Daddy Types: December 2009 Archives

December 2009 Archives

December 31, 2009

DT Instaproject: OGGG Grandpa's Cradle

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } 1/2-in poplar boards instead, originally uploaded by daddytypes. Clock's ticking. And right away, I find...
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December 30, 2009

Spitting Is Sign Of Love After All

In his last interview, conducted while writing his great, posthumously published novel, 2666 and finally published in English last month, the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño discussed parenting:In the end, one could talk for hours about the relationship between a father...
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DT Quick [?] Project: Great-Great-Great Grandma's Cradle

K2's 2nd birthday is coming up quick, and I remembered that the wife and I had talked about getting her a cradle for her dolls--her babycount's already surpassed Angelina Jolie and is on its way to Octomom territory. When...
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About That London Baby Cage

The caption on this Hulton Archive photo reads:27th January 1934: An example of the wire cage which East Poplar borough council in London propose to fix to the outside of their tenement windows, so that babies can benefit from...
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Discovered: The Purpose Of Second Children

So that you can still hold a shred of hope for the future after your first kid announces that, when she grows up, she wants to do water ballet....
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December 29, 2009

Bring'em Onboard! Traveling With The Steele X Reference Library Tote Was Awesome

No offense to the family on our flight who successfully recreated a domestic oasis among the benches at Heathrow using their Orbit Stroller and massage-table-sized folding travel crib, but we like to travel as relentlessly light as possible. One...
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December 28, 2009

Eh-Oh! World's Biggest Ghost Mall Hosts World's Loneliest Teletubbies Edutainment Centre

The South China Mall in Dongguan, "The First Super-mega Theme Shopping Park In China," has been a spectacular failure pretty much from its opening in 2006. It has 6.5 million square feet of space for over 1500 retailers, but...
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DT@FR Photo Roundup

Well, we made it back last night without a hitch, it was pretty incredible, considering how screwed up our trip out had been. I'll probably do a roundup of notes and things that worked and didn't for traveling--flying with...
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December 26, 2009

DT@FR, Day 9 Despite Best Efforts, Lufthansa Fails To Ruin Christmas

It's late, we're traveling tomorrow, and I expect we'll be longing for the good old days of pre-12/25 international flying restrictions in no time. But for anyone who cares, Lufthansa's subcontractor's subcontractor took two days and missed three promised delivery...
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December 23, 2009

DT@FR: Babycage's A Babycage, Except They Call It Le Babycage

Marseille Airport, Terminal 3 & 4: Random enfant trying to escape the sad babycage. I look at them now, and I see that all these photos of France have a bit of the melancholie to them. Which is funny,...
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DT@FR: Black Bebes Pour Tous!

Marche du Noel, Aix-en-Provence: Found this shop full of black babies in a town full of white people more than a little odd/disturbing. The only explanation I can come up with is Brangelina....
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DT@FR Rocking Crocodile Toy in Lourmarin

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } DT@FR Rocking Crocodile Toy in Lourmarin, FR, originally uploaded by daddytypes. Some Place in Lourmarin,...
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December 22, 2009

Whoops, Never Mind! IKEA Issues Worldwide Recall For Weird, New Leopard High Chair

Congratulations to IKEA for what may be the fastest baby product recall ever. The CPSC announced that the Swedish furniture giant has recalled the brand new--and freaky-looking--Leopard high chair worldwide barely two months after its release. Apparenty, the little...
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DT@FR, Day 5, And Lufthansa Still Has No #$%ing Idea Where Our Bags Are

"TRACING CONTINUES. PLEASE CHECK BACK LATER" The hapless lost baggage agentt at the Marseilles airport called it a "situation sauvage." It's now five days, and we've received one of our four bags from Lufthansa. The other three are--where? no one...
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December 21, 2009

Surprisingly, This Didn't Happen In Taunton, Mass.

