Daddy Types: November 2011 Archives

November 2011 Archives

November 30, 2011

Klinki Modular Furniture/Toy Construction System

Once again, the incomparably awesome, mildly impenetrable archive of Form Magazine yields a small treasure. This time, it's the Klinki building and play system, from Form 88, published in 1979. Klinki was made of wood, and came in three...
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Real Moms, Real Discussions

via @dadcentric...
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Crazy Folding Robot Stroller Is The 4Moms Origami! Or Will Be. Soon. Ish.

It lives! Last/first seen at the 2008 ABC Kids Expo in Las Vegas, Crazy Robot Folding Stroller has continued evolving, adapting, and learning our ways. And like Gremlins, the T-1000, or that hot chick from Species, it is using its...
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November 29, 2011

The Star Trek Book Of Opposites Goes Where No Boardbook Has Gone Before

Dammit, Jim! The Star Trek Book of Opposites basically looks like the platonic ideal of nerd boardbooks. And considering it costs 99.999% less than a prop baby Ewok, it will make the perfect gift. You can buy with confidence,...
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November 28, 2011

'Block Consultants' Teach The Test

Oh, brother, what to make of the NY Times' "Back To Blocks" trend story that leads off with a "self-described 'block consultant'" leading a class for parents in block play?As in fashion, old things often come back in style...
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Which They Do All The Time, Because They Work At ClearChannel Communications

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DTQ: ID This Awesome Viennese Pop-Up Playground Spielkugel?

Yoichi R. Okamoto had been LBJ's official White House photographer, but in the summer of 1973, it looks like he was shooting for DOCUMERICA, a massive EPA photo study project designed to assess the state of the environment, to...
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I Presume You Did Not Buy This Baby Ewok

filed under: Items I Didn't Win At Christie's Legendary makeup artist Stuart Freeborn gave this baby Ewok puppet, which appeared in Return of the Jedi, as a gift to a journalist after an apparently delightful interview. And that person...
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Scrapwood Playground At Tule Lake Internment Camp

In WWII, Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from the west coast, stripped of basically everything they couldn't carry, and imprisoned in inland internment camps, rows of tarpaper barracks in the desert surrounded by barbed wire fences and guard towers....
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November 26, 2011

Google Is Why My Daughter Is Not Named India Allen

According to this New York Times story, some expectant parents recently ran their baby name list through Google to weed out the stripper names. Which means the cycle for parenting stories is four years. What's In A Name? Ask Google...
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Untitled (Dollhouse) By Yinka Shonibare

Peter Norton has been doing this thing every year, the Norton Family Christmas Project, where he commissions an artist to make an object, that he sends out en masse to several thousand of his best friends in the art...
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Kid's Corner By Martino Gamper

Speaking of Martino Gamper, he has a thing for corners. And so in 2002, he made Kid's Corner, an awesome, little reading & play space, which was included in a larger exhibit, The Book Corner. The shots here are...
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Dorm Find: Gio Ponti Hotel Parco Dei Principi Headboards

Poor Gio Ponti's Hotel Parco dei Principi furniture! It gets no respect! I mean, in 2007 Martino Gamper hacked it apart and used it for lumber for a performance at Art Basel. And now, somewhere outside Firenze, a couple...
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November 25, 2011

Spyshot Reveals The Jaguar XF Sportbrake's Twitter Handle

Mhmm, so this is how it's done now. Somehow, someone managed to get spy shots of the new Jaguar XF Sportbrake station wagon. Which get watermarked to hell by whatever carblog actually ponies up a shilling or two to...
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Sometimes A Balloon Is Just A Balloon

It's not that the kid wanted a pair of disembodied eyeballs. It's that this is how the balloon lady at the Ritz Carlton decided to make them....
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Auchan, Les Enfants! Mini Vintage Parisian Pop-Up Mall

For whatever reason, Paris seems to have some pretty solid sources for vintage kids' design. So it's tres interessant that a group of antique dealers and design shops in Paris have banded together for Mini Vintage, "le premier salon dédié...
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November 23, 2011

The Hyphens Are Multiplying

Some baby boomers gave their kids hyphenated names, and now those kids are having kids of their own! How are they managing the naming, the New York Times wonders? Not to worry, because everyone but their self-absorbed/actualized parents has been...
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It's Time To Start The Music, I Guess

I guess the Statler and Waldorf in me wanted to find out that Disney's hyperstrategic, multichannel, virally optimized, monetizational, Gen X parent-targeted Muppets reboot had all built up to a tone-deaf, Alvin & The Chipmunks-style dud of a movie....
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Three Of These Folky Things Belong Together

