the prototype of her Shaker box-inspired, molded birch ply bassinet last year in Offi's booth at ICFF. Since then, though, it's been as silent as a singles bar...
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Consumer Reports: Car Seat Handle Standards Need To Be Recalled

So yeah, all that stuff about how the Evenflo Embrace-n-Dump car seat recall was only the latest in a 10-year string of recalls for the exact same problem, and no one's really noticed or done anything about it, and...
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Bugaboo Bee-utiful: The Daddy Types Sneak Preview

So I was having breakfast the other morning with DT reader Max, who was in town for work. And as we're eating bagels in the sligthly humid hotel lobby that smells a bit like a swimming pool--because there turns out...
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I Have One Word For You: Crawligators

Another one of them Crawligator baby skateboards from Creative Playthings just turned up on eBay, box and all. If it goes for as much as the last one did, I think we all need to get into the Crawligator racket....
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Baby Soothing Tips From Dr. Harvey Karp, Esquire

Magazines drive me crazy with their boil-it-down oversimplification and poppy listicle infographic entry points and the utter subjugation of actual, actionable content to the "overall" reading experience, which is actually about their advertisers, not you [1]. The tagline Esquire magazine...
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May 17, 2007

Vintage Nesting Boxes By ADO Speelgoed

One of DT's contributors, Andy Beach, has been going crazy with his own new blog the last few weeks, Reference Library; it's so sweet, I don't mind a bit that he's diverting most of his vintage toy and eBay...
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KajaGama-GooGoo! Gama-Goo Kidwear Now Good To Go

Remember how, a couple of weeks back, Gama-Go was selling those unique, kid-sized blankets made out of irregular Tim Biskup art-decorated t-shirts? And remember how there were hints of some kind of kid-sized Biskup-y Gama-Goodness coming down the pike?...
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Hey-o! Nomads And Nomadic Friends In NY Mag

So I'm clicking through NY Magazine's Home Design issue, The Next ____, and what do I find, right there near the end of the The Next Everything slideshow? "FURNITURE IS THE NEXT KNITTING Vintage copy of early-seventies DIY manual Nomadic...
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Diapers Don't Biodegrade? BioUPgrade By Making A Rooftop Diaper Herb Garden!

The environmental impact of disposable diapers got you down? Which depresses you more? Their non-biodegradability, landfill fillability, non-compostability, non-recyclability, or their weird, chemically enabled absorbability? Well, cheer up, it's spring! The time of year when unpronounceable Dutch design firms...
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May 16, 2007

Euuhhhrrr... Plastic Flower Cradle By Philippe Pradalie

I guess if it was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius or whatever, then where else would you put your Parisian love child, but in an injection-molded plastic cradle shaped like a tulip? It's as if the subtitle...
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How About "Pennsylvania Dutch"? Mia Moda Terra Gets The Thingamababy Workout

image: thingamababy Wow. Over on Thingamababy, AJ does a comprehensive review of the Mia Moda Terra stroller, the four-wheel model from the new "Euro-Style" stroller company I mentioned here a little while ago. In the intervening weeks, Mia Moda...
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Elmer The Patchwork Built-In Storage Unit

I had no idea Elmer even existed before the kid got a book and a stuffed animal as a newborn gift, so it's a little weird to grasp that the patchwork elephant actually came out, so to speak, in...
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I [Heart] Milton Glaser's MoMA Cube Puzzle

In 1971, after he had finished founding New York magazine and before he created the "I [Heart] N Y" logo, Milton Glaser designed Puzzle Cube, a set of 64 op arty, acrylic blocks, as a "Museum of Modern Art...
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Who Does Number Two Work For? CPSC Nominee Gets Severance Bonus From Manufacturers

How synergytastic! Michael Baroody is leaving his job as the #2 lobbyist for the National Association of Manufacturers to head the government agency which regulates his clients, the Consumer Product Safety Commission. And just to show there's no hard feelings,...
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Ellen DeGeneres Induces...Mayhem! By Giving Away 300 Bugaboos?

Let me lift the burden of uncertainty from your lives right now: you will never need to wonder, as Kerrie did in an email yesterday, "Did you see Ellen on [DAY OF WEEK OR REALLY, ANY MOMENT IN TIME BETWEEN...
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May 15, 2007

Hip Hop Harry: Menace II II-yo Society

Holy Moses, what message are we sending to our kids when Tupac's dead, 50 Cent has been shot five dozen times, and yet Hip Hop Harry walks the streets unmolested? I won't be satisfied until this annoying, money-grubbing, toddler-brainwashing...
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Tips For Travel With Kids, Nos. 1, 10 & 495

NOTE: unless you can't read, there is no reason for you to click on either of these videos. You hear me? NO reason. at. all. 495] Hold the damn kid's damn hand, dammit. That's why they call it Times Square,...
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Studio: Slot-Together Plywood Art By Tobias Putrih

I love Studio, the new furniture-like sculpture installation by Slovenian New York artist Tobias Putrih even more than the last work of his I saw, and I loved those pieces a lot. In 2005, Putrih's geologically inspired columns of...
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Babies R Us R So Stokked!

