Daddy Types: January 2011 Archives

January 2011 Archives

January 31, 2011

C'est La Guerre, Mon Enfant

I just discovered the awesome photography of Léon Gimpel, a turn-of-the-last-century Parisian amateur-turned-pioneering-photojournalist. He was one of the first photographers in France to experiment with shooting color; he engineered his own chemical tweaks to the Lumiere brothers' Autochrome technology as...
[read the full post...]

Somehow, Cadillac CTS-V Wagon Exists, Is For Sale

Forget what I said the other day about station wagon-killing carmakers' cherished tradition of snubbing folks who embrace the multiple definitions of "to haul." Well, forget it for as long as it takes you to read Dan Neil's insane,...
[read the full post...]

January 30, 2011

Playmobil Island Of Dr. Moreau

This is awesome. I'm surprised there aren't much more Playmobil movie remakes or Playmobil The News out there. Dr. Moreau playset [mathowie's flickr]...
[read the full post...]

January 28, 2011

Boring Art For Baby

Dino Crawling, 2010, Julian Opie via outset/luxuo Look, I'm the biggest art for baby guy around. The kid's first movie was Cassavetes' Shadows. She has Takashi Murakami stuffed animals. Photos of her in her Bugaboo next to Yoshio Taniguchi...
[read the full post...]

January 27, 2011

Supermarket Nirvana: 1966 GTO Wagon

There ought to be a word by now for the acute disappointment and frustration carmakers inflict on station wagon enthusiasts who want family-sized functionality and performance. I mean, Pontiac was not offering GTO wagons as far back as 1965. Do...
[read the full post...]

HA, Tiger Mom's At Davos, And You're Not

Well, most of you are not. I've been surprised to get a few tweets, you know who you are. Anyway, not only is random Yale Law professor Amy Chua at the World Economic Forum; she's on a panel at the...
[read the full post...]

Gather Yer Kids' Rosebuds While Ye May

The Middle East is in revolt, the double dip is starting, it's snowpocalypse all over again, and I'm missing a quarter's worth of tax receipts. What else can we stress about? Ah yes, the fate of all the kid's art!...
[read the full post...]

Oprah, Griffioen. Griffioen, Oprah

From now on, on my Internet, OMG will stand for "Oprah Meets Griffioen." Ho. Ly. Smokes. James Griffioen: The Super-Dad [oprah.com. OPRAH.COM, People!]...
[read the full post...]

January 25, 2011

Just Enslave Us Now, China

And make it quick: "In celebration of the release of the new Disney DVD and Blu-ray, Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, Social Media Moms are hosting a fun Twitter Party on..."...
[read the full post...]

Don't Stick Your Finger In There, Because Phil & Teds Will Chop It Right Off

The Phil & Teds folding mechanism has always been a counter-intuitive, gotta-see-it-to-get-it deal; but that's the genius of it. It's how they manage to stack a second kid underneath like a Pringle. Now, because three parents out of thousands--tens of...
[read the full post...]

Afghan Enters The Opium-for-Kids Phase Of Industrialization

Oh, CNN, I kept reading and reading about how parents in Afghanistan dope up their kids with opium so they can get more work done in their carpet factories or what have you, and you only saw this practice...
[read the full post...]

Stefan Jacoby Will Say Anything To Make Blogger Feel Good About His Volvo

So here's a real piece of station wagon news-you-can-use: At a Detroit Auto Show blogger junket eat & greet with, the fanbois from Swedespeed.com asked Volvo CEO Stefan Jacoby where all the sweet station wagons with manual transmissions were,...
[read the full post...]

January 24, 2011

Brooklyn Artisanal Small-Batch Chicken Nuggets

Now that Blue Ribbon's awesome fried chicken is available in Brooklyn, is has been deemed an acceptable substitute for the bane of gourmand parents the borough over: the chicken nugget. Probably because it doesn't involve brining. Meanwhile, back in Manhattan,...
[read the full post...]