Please WTVC-TV, how should I feel about this story?A 4-year-old boy, beer in hand, is accused of stealing Christmas presents from his neighbors. It's a strange story, but also a sad one. Ah, thanks. On the other hand, if Lufthansa...
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DT@FR: The Stair Railings Of Doom

Thanks to everyone who left their advice and comments on how to jury rig a barrier to keep K2 from falling through the deadly stair railings at my mother-in-law's house in France. First up, it turns out they're far less...
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DT@FR day 4

McDo in Pertuis: wifi no pies. One of four bags arrived (each bag check is a trip to Marseille airport; the house in the village has no address so we have no confidence in delivery service, which would add another...
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December 20, 2009

DT@FR day 3

I hate you lufthansa, not for stranding us twice, but for STILL not delivering our bags 3 days later. So now we are at the insane mega mall in Marseilles to buy clothes and Christmas again. Mcdoalds, you I love,...
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December 17, 2009

Look, Anyone Can Teach Any 2-YO 'Hamlet'

I really don't like just reposting random things. I like to be able to add a little context, a little more useful info where I can. And I'm very wary of just posting other peoples' random kid videos or...
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December 16, 2009

Barbour Hunting Jacket With Diaper Pocket

Here's an awesome report from our man-from-London-in-Paris, DT reader Wesley:I recently purchased a Barbour Beaufort jack [from Harrods but they have the same thing at Orvis.] Although I didn't know this at the time, the "game pocket" in the...
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All You Want For Christmas Is A Crawligator?

Let me suggest that if you really had a Crawligator on your kid's Christmas list and you haven't picked one up already, you'd do well not to quibble over the high opening bid on this one. Instead, just count...
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2nd Grade Kid On A Cross, People! What's Going On In Christmas City?

Though we know here as America's Capital Of WTF Dad Stories, the official unofficial nickname for Taunton, Massachusetts is "The Christmas City." Which makes it all the more ironic [read OUTRAGEOUS ATTACK ON FREEDOM] that an 8-year-old boy was suspended...
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December 15, 2009

DTQ: Anyone Know How To Say 'Snow Fencing' In French?

So we're getting ready for our Christmas trip to France, should be gone a while. We've got the kids' new suitcases, the kid's bringing her recurring ear infection ["amoxycillin's amoxycillin, except they call it le amoxycillin."], and K2 is as...
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Uh, No. Unicorn Taxidermy On Etsy

The last two times we've been to Costco [Sorry, Jim, I'm weak!], the kid has fixated on a horrible, awful, giant piece of crap toy horse that looks like the Budweiser Clydesdales. It doesn't rock, it doesn't look like...
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50 Million Roman Shades Recalled In A Day

Wow, and I thought the crib recall was epic. The CPSC has issued the biggest recall ever. Basically every Roman and roll-up blind and shade on the market, 50 million units at least, are being recalled because they pose a...
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Thomas The Tory

Just heard this on the CBC, but the incredulous tone of the UK's Daily Telegraph is a bit more entertaining: Prof. Shauna Wilton, a Canadian political scientist, recently presented an analysis of Thomas The Tank Engine, at a conference. Did...
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December 14, 2009

Baby Püppi By Martin Kippenberger

That's a bronze cast of a pig's leg there in the stroller. According to Luhring Augustine Gallery, in Baby Püppi, the late German artist Martin Kippenberger was acknowledging that his work, not kids, would be his legacy. To me,...
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Blue Xmas By Bob Dorough & Miles Davis

I think my list of Edgiest Christmas Songs just got one track longer. "Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern)" was Miles Davis's only Christmas song. He recorded it in 1962 with Bob Dorough, who was still a decade...
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A Very Special Monday Mommy Mailbag

So what vital information do publicists have for you parents/ladies? Toys"R"Us Helps Take The Worry Out of Holiday Shopping for Moms With its Annual Toy Guide for Differently-abled Kids Last-minute holiday season can be stressful for moms, and particularly so...
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Big Old Wheel

This is the 2nd coolest Big Wheel in the world--after the one you had as a kid, of course. 1940s steel & aluminum circus tricycle/big wheel, $435 [modern50.com]...
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December 13, 2009

Playsam Dollhouse! By Eva Schildt

Wow, look what I just found at Noojii, the baby gear shop DT reader Sven runs in Hamm, Germany [midway between Dusseldorf and Hannover]: a Playsam dollhouse by Swedish designer Eva Schildt. At just 30 cm high, the dollhouse...
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Na Zha Gun Stroller By Shi Jinsong

And to think that just a few weeks ago, we were getting all worried about a few stroller fingertip amputations. In 2006, the Chinese sculptor/new dad Shi Jinsong showed Na Zha Baby Boutique, an "outrageously unsafe line of baby...
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December 12, 2009

Diznee? Dizknee?