Look who I saw in the window of the Union Square flagship of Babies R Us this morning? It's Norway's favorite stroller for keeping your kid up above the dirty streets and exhaust pipes and closer to you: the...
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Daddymade Newborn Toy Kits

I would imagine if you're running a handcrafted wooden toy company in a fully developed, expensive country like Germany, you constantly feel pressure from low-cost factories in China or Vietnam or Romania or wherever. What's the logical strategic response?...
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May 14, 2007

Paper Or Plastic?

This is what I was planning to post about when I got sidetracked with the Grand Pronouncement. One other thing that's appealing about rooting around in the so-not-musty online archives of design magazines is the sense of control and...
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Regarding What's Up With The Vintage?

A couple of folks have emailed wondering about my "obsession" lately with posting random vintage stuff. I guess I'd be making more Amazon Nickels if I just posted about New! Exciting! Must-Have! baby gear all day. Obviously, we're living in...
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The Raleigh Dreamline RD2 Pushchair

I've placed information vital to the survival of the memory of this RD2 unit into this blog so fathers will know how to retrieve it. You must see this stroller delivered and realize it's an older one. This was Raleigh's...
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May 13, 2007

Borge Lindau & Lindekrantz Are Dead? Why Can't I Find Out Anything About Their Joker Furniture?

When I first discovered Joker, the sweet, knock-together series of children's play furniture by the Swedish designers Borge Lindau and Bo Lindekrantz, in the exhibition catalogue for Vitra's kidgear show, Kid Size, I was intrigued. When I tried to...
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Some Joker Drives A Maclaren

I tell you, Maclaren's getting their money's worth from that new logo they came up with. Subtle, but not invisible. TMZ, meanwhile, could spend a nickel and hire a freakin' caption writer who does more than string stale movie...
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May 12, 2007

Names That Anticipate Your Kid's Google Search Results

This Wall Street Journal article about naming your kid so she rises to the top of her vanity search results is quaint, and even though the strategy strikes me now as a bit limited, that doesn't mean we didn't do...
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Heckuva Job, CPSC: 12 Million Car Seats Recalled For Baby Catapulting Since 1997

somehow not recalled for ugliness DT reader Throkky pointed out "the most sad/hilarious part" of the Evenflo Embrace 'N Dump car seat recall: It's actually Evenflo's third recall for the exact same problem. It gets sadder and hilariouser, though....
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May 11, 2007

The Father, The Kid & The Holy Spirit

I took the kid to the press preview of Wolfgang Tillmans' retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum the other morning; she's really good at openings and stuff, always has been. But we got there while the curators were addressing the audience...
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1996: The Glorious, Play-Filled Future Of Air Travel With Kids

Because it can be hard for everyone--kids, parents, other passengers, and flight personnel--when kids get antsy on a long plane ride, why not create a special child-care section separate from the main passenger cabin? Spaces for play, rest, quiet activity,...
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Congratulations, You're Our 679th Faller! Evenflo Recalls Concussion-Prone Car Seats

The CPSC, NHSTA, and Evenflo have announced the recall of 450,000 Evenflo Embrace car seats because when the seat is used as an infant carrier, the handle can unexpectedly release, rotate the seat forward, and dump the kid on...
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May 10, 2007

Das Ist How We Roll: c.1967 Proto-Travel System

Yeah, I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of vintage Form Magazine posts the next little while. You have been warned. In 1967 at the Montreal World Expo, three students from the Folkwangschule für Gestaltung [Folkwang...
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Form Magazine Archives: 50 Jahren Of Awesome KidMod Design

Ausgezeichnet! Ten minutes surfing through the 50 year-archive that Form, the Swiss-German design magazine, just put online, and already I feel like Homer Simpson at the candy convention. My raincoat's stuffed full, and instead of one, there are like...
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Type 52: The Baby Bugatti

Allan Stone Gallery is an old school, but low key institution on Upper East Side, which began showing works by such emerging New York artists as Willem deKooning, Andy Warhol, and Eva Hesse. One of the gallery program's unifying...
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DIY Pointer Sisters Pinball Clock From Sesame Street

If you're planning an old school Sesame Street disco pinball machine/Pointer Sisters theme for the kid's nursery--and who isn't? look at all the possibilities down there--brother, has Thydzik got the DIY clock tutorial for you. [There are even cleaned...
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May 9, 2007

