Well I don't know how this got by me. Los Angeles-based artist/curator Doug Harvey organized "The Patter Of Tiny Brains," an exhibition of audio of or by children, for the phone-based art gallery, 323 Projects.

Basically, you can call up the gallery, (323)843-4652 or (323)TIE-IN-LA, any time, day or night, and listen to the show. The kids run from ages zero to about 13, and the recordings date from between yesterday and maybe the early 1970s, though one piece I heard definitely sounded like the 50s.

I just called, and listened to, among other things, a pre-verbal baby laughing his head off; some 7yo or so boys self-consciously announcing themselves to themselves before devolving into poo jokes; trippy disco tracks with faint kid vocals; and a weird spoken word song where Uncle Tommy explains that good girls don't get spanked, so maybe you're not a good girl after all.

You can skip tracks, and I really wanted to find THUUNDERBOY!, the 1971 turntable performance by Ted, the 2yo son of avant garde filmmaker Tony Conrad. But for the life of me, I couldn't match up a single recording to the descriptions on the contributors list.

Still, it's pretty awesome. Will call back.

323 Projects Presents The Patter of Tiny Brains curated by Doug Harvey, runs through May 27 [323projects.com via dougharvey]

Plus, they're all going to be living in the new Crown Heights, after it's gentrified, anyway. That's too bad, because do you know how hard it is to get from the 3 train to the F train? Commuting from daddy's Brodown Palace to Mommy's Lil' Yoga Retreat in Carroll Gardens is going to be horrible for Parsnip and Carrot, the sad hipster twins of divorce.

In New York over the weekend, I went to my friend Tanya Bonakdar's gallery to see my buddy Ernesto Neto's awesome-looking, new, climbable sculptures, and my buddy Ethan, almost literally the first thing out of his mouth when I walk in, is "Dude, you gotta put this on your daddyblog or whatever: NO KIDS. THEY'RE KILLING US."

Apparently, Time Out or Time Out Kids or someone blasted out what an awesome playground Neto's woven rope installation would be, except that it's not, because this one is ages 12 and up, because the little kids can't handle it. So no, it would NOT be an awesome playground, it would be a huge buzzkill.

Ernesto Neto: Slow Iis Good, runs through May 25 [tanyabonakdargallery.com]
Previously, and totally coincidental, not at all related: awesome Ernesto Neto playground-like sculptural installations from 2009 and 2006

Bkln hipster parents with a (lovely) 6mo old baby on my Paris-JFK flight fed her fresh avocado scooped out w/tiny spoon

Also when the baby cried they gave her an iPhone to hold and suck on #reallyhappened

— Rich Mintz (@richmintz) May 15, 2012

Waitforit would be a pretty awesome middle name.

Oh Partners & Spade, I can't stay mad at you. Let's never speak of Dan Colen again. Instead, let's just do high fives and brohugs about the awesome kids chair exhibit you are putting on in collaboration with the fine folk at Mondo Cane.

Which opens this Friday.

And which is timed to coincide with the worldchanging awesomeness of The Century of the Child, MoMA's exhibition on modernism and kid-related design. Which I have been dying to blog about for a year-plus, but have kept my trap shut. But only for a little longer.

Kids Chair Exhibition One Week From Today [i.e., last Friday] [mondo-blogo]

Living near the National Zoo, our DC neighborhood gets more than its fair share of souped up daytripping whips. But I've seen this blingy Honda Odyssey a couple of times now, so this guy's either a neighbor or a serious panda lover.

The kids vintage world has definitely changed since the day when, as an idealistic new dad, I walked into Allan & Suzi on the UWS, asked if they had or knew of any kids clothes, and was told, "There isn't any! It's all shit that didn't last, and no one wants it anyway!"

Well, now the Wary Meyers Kids Shop is open, and it's safe to say that kids vintage has grown up. Kid clothes from the 60s-80s, both used and NOS, toys, books, some furniture, a few of their own tweaks and designs, it's just crazy, the awesomeness they have in there.

I could post it all, but it's better to let you discover it yourself. A couple of standouts, though: the "Dennis Hopper-y" leather fringe jacket up top, [$75], rocks. If I thought K2 could pull it off, I'd already have snapped it up.

It's weird to freak out over baby shoes, but seriously, you can mark the beginning of the end of Gerber to the exact moment they stopped making stuff like these rainbow wedge toddler flip-flops.

Or these amazingly simple, no-nonsense, Made in USA canvas sneakers. Kids sneakers are an over-designed, tricked out, LED-encrusted wasteland these days. Why can't we return to 1988? Now for just $20, you can. Wary Meyes have a whole array of dead-awesome, deadstock kid & toddler shoes, a thousand points of sneaker light.

Wary Meyers Kids Shop is freakin' awesome

Advocates of attachment parenting might claim that their approach places demands on both genders, but we fathers know the truth. Regardless of our best intentions as equal partners, attachment parenting is really attachment mothering.

...

There is one valuable role for the father when it comes to attachment parenting, however: he can argue against the whole thing.

