"I have some good Play-doh recipes."
"Plato. The philosopher."
]]>"I have some good Play-doh recipes."
"Plato. The philosopher."
]]>Mrs. Stern of Hyde Park has finished ferrying the neighborhood children to and from their various school and after-school events, thank you very much, so her pink 1974 Lamborghini Espada daily driver will need to find a new home.
It has something more than 110,000 miles, is reportedly in exceptional restored condition, and came off eBay last night with an unmet reserve price somewhere north of $50,100.
It is deserving of a new home where it will continue to be used and loved with vigor, even if you don't put carpool kids in the trunk anymore.
1974 Lamborghini Espada, sale ended July 14, reserve not met [ebay via bringatrailer]
Previously, related:Lamborghini in the Car Pool Lane
Mrs. Stern of Hyde Park has finished ferrying the neighborhood children to and from their various school and after-school events, thank you very much, so her pink 1974 Lamborghini Espada daily driver will need to find a new home.
It has something more than 110,000 miles, is reportedly in exceptional restored condition, and came off eBay last night with an unmet reserve price somewhere north of $50,100.
It is deserving of a new home where it will continue to be used and loved with vigor, even if you don't put carpool kids in the trunk anymore.
1974 Lamborghini Espada, sale ended July 14, reserve not met [ebay via bringatrailer]
Previously, related:Lamborghini in the Car Pool Lane
If he wanted to, he could have had one of these prints hanging in every nursery of every kid born in the English-speaking world in the last five years, but that's not how David Shrigley rolls.
A linocut print is printed from a carved linoleum block, and Shrigley only made one. It was at Anton Kern Gallery in NYC in 2013. You could get pretty close, though, if you sent this jpg to the giant printer at Kinko's.
Or just cut and paste the text below into a document and print at the biggest size you can think of:
SLEEP
SLEEP
SLEEP
PLEAS
EGOTO
SLEEP
David Shrigley, "Signs," Jan - Feb 2013, at Anton Kern [antonkerngallery.com, thanks dt reader mario]
]]>If he wanted to, he could have had one of these prints hanging in every nursery of every kid born in the English-speaking world in the last five years, but that's not how David Shrigley rolls.
A linocut print is printed from a carved linoleum block, and Shrigley only made one. It was at Anton Kern Gallery in NYC in 2013. You could get pretty close, though, if you sent this jpg to the giant printer at Kinko's.
Or just cut and paste the text below into a document and print at the biggest size you can think of:
SLEEP
SLEEP
SLEEP
PLEAS
EGOTO
SLEEP
David Shrigley, "Signs," Jan - Feb 2013, at Anton Kern [antonkerngallery.com, thanks dt reader mario]
]]>I see these Freshly Picked X Care Bear moccasins and wonder how they're made.
Is it like having your chest waxed, all at once, to get those logo pelts off the front of the bears?
Is it like that one Star Trek movie where the Borg queen gave Data a shivery little graft of human skin on his arm?
Or is it like that scene that keeps me from showing my kids Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the one where the wild-eyed Thuggee priest rips the beating heart out of the dude in the cage with his bare hand?
Anyway, FP X Care Bear logo pelt moccasins are available in five styles, and can be pre-ordered now (June 2017, because who knows when anyone will read this, or if they even will).
FP X Care Bears logo pelt shoes for kids, $60 [freshlypicked, thanks ian]
]]>I see these Freshly Picked X Care Bear moccasins and wonder how they're made.
Is it like having your chest waxed, all at once, to get those logo pelts off the front of the bears?
Is it like that one Star Trek movie where the Borg queen gave Data a shivery little graft of human skin on his arm?
Or is it like that scene that keeps me from showing my kids Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the one where the wild-eyed Thuggee priest rips the beating heart out of the dude in the cage with his bare hand?
Anyway, FP X Care Bear logo pelt moccasins are available in five styles, and can be pre-ordered now (June 2017, because who knows when anyone will read this, or if they even will).