Only Men Who Drive Station Wagons Are Man Enough To Ignore This 5-Second Rule Study

A new Clemson University study finds that the five-second rule only applies when you can be sure the floor you dropped the food onto is free of salmonella or E. Coli contamination. The New York Times reports that 5-second rule-ology...
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Sesame Street Fighter: Oscar V. Barney

Your pervasive merchandising drives me crazy, and deep down, I really suspect one of your meta-missions is to help kids develop the skills required to have a deep, personal, lifelong relationship with television itself. But when Oscar makes totally...
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Increased Down Syndrome Testing Prompts Grass Roots Campaign By DS Parents

There's a fascinating article in the NY Times today about Down Syndrome screening, and a couple of must-see videos, too. When the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists officially recommended the newer, much less risky prenatal screening be offered...
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You Want To Take This Outside, Errol?

Now normally, I got no truck with Errol Morris. Just the opposite, I'm one of his more ardent admirers. Thin Blue Line made me want to become a filmmaker. I've interviewed him and learned at his knee. And when his...
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TVisqatsi, Or The Preponderance of Evidence

Before you even ask, the answer is, "No, there IS no ominous Philip Glass score that filmmaker Godfrey Reggio won't lay on top of a wordless montage of over-extended, over-aestheticized, over-seductive pseudo-critiques of our over-industrialized, over-mediated, over-networked society." For...
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May 8, 2007

Plush Sperm Produced By Hand

If you had gone to the Vinyl Toys Network Event in Pasadena last weekend, you could have gotten one of these "special release," made-by-hand jobs from Long Beach plush artist Shane Geil. Apparently, it was a happy ending for...
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The IKEA Diaper Baghack

I just heard today from diaperbagmaker to the stars Mia Bossi that blue is the new black: “We know blue is going to be a big color this fall, so we wanted to incorporate it into the line—but also...
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Veggie Booty Maki

+ Posting might be a little light around here this week. Or late. My wife's gone to a conference in LA, so I'm soloing with the kid. Since we just got back in town, too, we haven't been to...
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Fine Doll Art By Debra Lynn

Fine Doll Artist Debra Lynn:I am driven by my imagination and want my work to express whimsical character, personality and emotion. I use only the finest materials, new and vintage fabrics, angora mohair and crystal eyes. All details are...
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Aston Martin Junior V8 Volante

I've had this open on my desktop for days now, not posting it, but I guess I'd better put it up here, just in case you're the knucklehead who's going to buy it. "It" is a 1989 Aston Martin...
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May 7, 2007

Selections For The Expectant Furniture Collector

If you're a furniture junkie--or just a design aficionado with a kid on the way, trying to figure out the best way to invest all six figures in the nursery, the auctions the next couple of weeks have a...
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Bra Open, Case Closed: DT Is A NIP Fan

So Maggie Gyllenhaal shows a little skin as breastfeeds her baby on the Christopher Street Piers over the weekend? Big freakin' whoop. She's still wearing 99% more clothing than 99% of the people who hung out on that pier over...
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Holy Buckminster Fuller! Dad Makes Playdome At Home

OK, I am officially in awe. DT reader AJ just sent photos of the freakin' geodesic dome he just built for his 2-year-old daughter. Here are his simple tips for cranking out your very own dome in no time:...
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Ten Worst, Single Best Spiderman Tie-Ins

If I had to pick the most egregious examples of Spiderman 3 marketing asshattery we've seen, it'd be a tossup between the posters taped to the ends of the shelves and carts at our public library in DC, and...
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Dieter Roth's Kinderbuch

In 1954, the German-Swiss artist Dieter Roth created a book for the son of Claus Bremer, the German dramatist and concrete poet. Known as Kinderbuch, the book consisted of op-art-y geometric shapes and patterns rippling across 28 letterpressed cardboard...
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Billyburg Anti-Hipster Hipster Parents: My New 1st Birthday Party Technique Is Untoppable

Sorry, the polls are now closed. Whatever you or I will ever plan for your or my kid's birthday party can only ever be the third most mind-blowing idea in the history of civilization. Williamburg-hating artist parents Misha Leiner and...
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May 6, 2007

Russkie Modernist Rocker Just Went On eBay

You know that "Made in USSR" birch kids furniture set that went for practically nothing at auction a few weeks ago? Well, one of those rockers went for about the same on eBay today. Sixty bucks, $22.50 plus a...
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May 3, 2007

On The Existential And Quantitative Implications Of Yo Gabba Gabba Going Prime Time

Gen-X dads in Orange County flee the mainstream TV industry and team up to make trip hoppy indie kid's show? DJ Lance Rock looking like he left Fat Albert for Dee-Lite? Clips and trailers pop on the YouTube? It's...
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JPMA Says Nothing Wrong With Wal-Mart's Vinyl Bibs Of Death

You know when I started to be unnerved about some kind of safety risk involving the lead in vinyl-coated bibs? When I got a press release from the JPMA titled, "JPMA Notes CPSC Declaration that Vinyl Bibs Are Safe: Inaccuracies...
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Euro-Baby Prexy Cuts Through The Bull About The New Micralite Toro, Fastfold

Nothing like posting a bunch of anonymous Korean webchatter about a company's new flagship stroller to get a CEO's attention. I just got off the horn with Bill Jacoby, president of Euro-Baby, the US distributor for several premium baby gear...
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Think Fast! Micralite Fastfold System Just $329 On Amazon. Today.