The Detached Dads Manifesto [time via jason from dadcentric]

I know that two days before Mother's Day is arguably an even worse time to bring this up than when I thought about it--in the middle of church, staring at the kids a couple of rows ahead of us--but it can't wait. All I can do is throw it out there, and trust that this information will be used responsibly, with tact, kindness, love, and patience, and understanding towards the amazing women who have done such extraordinary things for us and our children, and who--

Look, a toddler needs product about as much as a baby needs a giant flower headband: BY WHICH I MEAN, OBVIOUSLY, NOT AT ALL.

[image: one of 9,761 search results on eBay for newborn headband, Dear Lord, help our country in this desperate hour.]

Alright, I know: it's hard not to stare at the Bazoombas Bench.

But artist Misaki Kawai's also made all kinds of other hipster-whimsical, kid-size furniture for her current exhibition at the Children's Museum of the Arts in NYC. Like a Snake Bench. And Banana Benches:

And a Hair Table with benches, and a flock of stools:

All these images are from Tri-Lox, the Greenpoint studio who actually fabricated the pieces, and the show, Love from Mt. Pom Pom. And they're all for sale, to benefit the museum, on Paddle8. Which sounds like a better plan than dumping them when the show closes June 10. So if you've got a hankering for kawaii Kawai art furniture, you can shell out your $1500-3500 right online.

But maybe you want something a little smaller? Like a Kawai silk screen t-shirt or the limited edition Arty Party backpack made by the hipster sewers at Jem Fabric Warehouse. For that, you'll probably have to head over to the museum itself, because the only online mentions I could findi were in this cheery behind-the-scenes video:

Me, I'll be holding out to see what happens to Kawai's awesome costumes [seen here in a photo from Bright Lyons' studio visit]. Theyre Fredun Shapurific.

Misaki Kawai - Love from Mt. Pom Pom, through Jun 10 [cmany.org]
Buy Misaki Kawai Mt. Pom Pom furniture, $1500-3500, through June 10 [paddle8 via coolhunting, thanks dt reader rolf]
Misaki Kawai portfolio/shop [misakikawai.com]

Came, shot a commercial, and then flew back to England. Don't let the security scanners hit ya on the way out, guvnuh!

Jaguar XK SportBrake launch film [sic] [youtube via dt]

At this point I see a pile of questions which I'm not prepared to address. For one thing, Elmer vs. Bugs had been a staple of Warner Brothers cartoons for years. Most people in the audience would know this. But how would What's Opera, Doc? play for those who didn't know that? And what about relatively young children who had not yet absorbed the conventions of cartoons, such as the fact that, no matter how much violence we see, no one is injured?

Not only is the Bugs/Elmer conflict a known item, but it's almost always presented as an on-going conflict. Elmer and Bugs have a long-standing relationship. Elmer's not hunting any arbitrary rabbit, he's hunting this particular wabbit. It's personal, and has been for some time.

What does it mean to be locked into THAT kind of conflict? It's as though a significant component of Elmer's identity is invested in his conflict with Bugs. That kind of conflict is steeped in ambivalence. The love duet in this cartoon was no mere act; it revealed an aspect of the relationship between Bugs and Elmer that's otherwise been completely masked in standard-issue cartoon violence and conflict.

Intimate Enemies: What's Opera, Doc? [new-savanna, republished at berfrois]

At 83, and given his recent health, it's not like it was unexpected. And I swear I was fine with this until I wrote the headline.

Maurice Sendak, Children's Author, Dies at 83 [nytimes]
image via inandoutofweeks.com, a project blog for Oliver Knussen's upcoming Sendak-related performances.
Previously, a ton of stuff, obviously, but this hilarious quote about birth and The Learning Channel from a 2003 interview is a standout

Oh, nothing, just the Saab Safari, one of two Saab 900 Station Wagons, kept in a showroom for 20 years and now for sale in the Netherlands for under EUR10,000.

I mean, seriously, why has it taken this guy eight months to move this beautiful thing?

I'm not a Saab fanatic, and I really can't figure out what the story is here. Who made them, what, why, I can't tell, but there are apparently only two of these Saab Safaris, and the other one is [ahem was?] in the Saab Car Museum. It's built on a 1981 Saab 900 Classic, and it has just 78,000km, And it should be plenty old enough to be exempt from EPA and DOT restrictions, making this rig fully importable. And it looks fantastic.

Obviously, because it was parked inside for two decades, in Somewhere Else, Sweden, until 2010, when Utrecht-based Saab enthusiast Henk Griffioen [hey, do you know...] bought it and brought it back into working, running order.

It was apparently first offered for sale on a NL Saab forum last November, with an asking price of EUR9000. But DT reader Ivar just spotted a recent listing on Marktplaats.nl, the Dutch auction/classified site. Bidding's up to EUR9800, so I assume it'll sell this time around. They accept PayPal. This is not a drill.