FP X Care Bears logo pelt shoes for kids, $60 [freshlypicked, thanks ian]
]]>Oh things are quiet around here, obviously. Maybe it's the world we're living in right now. Coupled with the fact that the kid is in 7th grade, and I am so far out of the new dad demo, it is literally not funny.
I've thought many times of wrapping things up, maybe by inviting the kid to write something herself. To share her views on what we're finding out to be a unique experience: growing up with a digital trail of parental oversharing that she doesn't actually have to deal with. But that day and that blog post is not yet.
I do feel like taking a small victory lap, though. Because the kid went on a school band trip to Philadelphia over the weekend, where they were forced by relentless rain to redirect 50 kids from an amusement park to the King of Prussia Mall for the afternoon.
That's right, the kid had her first mall hangout. And she bought a Jamba Juice and a porcupine quill. If you'd like to know how we raised a kid this awesome, just review the last 13 years of archives on this blog. Because it worked. That is all.
]]>Oh things are quiet around here, obviously. Maybe it's the world we're living in right now. Coupled with the fact that the kid is in 7th grade, and I am so far out of the new dad demo, it is literally not funny.
I've thought many times of wrapping things up, maybe by inviting the kid to write something herself. To share her views on what we're finding out to be a unique experience: growing up with a digital trail of parental oversharing that she doesn't actually have to deal with. But that day and that blog post is not yet.
I do feel like taking a small victory lap, though. Because the kid went on a school band trip to Philadelphia over the weekend, where they were forced by relentless rain to redirect 50 kids from an amusement park to the King of Prussia Mall for the afternoon.
That's right, the kid had her first mall hangout. And she bought a Jamba Juice and a porcupine quill. If you'd like to know how we raised a kid this awesome, just review the last 13 years of archives on this blog. Because it worked. That is all.
]]>enjoying the last batch of @SpeakeasyBeer, fixture of olde 90s SF pic.twitter.com/JJHJu1QEIJ
— Wayne Bremser (@wb) March 12, 2017I don't drink, and I don't know much about IPA, but if I did, and I did, I'd drink Speakeasy Baby Daddy. Except I wouldn't, because they apparently just announced that they're closing up shop. End of a San Francisco and craft brewing era.
]]>enjoying the last batch of @SpeakeasyBeer, fixture of olde 90s SF pic.twitter.com/JJHJu1QEIJ
— Wayne Bremser (@wb) March 12, 2017I don't drink, and I don't know much about IPA, but if I did, and I did, I'd drink Speakeasy Baby Daddy. Except I wouldn't, because they apparently just announced that they're closing up shop. End of a San Francisco and craft brewing era.
]]>One day you're checking into the hospital with your soon-to-be-no-longer-pregnant wife and your go-bag and an extra landline phone in case you need to do an interview Mark Wahlberg about his World Trade Center Memorial Competition entry, because cell phones aren't allowed in the delivery room, and the next, your teenager sends you an emoji text from her iPhone urgently requesting you to pick up an extra gluten-free cake pop. What a life.
]]>One day you're checking into the hospital with your soon-to-be-no-longer-pregnant wife and your go-bag and an extra landline phone in case you need to do an interview Mark Wahlberg about his World Trade Center Memorial Competition entry, because cell phones aren't allowed in the delivery room, and the next, your teenager sends you an emoji text from her iPhone urgently requesting you to pick up an extra gluten-free cake pop. What a life.
]]>In late 2013, some designers in Berlin teamed up to help refugees who'd fled war in Northern Africa get settled and productive in their new home. Legally restricted from working as wage-earning employees, the refugees and designers formed Cucula, an organization that produces and sells handmade furniture.
Most awesomely, they sell furniture based on Enzo Mari's 1974 Autoprogettazione designs, which were originally only for DIY use. But Mari gave Cucula permission to make his designs, so long as it was refugees who made it, and refugees who would benefit from it.
Some of the furniture is made using wood from refugee boats which wrecked on the coast of the Mediterranean island Lampedusa. I find this Piet Hein Eek-y, but somewhat problematic.