People in New Jersey collected the darnedest things sometimes. Though this bedroom set is apparently from Southampton, so go figure. Here are a couple of standout [sic] lots from Rago Arts' upcoming Estates auction: Lot: 566: a whimsical bedroom furniture...
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The Secret Google Road Trips Of Desk Toys

On the one hand, Address Is Approximate, Tom Jenkins' stop-motion animated short film of a lonely desk toy going on a Google Street View road trip, is poignant and touching. On the other, that's just how the robots would...
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'This Is About You'

So the kids are sitting around lunch doing their Siri impressions: Kid: Ask me a question! Me: How tall is the Washington Monument? Kid: I don't understand what you mean by, 'Gobi Desert in Mongolia.' [cracks self up]...
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November 22, 2011

Dear BabbleDads, How Can You Tell Your Kids' Socks Apart?

No, seriously! I've gotten so used to socks with the age ranges written on the soles in gummy little letters, I'm stumped when they're not!...
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The Boomer Over-Parenting Paradigm Is Failing Before Our Eyes

I was really not too motivated to read the NY Times' report on analysts being demoralized after getting laid off from investment banks--haven't these people ever heard of going to business school? But then Choire Sicha reminded me why I...
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Vegas For Breeders: I Could Go On

What happens in "Vegas with kids?" blog comments does not stay in Vegas with kids? blog comments. This comment, left on a nearly six-year-old thread about which casinos ban strollers, is sort of the platonic ideal of drive-by parentblog commenting....
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November 21, 2011

HolySmokes, Who Acquires Who? I Mean Whom? I Mean Orbit Baby??

Good thing I'm sitting down. Because Rachel from DaintyBaby.com just hit me upside the head with a frying pan of news, that ERGObaby, the baby wearing company, has acquired Orbit Baby, the off-the-hook, advanced stroller/car seat transport system company. I...
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Go The F*ck To Print

If you give a kid an iPad, he's going to want to watch a Sesame Street clip on YouTube. And if he watches YouTube, he's going to ask to watch just part of a movie. And if you let him...
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@BabbleDads

Barely a week old, and already BabbleDads is living up to its name. They grow up so fast!...
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November 20, 2011

Calling Greg Of Greenwich: Custom Mercedes Sprinter Maxivans

Here's the deal: since early 2008, I've been on record as claiming the Mercedes Sprinter as the ultimate in rad dad van transport. So it pains me to see how awkwardly the New York Times tries to squeeze this...
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DT Friday Freakout: Selfish Edition

Oh there is so much to freak out over already, I'm not sure ruining one weekend will be enough: Day care in the US runs from awful-to-deadly, those are your only choices. [tnr] Which is too bad, because there's no...
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November 18, 2011

What Is Your Deal, O Beautiful Fawn Sled?

My gosh, but that is a beautiful sled. Simple, rustic, even, but with incredible design. Kiosk calls it a Fawn Sled, and there are like one or two other retailer results with that name, but nothing else pops out...
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Star Wars Amigurumi

The best thing about amigurumi toys made using kotyar888's awesome Star Wars crochet patterns is not their cuteness, but the way you have no one to sue when your kid gnaws off those little beady eyes. There is no...
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Pixar's Bravehair

I guess now that they figured out the CG in Tangled, all Disney/Pixar's movies will star extremely dynamic heads of hair. Not that we won't go; at the moment, K2 wants nothing more than to straighten her curly hair, so...
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The Peregrine White Cradle

While searching for historical photos of feather beds [long story, another time], I stumbled across this, the Peregrine White Cradle, a woven willow cradle brought from Holland by Susanna and William White, who were expecting their first child when...
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Play The Empty, Pointless Game Of Life! Shopping Center By Creative Playthings

The company limped along for a few more uninspired years, trying to keep up in the cheap, plasctic future of color TV & Rock'em Sock'em Robots. But if there was a single product that marked, by the laws of...
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November 17, 2011

Keith Haring Maternity Ward Frieze, Woodhull Hospital, Brooklyn

Not that they should anyway, but there's a reason people don't choose their hospital for delivering the kid based on the street cred of the artist who did the maternity ward murals. I'm sure that occasionally bums out the...
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The New Ford Escape Is A C-Max Allroad

Put a lift kit and some fender flares on a C-Max--and take out the sixth and seventh seat--and you have the 2013 Ford Escape. As DT senior minivan correspondent JJ Daddy-o says, "Well played, Ford. Well played." Except for...
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November 16, 2011

The Fiat 500 Is Actually A Motorized Recaro Car Seat & Seed Pli Stroller Carrying Case.