FOR SALE: SAAB 900 CLASSIC ESTATE (SAAB SAFARI) [saabsafari.com]
COLLECTORS ITEM! Uiterst zeldzame SAAB 900 Classic Estate [markplaats.nl, thanks dt reader ivar]
5/9 UPDATE: the listing is now gone. the last bid I saw was EUR10,000.

Well, it's always good to know where you stand. I ended up conducting an experiment over the weekend as I decided whether to post about two separate hoards of classic Antonio Vitali carved wood toys--or whether to bid on them myself.

Because even on the last day, both sets were insanely underpriced: like 12 or 21 figures for $24 or $55. Just nuts. And I worried that if I posted about them, drew a little attention to them, bidding might spike, and then what, I lose three dozen Vitali dolls for a few thousand weekend pageviews?

Yeah, well, I think it's pretty clear that the Antonio Vitali sharks out there don't need me to tell them when eBay's heatin' up. As things often turn out on eBay, all the action came right at the end.

The somehwat mismatched assemblage of 21 Creative Playthings figures [top] went for $1794.

And the more beautifully finished, better made, but ultimately less interestingly designed Swiss-made toys from Vitali's own label sold for $560.

Carry on, then, Vitali-heads, don't mind me.

I can't, I won't, and I don't stop posting Beastie Boys mashups with kids TV shows. So here is Wonderful Creative's version of "Sure Shot," as performed by the cast of Sesame Street.

Sesame Street Breaks it down [vimeo via @djstylus]

Well this is rather nice. Israeli designer Hilla Shamia made this awesome rocking horse out of a big ol' slice of tree in 2010.

Maybe this is an option for the giant street trees I see getting chopped down and chipped up. Slice and carry.

Rocking Horse, Hilla Shamia's portfolio [hillashamia.com via gizmodo, thanks dt reader rolf]

Here is Ryan Henry's 2008 mashup of the Beastie Boys' "Sure Shot" and Richard Scarry's Busytown. [funnyordie via eyeteeth]

• Yeah, but the problem as always, is the last mile: "1 sperm has 37.5MB of DNA information in it. That means a normal ejaculation represents a data transfer of 1587GB in about 3 seconds." [quora via @davidgalbraith]


• Still with us? A new study finds 5-9mo kids respond differently to faces of people of their own race. Does the study explain how babies know which race they are, though? [livescience via dt reader rolf]


• When I first saw the story about the drunken Florida grandparents arrested for towing their 5yo granddaughter's pedal car behind their SUV, I was worried that the drunk part might distract from the grandparents' sheer stupidity. But then when I read it, I realized it only enhances it. [thesmokinggun.com via like five people within the first hour, who apparently have DT tagged as #wtfpedalcar in their contacts]


• Linda Evangelista won't get into bed for less than $46,000/mo child support. [nypost]


• The thing that freaked me out about this BBC report on the large number of single dads in Las Vegas is the autoplay. Turn down your speakers. [bbc via dt sr freakout correspondent sara]


• The US ranks 121st in the world for the rate of pre-term births, but in that, "our prenatal health system's like Somalia and Thailand" kind of way, not that, "Ooh, we're right up there with Belarus and Ecuador!" which, huh? Is this the right metric? [marchofdimes via boston.co, thanks, obv, to sara]


• Researchers are freaked out over how little research has been done on the use of prescription drugs during pregnancy. [eurekalert]


• Colic causes migraines, or migraines cause colic, which causes migraines, which causes shaken baby syndrome. Whatever, it's complicated and annoying. [eurekalert]


• A Fayetteville, NC preacher instructed his flock to start smacking the gay out of their kids from an early age. It worked for him, I'm sure. youtube via sullivan]

Seven! Seven wonderful tweets! Ah ah ah ah!

1,400 followers in a day for tweeting nothing but numbers! Ah ah ah..ha h I am doing it so wrong.

But his column today on the 40th birthday of is oldest son Jon, who has Down Syndrome, is pretty damn awesome:

The day after Jon was born, a doctor told Jon's parents that the first question for them was whether they intended to take Jon home from the hospital. Nonplussed, they said they thought that is what parents do with newborns. Not doing so was, however, still considered an acceptable choice for parents who might prefer to institutionalize or put up for adoption children thought to have necessarily bleak futures.

Yes, it's Netto Furniture By Maclaren for sale at around 50% off at Gilt, but the question is, which of Farzad Rastegar's Maclaren shell companies is behind it? And will these Louis cribs and changers and Cub cribs and conversion kits generate enough money to pay off Maclaren's creditors? And will these proceeds be flagged for the 9.5-fingered toddlers, the gaggle of Rastegar sock puppets, or David Netto himself?

Who knows, but $375 for a Cub crib is a pretty good deal. And they'll deliver it next week, too, which might save your procrastinating butt.

You probably need to join Gilt to see the Netto Furniture By Maclaren items for sale. [gilt via dt reader jed]

Because we found this coloring book in a box outside the library just now.

And when my explanation started with, "There used to only be three channels on TV," it occurred to me that she barely even knows what a channel is, much less that there were only three of them, or that they could somehow be a constraining factor on what or when you could watch.