I heard this kid-on-the-street interview about The Princess and The Frog on NPR last night on the way to the gym. If ever there were a group of kids for whom the phonetic approximation of their names was not enough...We...
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K-E-Y Why Is He Hanging Like That, Daddy?

The dad in this picture was the hands-down winner of Hyperallergic's Art Basel Miami Beach Parenting Award. I figured it was awesome enough to mention even though I haven't yet figured out the artist or gallery. I'll get it...
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Self Portrait, The Kid, 2009

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Self Portrait, The Kid, 2009, originally uploaded by daddytypes. So that's what they mean by...
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December 11, 2009

Time Out Of It

I'm a little slow to this, but my grandmother only saw the article at her doctor's office this week. Time Magazine has one of those big trend-calling pieces, "Helicopter Parents: The Backlash Against Overparenting," about how This Generation of Parents...
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Baby Is Mentioned In The Caption

"Gunshots shattered the windows of a store called Broadway Baby." photo by John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times Look, I'll be straight with you: the fact is, this is an awesome photo, which accompanies an awesome piece...
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December 10, 2009

I Pity The Cool

Now don't get me wrong, I like Cool Hunting, and I always will. They're like blogfamily, we go way back. So it's not that I'm pissed to see the Babyplus Prenatal Education System, the pregnancy industry's most thoroughly bogus...
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Kermithacktivism

This is awesome, so of course, it's not official, just what happens when you sell millions of puppets of your puppets. It's Not Easy Being (a) Green (Revolutionary), by Jeff Horwich, for MPR's "In The Loop" podcast show [youtube...
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Jumpin' On The Dadwagon

Sorry it's been kind of quiet around here. Work's been kind of crazy, the kids have the Swine Flu, but I still had to do my shift at the Book Fair, Christmas shopping is going full-- Oh, who am I...
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December 9, 2009

Through The Enchanted Gate: MoMA's Kid Art TV Show

I've worked with MoMA in various ways for almost twenty years now, but I only really became aware of the incredible legacy of Victor d'Amico since having a kid. He oversaw the education programs at the Modern for decades,...
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FLASH! Dadslapping At Brooklyn Starbucks!

War? Depression? Global warming conferences? Serial, cross-country exploitation of a special needs child to sell a fact-challenged book? If ever there were a time this country needed fewer objects of righteous outrage, this is it. And yet here we are:...
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December 8, 2009

Babyphone, By Koert van Mensvoort

Dutch artist Koert van Mensvoort used this image, Babyphone, to put out a call for propsals for Next Nature a conferetition he organized in 2008:Nowadays, children know more corporate logo's and brands than bird or tree species. The average...
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9.000 Rucksäcke By Ai Weiwei

For his exhibit at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, the China's most famous contemporary artist Ai Weiwei ordered 9,000 custom-colored children's backpacks. When installed on the facade of the museum, they spell out the phrase, "She lived happily...
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December 7, 2009

So How's The Google Reader Now?

Folks who follow Daddy Types using Google Reader have been emailing the last few weeks to say that images don't show up. Thanks to some sharp analysis by DT reader Chris, I finally think I've fixed the problem. If...
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IDGI

This makes less sense than all the Family Circus comics combined. Does anyone know what it means? Baby Blues [arcamax via jeremy of daddy dialectic]...
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Finally, Secrets Of The Cardboard Play Dome Revealed!

And here, all this time, I thought the secret to making easy, awesome cardboard play domes was the Esko Kongsberg i-XL24 die-less cutting and creasing table. [Actually, I knew that something was missing. Thanks to veteran domologist Tom Camilli's...
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December 6, 2009

Quirky Canada Has Own Laws, Stay At Home Dad Videos

I assume that since everyone follows DadCentric's Twitter feed, you've all already seen "Stay At Home Dad," the hilarious music sensation by Canada's second most popular YouTube star after Corey Vidal [the Star Wars acapella lipsync guy, remember him?]...
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December 5, 2009

A Very Bowie Christmas

How can a country like the UK have so many surveillance cameras and government databases, and yet keep such incredible secrets from me? On Christmas Eve 1982, the newly formed Channel 4 premiered The Snowman a wordless, beautifully animated version...
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December 4, 2009

K2 H1N1

Mild, should be fine by Monday, but still, not much comfort at the end of a long week....
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ASTM? I Barely Knew'em!