I like the Fiat 500, I really do. I want to be friendly to our Fiat guests, not chase them off American shores again, and when I think about getting a smaller runabout for town, I really do consider...
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Handmade Kid-Size BMW 507

This is so awesome. A kid-sized BMW 507, custom-made in 1956 for use by the sons of a new 507 owner "on the one mile private drive leading to their estate in Suffolk," it currently runs on petrol, but...
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Get The F*ck Out Of My Genre

Well, $()#%* my $)(%#, how the #$)%( did I miss this? In an interview with the Miami New Times, Adam Mansbach, the author of the insta-classic Go The F*ck To Sleep, was asked about competition in the budding parody-childrens-book-peppered-with-profanity...
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November 15, 2011

Dadcentric Is KILLING It These Days

First Disney/Babble, now Parents Magazine? Jason and the boys at Dadcentric are en fuego right now. High five for winning the Parents Magazine Editors' Pick for Best Dad Blog of 2011. That's one dadblog competition I'm happy to lose....
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Sun Ra At Bedtime

Sometimes the kids require a little attending to before they'll actually go to sleep. If my wife does it, that usually means some more hugs, or a little music, or checking in after they've been quiet for a few...
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November 14, 2011

Goodnight iPad Should Really Be An App

I know I should be hyping and LOL RT'ing this so it goes viral, and maybe so DT can get a piece of the Amazon action, but it's just not that funny. At least the book trailer's not. What...
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Jiminy Cricket, Disney Bought Babble!

It's really pretty hard to top the AllThingsD headline announcing the expiration of the press release embargo: "Exclusive: Disney Acquires Hipster Mommy Blog Platform Babble Media." As someone who once did M&A for Disney and helped buy their first...
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November 12, 2011

Star Wars Nursery Mayhem

Frankly, if your kid is actually named Rocky III, I don't see how you could not give him a Mr. T-themed nursery, but Star Wars is an evergreen alternative. Ohdeedoh has a nice tour of Rocky's Rebel Alliance setup,...
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Here Is Jimmy Fallon As Jim Morrison Singing 'Reading Rainbow'

If LaVar Burton ever finally decides to go all Shatner on us and release an album, I'm sure the funk version of this will be untouchably awesome. Until then, though, Jimmy Fallon's Jim Morrison has the best cover version...
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November 11, 2011

'Biggie's Coming Back'

In this instant YouTube classic, a dad calms his kid with a little Notorious B.I.G. Well, technically, he makes her cry by turning Biggie off, but you get the idea. For their sakes, I hope she doesn't find out...
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How'd That Work Out?

Beyond the headline, I love the NY Times Magazine's entire concept of following up with the kids of one of the pioneering advocates of what we now know as homeschooling. In 1975, Patricia Heidenry wrote about wandering the globe, teaching...
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DT Friday Freakout: Lollipox Edition

Sometimes it's hard not to freak out over these stories when they're dribbled out by media. But then, that's exactly why Daddy Types bundles them up into one, giant Friday Freakout, so they can ruin your weekend, not your whole...
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November 10, 2011

Am I The Only One Who Hasn't Seen The Other F Word?

Eight years in, and I never quite figure out how this stuff works. I like to think I'd have known about The Other F Word, Andrea Nevins' documentary about punk rocker dads, the moment it was greenlighted. But instead, I...
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See If You Can Guess What Arthur Is Now?

There's that awesome phase of having a kid before they start crawling, where you can kind of pose them. Which doesn't last as long as the phase where you can dress them up entirely for your own amusement. Fortunately...
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Has The Creative Playthings Housing Bubble Popped?

As the grown-up housing market goes, so goes the dollhouse market. And so a Creative Playthings slot-together ply dollhouse with the original box sold on eBay for half of what it was a couple of years ago--just like a...
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November 9, 2011

Crazy Abstract Puzzle

While we apparently don't know anything else about it, the eBay seller who's finally clearing out the old stock from the toy store he closed 20 years ago says this crazy abstract puzzle "was definitely imported from Europe." Sure,...
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The Disney Princess Continuum

Just last night, I started reading The Arabian Nights to the kids at bedtime; my wife bought it to inoculate them in advance of seeing Disney's Aladdin someday. Which, anyway, is kind of blowing my mind right now, because some...
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It's Take Your Daughters To Jobsite Day