If only because of the hassle of accepting and returning giant, 40lb packages, I like to take my time before making a major purchase like a stroller. But if you've got your heart set on the Micralite Fastfold in...
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Slate: Everything You Didn't Know You Wanted To Know About The Fertility Industry Because You Were Too Emotionally Involved To Ask

Slate has short reviews of two books that deal with the unspoken or unregulated implications of fertility treatments: Liza Mundy's Everything Conceivable: How Assisted Reproduction Is Changing Men, Women, and the World and Peggy Orenstein's more experiential Waiting For Daisy,...
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May 2, 2007

Are Toys From Y2K Really Vintage? Gus Gutz, Harry Hairball By Rumpus

Rediscovering the forgotten kid-related awesomeness of the past is a favorite pasttime here on Daddy Types. But waxing nostalgic about a long-lost toy collection from 1999 makes me uneasy, like we're veering too close to VH1 territory. And yet, there's...
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The End Is Nigh: Hulk Hogan Child's Chair

The timer pauses in its last silence, the interval between 1 and 0. No one can save us now. The world is doomed. Words have lost all meaning. The bodies of poets and bards already litter the Cliffs of...
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Orbit To Save Planet One Green Edition Bassinet Cradle At A Time

If seeing Tori Spelling pushing her stolenhusbandspawn in an Orbit stroller system had you worried about the coming Apocalypse, relax. Through their series of product design, recycling, and corporate-level initiatives, Orbit is also busy--even busier, really--saving the earth from environmental...
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I Never Saw A Purple Creative Playthings Hobby Horse

Very interesting. Gloria Caranica may beg to differ, but I'm not really minding the vintage mod on this Creative Playthings "Rocking Beauty" hobby horse. True, it doesn't have the elegance of the original natural wood and bright red ball...
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Contest: Give Birth At Arbitrary Moment, Win Arbitrary Chrysler

How insignificant can an occurrence be and still qualify for commemmoration-worthy "event" status in the car industry? They've already turned every conceivable holiday and weekend into "sales events." A local AM radio announcer sets up a table at a...
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May 1, 2007

Micralite Toro: Sweeter Than The Micralite Maguro

Here's another JPMA Innovation Award Finalist product that got zero PR bang for its manufacturer's payola buck: the sweet-looking, new stroller model from Micralite called the Toro. DT reader LT spotted some photos of the Toro on flickr, of...
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Tim Biskup Designs On T-Shirts, T-Shirts On Baby Blankets

What could you do with a pile of irregular t-shirts printed with cool Tim Biskup/Gama-Go designs? A) Duh, slightly imperfect t-shirts? Throw'em in a landfill. B) Use them in the world's hippest car wash. C) Carefully rework them by...
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Stupid-Dangerous Hanger On Target Infant Socks

DT reader Adam sent along a photo of the insanely stupid, tiny plastic hanger that his son managed to shake off of his brand new Target/Circo socks. Why the hell is a dime-sized, barbed arrow-shaped, hard plastic hook anywhere...
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Eyes On The Bugaboo Bee Prize: First Candids Hit The Web

Well, hats off to Patty, who braved the drudgery that is the JPMA Convention in order to score about the only thing worth scoring down there: a hands-on encounter with the new Bugaboo Bee. Her first assessment: "super lightweight!"...
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David Horvath Writes Book! Reads Daddy Types!! Enters Demo!!!

OK, last things first: Ugly Dolls is now being moved to the Parent Company category with the news that David Horvath and Sun Min Kim are expecting a baby girl, apparently just in time to muck up their schedule for...
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Totally Suck These Star Wars Costumes Do

You've got to be kidding. I guess in the world of crappy, commercially made costumes, these Star Wars baby costumes might rank above average, but that's only if you include those drugstore ripoffs that are nothing more than a...
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Bowie, Lagerfeld, Stipe, Daddy Types Love Thank You Bear

Greg Foley was the first person I ever knew to sport a grille. Years before any hip hoppers ever jumped on the grillewagon. And I have to confess, the longtime creative director of Visionaire and V/VMan magazines was also...
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