January 22, 2011

Trendy Canada Has Own Breastfeeding Laws, Haters

This just in from Canada's City of The Future: an op-ed writer for the Vancouver Sun has had it up to HERE with self-absorbed lactivists who go around jiggling their "human rights" in innocent furniture store owners' faces by breastfeeding...
[read the full post...]

What To Expect When You're Expecting To Move To Brooklyn

You know, I was sitting here this morning, trying to make sense out of the New York Times real estate article, about how the young families think they're edgy because the generic glass condo towers they're moving into are in...
[read the full post...]

January 21, 2011

Feminist Drives Princess Industrial Complex Off Road

The New York Times has given New York Times writer Peggy Orenstein's new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, a very nice, if slightly meta review. The book is based on an article Orenstein wrote about the Princess Industrial Complex a...
[read the full post...]

7 Jason Kottke Parenting Tips You Can Use Right Now

Wow, a couple of days of single parenting is apparently all it took to unleash Jason Kottke's inner uber-dadblogger. He's been en fuego recently with the highly useful tips. [Apologies to my ad guy for not turning this post into...
[read the full post...]

I Was A Practice Baby

You've heard the story about practice babies, right? How random kids were plucked from whatever crib or orphanage was handy, and were given to a group of home ec students to raise for a semester? Sure you have. My mom...
[read the full post...]

January 20, 2011

F#$*( Yeah High Expectations Asian Father

Either Chinese Moms really are everybody everywhere but you, you lazy, bad, gwai louh parent--or Tiger Mom's got some 'splainin' to do. Like, during her kids' 8-hour forced piano marches, was Amy Chua just cold hitting reload on High Expectations...
[read the full post...]

Amy Chua Puts The Me Me In Meme

Please just tell me that all of this attention does not mean people are buying her book, right? RIGHT? Anyway, I've only seen about 100 so far, but this is my favorite; it captures the essence of what really matters...
[read the full post...]

January 19, 2011

The Schachter Shack

For a brief, shining moment at the turn of the century, art dealer Kenny Schachter and I shared an architect. It was not, however, Ab Rogers, son of Sir Richard, who would build these sweet little nomadic, origami-like, bed/play...
[read the full post...]

F#$*( Yeah Denim Diaper Covers!

Denim-printed diapers are ghetto-busted, but vintage denim diaper covers from the Rose Bowl Flea Market? That is OG, my friend. I Bring To You The Rose Bowl [mistermort.com]...
[read the full post...]

Wednesday WTF

In the immortal words of the philosopher, "Sometimes you just gotta say, WTF?" For alliterative purposes, this is one of those times: One day, and you can't swing a Russian baby on the Internet without hitting a fevered reaction to...
[read the full post...]

Not Your 'Usual Psychic Child Material'

This blurb for Sara Wiseman's new book, Your Psychic Child contains entire universes I didn't even know existed:Sara Wiseman is the Erma Bombeck of the psychic crowd...Her writing style and her personality offer us a break from the usual 'psychic...
[read the full post...]

January 18, 2011

Renate Müller Schnecke

To be filed under "eBay items I didn't win because holy crap, this old Renate Müller snail-on-casters sold for 817 euros!" Far be it from me to tell Germans how to run their language, but doesn't it make more...
[read the full post...]

Echolilia By Eli & Timothy Archibald

When his son Eli was five and driving him and his wife nuts, photographer Timothy Archibald tried to make sense of his tantrum-filled world by photographing it. His photos of Eli's notes and creations evolved into an inventive collaboration,...
[read the full post...]

It's Adorable Till Someone Loses A Higher Brain Function

Price includes a full time attendant to stand next to the recalled slide and pull your kid's head out of the strangulation gap at the top. Also, it was introduced in 1962. If the ladder isn't deadly, it must...
[read the full post...]

Born At CBGB

Wow, DT reader DT is right: there sure are a lot of kids in the photos Brooke Smith took on the 1980s New York hardcore scene. If you were born on the Bowery while your parents were waiting to...
[read the full post...]

Dadwagon Babyswings For The Fences

Duck, there's another babyswinging video coming out of the Inscrutable East! And this time Dadwagon's there to catch it. A couple of years ago, a vaguely Russian-seeming babyswinging video made a splash onto YouTube--and got the guy who uploaded it...
[read the full post...]