Straight-up awesome though, is the Bambinooo, a kid-sized adaptation of Mari's iconic Sedia I chair, which has also been stretched to bench width. AND it has underseat storage. There are kid-size Sedia I chairs, and kid-sized Autoprogettazione tables available too, but at the very least everyone should get a Bambinooo. It is great.
Bambinooo bench, handmade from waxed pine, signed, 220 € [cucula.org, ht monique]
Cucula | the story [cucula.org]
In late 2013, some designers in Berlin teamed up to help refugees who'd fled war in Northern Africa get settled and productive in their new home. Legally restricted from working as wage-earning employees, the refugees and designers formed Cucula, an organization that produces and sells handmade furniture.
Most awesomely, they sell furniture based on Enzo Mari's 1974 Autoprogettazione designs, which were originally only for DIY use. But Mari gave Cucula permission to make his designs, so long as it was refugees who made it, and refugees who would benefit from it.
Some of the furniture is made using wood from refugee boats which wrecked on the coast of the Mediterranean island Lampedusa. I find this Piet Hein Eek-y, but somewhat problematic.
Straight-up awesome though, is the Bambinooo, a kid-sized adaptation of Mari's iconic Sedia I chair, which has also been stretched to bench width. AND it has underseat storage. There are kid-size Sedia I chairs, and kid-sized Autoprogettazione tables available too, but at the very least everyone should get a Bambinooo. It is great.
Bambinooo bench, handmade from waxed pine, signed, 220 € [cucula.org, ht monique]
Cucula | the story [cucula.org]
Harvard medical researcher Eliot Porter took this photo of his son Jonathan enjoying some tummy time in 1938, the year he had his first exhibition at Alfred Stieglitz's 291 Gallery in New York. In 1939, he decided to become a photographer full time. This print was made in the 1950s.
And thus history shows us, it's not exploiting your kids for marketable content that's the problem, it's doing it well. Bloggers and sponsored Insta moms, take note.
Feb 14, 2017, Lot 89: Eliot Porter, Jonathan Porter, Great Spruce Head Island, Maine, 10 x 8 print, est $3-4,500 [swanngalleries]
]]>Harvard medical researcher Eliot Porter took this photo of his son Jonathan enjoying some tummy time in 1938, the year he had his first exhibition at Alfred Stieglitz's 291 Gallery in New York. In 1939, he decided to become a photographer full time. This print was made in the 1950s.
And thus history shows us, it's not exploiting your kids for marketable content that's the problem, it's doing it well. Bloggers and sponsored Insta moms, take note.
Feb 14, 2017, Lot 89: Eliot Porter, Jonathan Porter, Great Spruce Head Island, Maine, 10 x 8 print, est $3-4,500 [swanngalleries]
]]>What are the best humidifiers to buy so your kid, and by extension, you and the rest of the clan, has a chance of sleeping at all until morning?
Do you get one with filters or filter-free? 1- or 2-gallon capacity? Auto-shutoff or nah? Should you get the super-nice one like you used to have, but which you happily left in the alley five years ago because you thought you were done with it? How important is Amazon Prime free shipping?
HAHAHA READ ANY FURTHER AND YOU ARE A CHUMP IT DOES NOT MATTER NONE OF IT MATTERS. AMAZON?? JUST GET YOUR BUTT OVER TO CVS AND BUY THE CHEAPEST ONE YOU CAN JUSTIFY TO YOURSELF BECAUSE SRSLY HOW LONG DOES IT NEED TO LAST? ONE WEEK? WHY THE HELL IS A NINE-YEAR-OLD EVEN GETTING CROUP ANSWER ME THAT.
Anyway, I bought this one, and freakin' CVS charged a full $10 over MSRP, the thieves.
]]>What are the best humidifiers to buy so your kid, and by extension, you and the rest of the clan, has a chance of sleeping at all until morning?
