Tako-no-Yama: The Itinerant Octopus Slide Builders Of Japan

In the 1960's in Japan, when the Maeda Outdoor Art Company unveiled a serpentine mound of polished concrete called "Play Sculpture: Stone Mountain," someone trying to be helpful told the artist, "If you'd just put a head on it,...
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Eine Kleine Buchpenis

So German children's book author/illustrator Rotraut Susanne Berner--who illustrated that Sylvia Plath children's book I mentioned yesterday--was in talks with a US publisher [the not not-edgy Boyds Mills Press] to release her latest series of seasonally themed picture books....
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Arrr! Detect The Pirated Robeez By Their Awesome Skulls

According to Bobux's own history, which started in 1991, Robeez copied them. [Robeez' history, which begins in 1994, is silent on the subject.] And according to like half a dozen other companies, including scrappy little underdogs like Target, the...
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So Far, It's Mostly The Cats Named Soterios Johnson

The NY Sun is a few years late discovering the popularity of WNYC radio announcer Soterios Johnson among the McSweeney's-and-Flickr-loving crowd. So far, there's a Jonathan Coulter song [old], a band [new], and more than a few pets named after...
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Right Here Over The Rainbow, Baby: Whitney Brothers Bentwood Blocks

Whoa, these are awesome. This is the molded ply block equivalent of a box full of nothing but Crunch Berries. Normally you'd have to buy twenty Creative Playthings Airfield Sets to get this many air hangar-shaped blocks, and even...
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Oops. CP Hollow Blocks Are Being Knocked Off Already. By CP.

Yeah, so, when I suggested Creative Playthings Hollow Blocks were long overdue for knock-offery, I guess I assumed the hollow block sets filling up our nation's Montessori schools and daycare centers were all 30+ years old. Actually, I don't...
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Creative Playthings Amphibious Assault Vehicle On eBay

The description says this is a trolley/street car, but anyone this side of Fallujah knows better. It's a maquette from a top secret, Cold War-era envisioning project for the Rand Corporation, in which Creative Playthings, Disney and others were...
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