January 17, 2011

Oh, Suzuki Beane

Hipster families are all alike; every unhipster family is also. And thus it is that reading a looseleaf Xerox scan of Suzuki Beane, the Eloise-style beatnik parody of 1960 Greenwich Village parenting, reminded me of Tolstoy. And The Breakfast Club....
[read the full post...]

'Sperm banking was--and in many ways, is--the Wild West'

Wow, from Maud Newton's interview with Misha Angrist, a geneticist whose new book, This Is A Human Being, addresses the personal, social and political issues of the current & coming genomic inforevolution:MN: Speaking of using DNA to determine ancestry, I...
[read the full post...]

Bobos In Utero

David Brooks has a fascinating article book pitch in the New Yorker where he distills all the amazing research in neuroscience to help explain our ice cream choices. Sorry, I meant gelato:To give a sense of how this inner story...
[read the full post...]

January 15, 2011

Kiss 'N Ride

Finally, a lone bright spot emerges from the die-cutting decal darkness. Oh. Hello best minivan EVER! [heartasarena]...
[read the full post...]

January 14, 2011

DT Friday Freakout: Medical Clown Edition

Whew, it has been a long week at DTHQ, and frankly, I was looking forward to a freakout-free weekend. But then, well, wow:researchers who studied 219 women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) discovered that women were more likely to become...
[read the full post...]

Or Use The Kens Room

Just because you know what they're trying to say doesn't make this sign any less awkward. Also, I think they stole their clip art from an Ikea bib. [via nontoxicreviews.com, who does have a theory]...
[read the full post...]

Very Much Like A Trike

When he saw the awesome plywood convertible balance trikes at the store, Andy at Beta Dad did what any self-respecting dad of twins who's already blown his $600 wad on a garageful of tools would do: he went home...
[read the full post...]

January 13, 2011

NASA Silly Bands Kick AAS

Now it can be told. My wife, who you may recall is an astrophysicist at NASA, and her various teams of other astrophysicists just won the AAS Conference championship in Seattle. The secret: custom silly bands in the shapes...
[read the full post...]

January 12, 2011

Wow, Get The Catalogue For Toys Of The Avant-Garde

Holy smokes. After seeing the post here a few weeks ago, Patrick actually ordered the catalogue for the Museo Picasso Malaga's rocking exhibition, "Toys of the Avant-Garde." He just posted a whole slew of photos from it on Mondo-Blogo,...
[read the full post...]

That Guy From Blues Clues Totally Dodged A Baby Bullet

He launched an entire network and changed the way a generation of toddlers interacted with their televisions. But being a disembodied animated face doesn't alter the future for a washed up TV star; it only delays it. And sure...
[read the full post...]

January 11, 2011

In 'N Out Baby Gear Neither Animal Style Nor Well Done

Look, I'll be straight with you: grandparents and cousins and skiing and oceans and whatever are lovely. But deep down, pretty much any trip we take to the Western US is an In 'N Out Burger run. Over the...
[read the full post...]

And Ma In Her Kerchief, And I In My Cap

It's always better to get those remodeling, repainting, or art rehanging projects done before the kid arrives, but sometimes that isn't possible. Still, I'd think that the chairman of an auction house [and reality TV judge!] would have people for...
[read the full post...]

F$*# Yeah Dadswear!

Where does Andy find this stuff?? Freeman's Sporting Club Fall/Winter Lookbook, photographs by Tim Barber [freemanssportingclub via stork bites man]...
[read the full post...]

January 10, 2011

Prince Charming's Nuts, Or Is He?

I admit, I haven't read all of child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim's 1976 treatise, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. [It's hard to find it discussed online, if only because the first hundred or so...
[read the full post...]

Strong, Finnish: Sweet Molded Ply Ride-on Toy Via MidMod

So i've got a tag for molded ply, and a tag for ride-on toys, and a tag for vintage, of course. But at some point, it looks like vintage molded ply ride-on toys are gonna need a tag of...
[read the full post...]