Do you get one with filters or filter-free? 1- or 2-gallon capacity? Auto-shutoff or nah? Should you get the super-nice one like you used to have, but which you happily left in the alley five years ago because you thought you were done with it? How important is Amazon Prime free shipping?
HAHAHA READ ANY FURTHER AND YOU ARE A CHUMP IT DOES NOT MATTER NONE OF IT MATTERS. AMAZON?? JUST GET YOUR BUTT OVER TO CVS AND BUY THE CHEAPEST ONE YOU CAN JUSTIFY TO YOURSELF BECAUSE SRSLY HOW LONG DOES IT NEED TO LAST? ONE WEEK? WHY THE HELL IS A NINE-YEAR-OLD EVEN GETTING CROUP ANSWER ME THAT.
Anyway, I bought this one, and freakin' CVS charged a full $10 over MSRP, the thieves.
]]>Honestly, if you're on this site, or are in the demographic of this site, I would hope you already have some health insurance lined up. But if you or someone you know or love needs coverage for 2017, signing up through the ACA is an option they should look at. WITHIN THE NEXT FEW HOURS.
[OK, HOPE YOU GOT IT AND THAT YOU CAN KEEP IT]
]]>Honestly, if you're on this site, or are in the demographic of this site, I would hope you already have some health insurance lined up. But if you or someone you know or love needs coverage for 2017, signing up through the ACA is an option they should look at. WITHIN THE NEXT FEW HOURS.
[OK, HOPE YOU GOT IT AND THAT YOU CAN KEEP IT]
]]>You may know Assemble from their winning the Turner Prize. Or from their The Brutalist Playground made out of foam. But did you know they also make adventure playgrounds?
In 2014 the architecture collective created Baltic Street Adventure Playground in East Glasgow, Scotland, as part of the culture program for the Commonwealth Games. Like any good, real adventure playground, it's a lightly supervised apparent chaos zone (but not really) stocked with warm clothing and slightly dangerous tools and things that kids might get hurt with. Like a giant, foam-wrapped culvert that kids get rolled along inside. As someone I'm not related to named Lady Allen from a country with universal health care once said, "better a broken bone than a broken spirit."
And speaking of spirit, Spirit of Play is an ongoing, kid-led research project Assemble is conducting with National Trust, to develop new, challenging, educational, and sustainable ways of engaging kids with the National Trust's forests and natural sites. It looks like it involves many elements of an adventure playground, except the saws.
Baltic Street Adventure Playground on Assmble's site [assemblestudio.co.uk]
Baltic Street Adventure Play website [ balticstreetadventureplay.co.uk]
Spirit of Play on Assemble's site [assemblestudio.co.uk]
You may know Assemble from their winning the Turner Prize. Or from their The Brutalist Playground made out of foam. But did you know they also make adventure playgrounds?
In 2014 the architecture collective created Baltic Street Adventure Playground in East Glasgow, Scotland, as part of the culture program for the Commonwealth Games. Like any good, real adventure playground, it's a lightly supervised apparent chaos zone (but not really) stocked with warm clothing and slightly dangerous tools and things that kids might get hurt with. Like a giant, foam-wrapped culvert that kids get rolled along inside. As someone I'm not related to named Lady Allen from a country with universal health care once said, "better a broken bone than a broken spirit."
And speaking of spirit, Spirit of Play is an ongoing, kid-led research project Assemble is conducting with National Trust, to develop new, challenging, educational, and sustainable ways of engaging kids with the National Trust's forests and natural sites. It looks like it involves many elements of an adventure playground, except the saws.
Baltic Street Adventure Playground on Assmble's site [assemblestudio.co.uk]
Baltic Street Adventure Play website [ balticstreetadventureplay.co.uk]
Spirit of Play on Assemble's site [assemblestudio.co.uk]
In 2015 artist Simon Terrill and the architecture collective known as Assemble was commissioned to make "The Brutalist Playground," an exhibition/installation of lost, Brutalist playgrounds made out of foam, instead of concrete. The designs were based on archival info from the Royal Institute of British Architects, where the project was first installed. Last year, it traveled to S1 Artspace in Sheffield, somewhere in England, I guess, and now it has opened at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany. Though you're more likely to see it blasted across every design blog still opening their press kits. [I grouse because literally none of this basic context was included in the churnalist versions of the story I saw. What's la plus ca change? in German?]