As the massive baby furniture and gear recalls keep coming, and the voluntary ASTM safety standards regime the Baby Industrial Complex has fought long and hard to maintain is proving to be useless and even dangerous, the Juvenile Products Manufacturing...
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DT Friday Freakout: Mall Santa Edition

Even though a trip to any mall is enough to ruin your weekend, we'll expand the reach of the Freakout a bit, just to make sure: While the terrorist elf who threatened to blow up Mall Santa in Georgia has...
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Actually, The Sun Is NOT A Mass Of Incandescent Gas

Things were all so simple then, in April, when I brushed aside They Might Be Giants' energetic 1993 cover version of, "The sun is a mass of incandescent gas." The song was written by Hy Zaret in 1950, for Space...
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Pas Disponible! Citroen CX Wagon Diesel In The US

So this Malaise-era Citroen CX Wagon Diesel is either from 1980 or 1983. There are plenty of stories about where it's been [Middle East, Western Canada, &c. &c.], but next to no paperwork. What matters, of course, is where...
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December 3, 2009

Smart Baby Case Concept Study: Wheelie X Stroller Mashup

I'm not a huge fan of unrealizable concept studies, but this so-called Insane Stroller Week is fast coming to an end, and James Frey's Bugaboo is still the craziest thing around, so here goes... Tehran-based designer Pouyan Mokhtarani created...
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Oy! Neil Diamond Sings 'The Chanukah Song'

I had to check, but this really is Niel Diamond covering Adam Sandler. It's from his new Christmas album [sic]. Unbelievable. [via @cynicaldad] Update from the comments: there's a Flash animated video. [via]...
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Tres Awesome French Children's Books

At A Journey Round My Skull, Will has an incredible collection of scans from French children's books of the 1930s and '40s. There are some great-looking titles like Je Fais mes Jouets avec des Plantes [I Make My Toys...
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December 2, 2009

Meat Industrial Complex, Baby Industrial Complex, Dadbook Industrial Complex

Meanwhile, from the yuppie rabbit hutches of Park Slope, Brooklyn: When I thought it was just a passive aggressive manifesto of smug vegetarianism, I was happy to let Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, Eating Animals go by with nary a...
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DTQ: The Right Age For A Sheep Slaughtering?

A question from DT reader DT:We have a sheep to slaughter on Saturday, and I'm wondering how old is old enough for butchering? I know it isn't age 2. I seem to recall reading that a lot of hunter-gatherer cultures...
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Mazel Tov, Give That Kid A Camera!

Max promptly sneaked out of the delivery room, through a hole in a fence, and started taking pictures of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Congratulations to Jake and Karen!...
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December 1, 2009

Behold, Then Bid! The Edcom Systems E001 Hexagonal Cognition Crib

It's always the same: you think you're gonna have Crazy Stroller Week, and then suddenly an Absolutely Insane Crib crosses your path. Hold your horses and clear your loading dock, because an Edcom E001 Hexagonal Cognition Crib is for...
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Designers We Ripped-off, D'oh! We're Repentant!

Haha, in the middle of the reporting for Fast Company's long, devastating takedown of Design Within Reach, their screwed up CEO--the one who opened all the unprofitable stores and began proudly and systematically knocking off designers in pursuit of a...
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Here Come The Frey BC's

The Freygaboo auction just went live on eBay. No free shipping. Giving it the Frey sign: Closeup, I think that's Klingon on the left there: Hmm, is the seat fabric painted, too? If only I'd stayed involved in this publicity...
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Customi(ZED) James Frey Bugaboo (RED) To Be eBa(YED)

I think this is going to be a week of stroller insanity, starting right. now. Bugaboo announced a couple of months ago that they were joining (RED), the giant, corporate fundraising effort to fight AIDS in Africa. As part...
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