January 9, 2011

Chinese Mothering Involves Neither Joy Nor Luck

Woo-hoo, this just in from New Haven, aka the place where Amy Chua's kids already are, and your kids will never get, because they have lazy, weak, over-coddling you for a parent instead of a real Chinese Mother: Uh, well,...
[read the full post...]

January 7, 2011

Maybe Call It The Time Out Bunk Bed

Good googly moogly, this is the sweetest-looking bunk bed I've seen all year. I wonder if a safety rail might make it feel too confining, though. "from the Winter 2004 catalog from ATD-American Co.: 'Official Headquarters For All Of...
[read the full post...]

What Other Baby Naming Taboos Am I Missing Here?

Personally, our family's naming taboos, weren't taboos, per se, just bad ideas: no soap opera characters and no awkward Google results. For example, India was on the kid's prenatal shortlist until I Googled "India Allen." [What can I say, I...
[read the full post...]

January 6, 2011

Kids Kids Having Kids

On the occasion of his looming double gallery opening in Manhattan this week, Yasha Wallin interviewed New Hotness minimalist/expressionist painter Joe Bradley in his studio for Art in America:WALLIN: You recently became a dad. BRADLEY: He'll be a year...
[read the full post...]

January 5, 2011

DT Wednesday WTF

You know what, sometimes there are just too many WTF's in a day to post them all separately: So minivan marketers say sales are up and minivans are supposedly cool now, because what, the Swagger Wagon ads? The redesigned Odyssey?...
[read the full post...]

Just Don't Fold It

I really do try to keep a cone of silence around the kids' school, but this morning in K2's pre-school dropoff line, I just couldn't resist. I mean, if you don't want me to blog about your natural solution...
[read the full post...]

Actually, I Did Think Of The Children First

Having just barely survived the harrowing experience of being trapped by an avalanche with no electricity1, and having been practically paralyzed by the uncertainty2 of whether the Foundry Grill would honor our dinner reservation--and then our breakfast reservation the...
[read the full post...]

'Central Park, Couple With Baby In Newspaper,' 1978

Paul McDonough is a Brooklyn street photographer. Streets and parks. And he lives in Brooklyn, but shot a lot in Manhattan, such as-- Do I really have to explain all this? It's a 1978 photo of a baby wrapped...
[read the full post...]

January 4, 2011

'Mexican Fiesta': John Cage For Kids

I just got Begin Again, Kenneth Silverman's new biography of John Cage, for Christmas, so I'm not very far in. But it's already full of surprises. Like, for example, an offhand mention that while he was teaching at The Cornish...
[read the full post...]

Imagine All The People...You Could Fit In John Lennon's Station Wagon

Thanks to Micah, who was the first of what he rightly guessed would be a small surge of DT readers who sent along a link to Gothamist's report that John Lennon & Yoko Ono's 1972 Chrysler Station Wagon had...
[read the full post...]

January 3, 2011

Kay's Anatomy

Lot 207 in Rago's upcoming Discovery Auction deserves a post of its own, if only to keep its mysterious awesomeness from overwhelming the rest of the merch. You'd think that the four-pack of Kay Bojesen bunnies would be enough,...
[read the full post...]

The Auction Of Misfit Toys

There are a few interesting kid-related things in Rago's schedule-filling, warehouse-clearing auction next weekend: Lot 130 is a kid-sized Thonet rocking chair with a couple of reeds sticking up from the woven seat and a random side table thrown...
[read the full post...]

January 2, 2011

At The Dawn Of A New Year

Just like President Obama, I prefer to look forward, to the future, rather than get bogged down in the rehashing the mistakes--even the most unconscionable crimes--of the past. So rather than dwell on WTF was I thinking when I registered...
[read the full post...]

January 1, 2011

Yeah, Baby!

Happy New Year from the Department of Small, Unsung Parenting Victories, where we just learned that last week, my wife persuaded the kid not to name her Lavender Unicorn Pillow Pet "Horny." Lavender Unicorn Pillow Pet, like $15 [amazon]...
[read the full post...]

« December 2010 | Main Index | | February 2011 »