TBP @RIBA install with sweet hex stools, image via:assemble
In Sheffield, Terrill and Assemble created a limited edition print, a pleasant, abstract silkscreen image of disintegrating foam. Which is awesome, but I wish they'd release 75 of these hexagonal foam-covered stools, too. They look equally nice stacked or strewn about. If your kid picks it to shreds after a few months, you can always just glue another piece of foam on it. [And even if they don't. Terrill's artist site shows how chewed up the installation got by the end. Brutal.]
The Brutalist Playground, 14 Jan - 14 Apr 2017 [design-museum.de via architecture]
The S1 Artspace version in 2016 included a re-creation of a local destroyed Brutalist playground [s1artspace.org]
S1 Artspace's show also resulted in an Assemble X Simon Terrill colabo print edition that looks like crumbling foam. £220, still available [s1artspace]
The Brutalist Playground v1.0 at RIBA, 2015, including an exhibition website and related info [architecture.com via throughjo]
The Brutalist Playground project page at Assemble [assemblestudio.co.uk]
the same, at Simon Terrill's web place [simonterrill.com]
In 2015 artist Simon Terrill and the architecture collective known as Assemble was commissioned to make "The Brutalist Playground," an exhibition/installation of lost, Brutalist playgrounds made out of foam, instead of concrete. The designs were based on archival info from the Royal Institute of British Architects, where the project was first installed. Last year, it traveled to S1 Artspace in Sheffield, somewhere in England, I guess, and now it has opened at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany. Though you're more likely to see it blasted across every design blog still opening their press kits. [I grouse because literally none of this basic context was included in the churnalist versions of the story I saw. What's la plus ca change? in German?]
TBP @RIBA install with sweet hex stools, image via:assemble
In Sheffield, Terrill and Assemble created a limited edition print, a pleasant, abstract silkscreen image of disintegrating foam. Which is awesome, but I wish they'd release 75 of these hexagonal foam-covered stools, too. They look equally nice stacked or strewn about. If your kid picks it to shreds after a few months, you can always just glue another piece of foam on it. [And even if they don't. Terrill's artist site shows how chewed up the installation got by the end. Brutal.]
The Brutalist Playground, 14 Jan - 14 Apr 2017 [design-museum.de via architecture]
The S1 Artspace version in 2016 included a re-creation of a local destroyed Brutalist playground [s1artspace.org]
S1 Artspace's show also resulted in an Assemble X Simon Terrill colabo print edition that looks like crumbling foam. £220, still available [s1artspace]
The Brutalist Playground v1.0 at RIBA, 2015, including an exhibition website and related info [architecture.com via throughjo]
The Brutalist Playground project page at Assemble [assemblestudio.co.uk]
the same, at Simon Terrill's web place [simonterrill.com]
Precious cargo! Bryan Coffelt posted this photo on twitter. If I ever opted to turn this blog into a line of dubious kid products, a car magnet saying "Dads Are Just As Important As Moms" would probably have been available to this day. I have no regrets.
photo via @bryancoffelt
]]>Precious cargo! Bryan Coffelt posted this photo on twitter. If I ever opted to turn this blog into a line of dubious kid products, a car magnet saying "Dads Are Just As Important As Moms" would probably have been available to this day. I have no regrets.
photo via @bryancoffelt
]]>I don't know how much time she has before he arrives, but she may want to crowdsource an algorithm for sifting through the gigabytes of suggestions. If you have a favorite, it's probably in there.
And so here I go to weigh in on the names I like from the first couple of dozen blog comments, which, to be honest, is as far as I got:
Rome
Bort
Four
Axis
Enzo
And my bonus suggestion, though it might end up sounding old-fashioned in the coming petabyte era: Giga
Anyway, good luck! Hahahaha, what? I thought this was odd, but yes, this post is from 2009. She just tweeted out the comment stream dataset to anyone wanting 4-letter boy names. Also, I'm pretty sure she went with Bort. Yeah, almost positive.