Walking K2 to preschool the other day, I noticed something unusual in front of one of our neighbor's renovation projects: two contractors' vehicles--a pickup and a cargo van--with booster seats in the front [and only seats]. For the record,...
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November 8, 2011

Billboard-Size Maharajas By Sanjay Patel

If I understand this correctly, animator/illustrator/artist Sanjay Patel went from designing a poster or something for the Asian Art Museum's Maharaja exhibit, to having an exhibit of his very own. As long as it includes billboard-sized processions of elephants,...
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Keith Haring Baby Frieze

It's signed, and the estate has agreed to issue a certificate of authenticity. So maybe this 2" x 42" painting of a row of radiant babies didn't get a single bid at auction today because all the merchandise licensing...
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Not Just Coveralls: Hobo Linen Coveralls

November's a helluva time to be buying $125 linen outfits for kids who are growing like sporadic bamboo, but these just look flatout awesome. And while I'm stoked at the use of the vastly underappreciated "hobo," these coveralls strike...
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'Where Are We Going?'

By the time I finished reading Raul Gutierrez's awesome post, I'd completely forgotten that I'd been surprised to find out he and Tina Roth Eisenberg of Swiss Miss shared a studio. Small Victories [mexicanpictures via swiss miss] Previous Raul Gutierrez...
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November 7, 2011

Glenn Ligon On Glenn Ligon's Coloring Paintings

Malcolm X (Version 1) #1, 2000, via lacma Glenn Ligon's retrospective has now moved from the Whitney to the LA County Museum, and LACMA's blog posted an interview clip with Ligon where he discusses his Coloring series, which have...
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Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?

K2 is literally begging me for more broccoli right now, and I'm like, "Not until you finish your peanut butter sandwich."...
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Does The Bubble Bum Solve The Third Car Seat Dilemma?

The Bubble Bum is the third inflatable European booster seat solution to surface here on Daddy Types. Is it finally the one that actually works well enough to use? Frankly, I find it a bit extraordinary that the Bubble...
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November 4, 2011

RECALL NOTICE: Stupid-Dangerousest Disney Trikes Ever Made

Sometimes a toy is so obviously, stupidly dangerous, you hope it inspires extra attention and caution on the part of the adults around it. Take, for example, one of my favorite old Creative Playthings toys, the Inquarium In-Crib Aquarium. It...
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DT Friday Freakout: Ritalin/Candy Edition

Why give in to the publicists and media, and freak out every day, right? Here are some headlines from the worlds of science, health, parenting, and education--plus one remixed Simpsons clip--to freak you out all at once. On the weekend:...
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November 3, 2011

Wait, Where's The Car Seat?

Uh, we were to understand there would be a car seat in this lowrider? Yes, that is a car seat in my low rider: an interview with Liz Cohen [badatsports.com images may be NSFW, unless you work in a garage,...
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Kids These Days: Electric Eye Edition

Yeah, yeah, Velcro means kids can't tie their shoes anymore. The LED on the cable box keeps them from ever learning how to read a clock. And forget typing; iPad kids can't even use a mouse. And now we see--literally--the...
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Car Seats In An Audi A6?

Dave Thomas, aka, Our Man In Cars, runs the Cars.com Car Seat Check on the 2012 Audi A6. I used to drive an A6 a bit, and it always amazes me how squeezed they are in the back. Whatever's German...
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Reading The Occupy Babble Blowback So You Don't Have To

In an incisive, hard-hitting report for the indie news outfit The Faster Times, Nathan Hegedus, aka Our Man In Sweden Nathan Hegedus shows he is not afraid to ask the tough questions: Are Dad Bloggers the Most Important Feminists Online...
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November 2, 2011

We May Now Rebuild Enzo Mari's Big Stone Game Playground.

Thanks to a DT operative who presumably had the good sense not to overpay for his copy of the small, 1969 book, I Giochi per Bambini di Enzo Mari, I think we have enough information to proceed with the...
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November 1, 2011

Holy Crap, It's Contagion-Meets-12-Monkeys In Waldorf Schools

I'm no wingnut, and I don't like to be put in a position of agreeing with one, but day-um, Bay Area Waldorf people! Look me straight in the eye and expl--well, never mind. Just why the hell are 77%...
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Here Is Martin Kippenberger In A Keith Haring Diaper.

I guess in Germany there is/was this Jugendbonus, where the government just gives kids money every year? Sounds Alaska-level crazy socialism, I know, but whatever. You only get it until you turn 20, and have to do national service,...
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