[Vintage] Extreme Crowdsourcing [swiss-miss via @swissmiss]
]]>I don't know how much time she has before he arrives, but she may want to crowdsource an algorithm for sifting through the gigabytes of suggestions. If you have a favorite, it's probably in there.
And so here I go to weigh in on the names I like from the first couple of dozen blog comments, which, to be honest, is as far as I got:
Rome
Bort
Four
Axis
Enzo
And my bonus suggestion, though it might end up sounding old-fashioned in the coming petabyte era: Giga
Anyway, good luck! Hahahaha, what? I thought this was odd, but yes, this post is from 2009. She just tweeted out the comment stream dataset to anyone wanting 4-letter boy names. Also, I'm pretty sure she went with Bort. Yeah, almost positive.
[Vintage] Extreme Crowdsourcing [swiss-miss via @swissmiss]
]]>In Mother Russia, Sergei Tretyakov wrote a play called, I Want A Child, about a woman named Milda who wanted to have "a model proletarian baby, but without a husband." The controversial play explored topics like sex, eugenics, politics and their molding of society, and constructivist El Lissitzky was asked to design the sets.
Sotheby's calls this image of El Lissitzky's son Boris laying on a photo of his dad working on the set and a copy of Pravda a photomontage, but I'd feel better calling it a composition. h up.
The print, btw, came from the El Lissitzky family through pioneering photo dealer Barry Friedman, and then in 2014 it didn't sell. But now that Russia's hot, and we'll apparently all be working for them now, it's probably spoken for.
11-12 Dec 2014, Lot 74 | El Lissitzky, I WANT A CHILD, est $USD25-35,000 [sothebys via grupaok]
]]>In Mother Russia, Sergei Tretyakov wrote a play called, I Want A Child, about a woman named Milda who wanted to have "a model proletarian baby, but without a husband." The controversial play explored topics like sex, eugenics, politics and their molding of society, and constructivist El Lissitzky was asked to design the sets.
Sotheby's calls this image of El Lissitzky's son Boris laying on a photo of his dad working on the set and a copy of Pravda a photomontage, but I'd feel better calling it a composition. h up.
The print, btw, came from the El Lissitzky family through pioneering photo dealer Barry Friedman, and then in 2014 it didn't sell. But now that Russia's hot, and we'll apparently all be working for them now, it's probably spoken for.
11-12 Dec 2014, Lot 74 | El Lissitzky, I WANT A CHILD, est $USD25-35,000 [sothebys via grupaok]
]]>Speaking of amazing Japanese playgrounds, there is nothing that tops Moerenuma, the vast, last project by Isamu Noguchi, the 400-acre park in Sapporo which was only completed in 2005, after his death.
Moerenuma gets 750,000-850,000 visitors a year, but because it is in Sapporo, and Sapporo is far from most places, most art and design types, even dyed-in-the-wool Noguchi fans, have never seen it in person. Which was enough motivation for Alexandra Lange, who writes about her recent pilgrimage to the park in Curbed.
Noguchi imagined Land Art and Earthworks before there was such a thing, at least in contemporary art. And Moerenuma is the culmination of that decades-long vision. Or, as Lange discovered, the accumulation of it. Noguchi completed the large-scale design and model for Moerenuma before he died in 1988, but it turns out the details were filled in by friends and colleagues, including architect Shoji Sadao. The water fountain is choreographed with a 50-minute show from who knows where, and the sculpted landscape is sprinkled with an Isamu's Greatest Hits Collection of playground equipment, as in the Octetra and Atlanta-esque swings mashup above.
In any case, it's still on my bucket list, if only because I'm gonna see Noguchi's Black Slide Mantra in the center of Sapporo some day, and if you've come that far...
A journey to Isamu Noguchi's last work [curbed]
Isamu Noguchi Slide Mantra Sculptures
Speaking of amazing Japanese playgrounds, there is nothing that tops Moerenuma, the vast, last project by Isamu Noguchi, the 400-acre park in Sapporo which was only completed in 2005, after his death.
Moerenuma gets 750,000-850,000 visitors a year, but because it is in Sapporo, and Sapporo is far from most places, most art and design types, even dyed-in-the-wool Noguchi fans, have never seen it in person. Which was enough motivation for Alexandra Lange, who writes about her recent pilgrimage to the park in Curbed.
Noguchi imagined Land Art and Earthworks before there was such a thing, at least in contemporary art. And Moerenuma is the culmination of that decades-long vision. Or, as Lange discovered, the accumulation of it. Noguchi completed the large-scale design and model for Moerenuma before he died in 1988, but it turns out the details were filled in by friends and colleagues, including architect Shoji Sadao. The water fountain is choreographed with a 50-minute show from who knows where, and the sculpted landscape is sprinkled with an Isamu's Greatest Hits Collection of playground equipment, as in the Octetra and Atlanta-esque swings mashup above.
In any case, it's still on my bucket list, if only because I'm gonna see Noguchi's Black Slide Mantra in the center of Sapporo some day, and if you've come that far...
A journey to Isamu Noguchi's last work [curbed]
Isamu Noguchi Slide Mantra Sculptures
I haven't seen a Japanese concrete slide this awesome since the itinerant Tako-no-Yama octopus slide roundup of 2007. Thanks, esoteric survey!
Kyoto Things [esotericsurvey]
Previously, related: Tako-no-yama: the itinerant octopus slide builders of Japan
also: Slides Rule! the 517 Awesomest OG Suberidai in Japan
I haven't seen a Japanese concrete slide this awesome since the itinerant Tako-no-Yama octopus slide roundup of 2007. Thanks, esoteric survey!
Kyoto Things [esotericsurvey]
Previously, related: Tako-no-yama: the itinerant octopus slide builders of Japan
also: Slides Rule! the 517 Awesomest OG Suberidai in Japan
We have come a long way from the Like-a-Bike.
Balance bikes are called runbikes in Japan, and so the competitive racing circuit is known as the Runbike Challenge Series. It is organized by the RFJ, Runbike Foundation Japan.
From the URL, RCS began in 2013. Kids around the country race in age classes from 2-5yo, working their way toward the All Japan Championships. Dads are heavily involved, but so are girls. Runbike racing really is a family affair.
There are videos on YouTube that rival muttonbustin' for their sheer wtf-ill-advised awesomeness. The related links will lead you down a runbike rabbit hole.
There also appears to be a branded competitor, the Strider Cup, sponsored by the company, which only allows owners of its product to enter. The trailer for the 2016 Osaka Round is the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and the lingering gender strait jackets that deploy a squad of 2yo girl cheerleaders for a 2yo boys' bike race. This whole thing feels like fun, but also like folly, and I cannot endorse it any more than I can look away.
Runbike Challenge Series [rcs2013.com]
The Strider Cup [strider.jp]
Oh look, the Strider Cup® is global. [striderbikes]
Random runbike racing video vortex entry point: RCS 2013 Grand Champion Heats 5yo Class [youtube thanks dt hero matt]
We have come a long way from the Like-a-Bike.
Balance bikes are called runbikes in Japan, and so the competitive racing circuit is known as the Runbike Challenge Series. It is organized by the RFJ, Runbike Foundation Japan.
From the URL, RCS began in 2013. Kids around the country race in age classes from 2-5yo, working their way toward the All Japan Championships. Dads are heavily involved, but so are girls. Runbike racing really is a family affair.
There are videos on YouTube that rival muttonbustin' for their sheer wtf-ill-advised awesomeness. The related links will lead you down a runbike rabbit hole.
There also appears to be a branded competitor, the Strider Cup, sponsored by the company, which only allows owners of its product to enter. The trailer for the 2016 Osaka Round is the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and the lingering gender strait jackets that deploy a squad of 2yo girl cheerleaders for a 2yo boys' bike race. This whole thing feels like fun, but also like folly, and I cannot endorse it any more than I can look away.
Runbike Challenge Series [rcs2013.com]
The Strider Cup [strider.jp]
Oh look, the Strider Cup® is global. [striderbikes]
Random runbike racing video vortex entry point: RCS 2013 Grand Champion Heats 5yo Class [youtube thanks dt hero matt]
My kids could be in college and writing papers about surviving the trauma of their dad exploiting their childhoods on a dadblog designed to make the money to pay for their college, and I will still be sitting here, adding new chutes and ladders to the convoluted history of people buying, failing, bankrupting, and selling FAO Schwarz.
Toys R Us bought FAO Schwarz in 2009, and after closing the last/only retail location on Fifth Avenue last year, has sold the zombie brand to the brand's fifteenth owner, ThreeSixty Group, of Kowloon and Irvine. ThreeSixty is a privately held, vertically integrated ideation, design, manufacturing, licensing, and distribution company that literally used to be called MerchSource? Am I getting this right? My research on ThreeSixty is not turning up much at all. They seem to have the toy license for the Discovery Communications brands, though, so that's something.
But if you notice FAO Schwarz brand toys in a big box retailer someday, then I guess their undisclosed purchase price will have been worth it. Because now that the below-market retail leases are gone, the entire value of FAO Schwarz derives from the fact that you've heard of it.
Toys "R" Us sells FAO Schwarz to ThreeSixty Group [kidscreen]
Previously, deeply related: FAO R Us: a compleat history of all the people and companies who've bought and sold FAO Schwarz [To their credit, the Schwarz family did hold onto it for the first 101 years.]
My kids could be in college and writing papers about surviving the trauma of their dad exploiting their childhoods on a dadblog designed to make the money to pay for their college, and I will still be sitting here, adding new chutes and ladders to the convoluted history of people buying, failing, bankrupting, and selling FAO Schwarz.
Toys R Us bought FAO Schwarz in 2009, and after closing the last/only retail location on Fifth Avenue last year, has sold the zombie brand to the brand's fifteenth owner, ThreeSixty Group, of Kowloon and Irvine. ThreeSixty is a privately held, vertically integrated ideation, design, manufacturing, licensing, and distribution company that literally used to be called MerchSource? Am I getting this right? My research on ThreeSixty is not turning up much at all. They seem to have the toy license for the Discovery Communications brands, though, so that's something.
But if you notice FAO Schwarz brand toys in a big box retailer someday, then I guess their undisclosed purchase price will have been worth it. Because now that the below-market retail leases are gone, the entire value of FAO Schwarz derives from the fact that you've heard of it.
Toys "R" Us sells FAO Schwarz to ThreeSixty Group [kidscreen]
Previously, deeply related: FAO R Us: a compleat history of all the people and companies who've bought and sold FAO Schwarz [To their credit, the Schwarz family did hold onto it for the first 101 years.]
Of all the posts about all the browser tabs in all the world, this is the one that brought be back to Daddy Types. It's an issue that goes to the heart of my idea for this blog, which is now almost thirteen years old. I know that because the kid is almost thirteen, too, and k2 is nearly nine.
And though I've long since aged out of the new dad demo myself, and I've yet to find the way this blog can provide a vital, or even useful, role for new dads today, maybe what I can do is provide some perspective. Maybe it's useful to take a look back, and see how our parenting, our advice, our priorities, our concerns, our experiments and guesses, turned out. So far.
Because on this front, of kids growing up to face the challenges of a digital world their parents have filled with info about them, I think we made the right call. From the very beginnings of Daddy Types, I wanted this site to be human, but not personal. In the vernacular of the pre-Facebook era, I specifically did not want DT discussions of my little kid's private life to flood her Google results. Or her Google Image results. It was a simple principle, and we stuck with it, and we adapted as needed. So whenever TV shows wanted me to appear on them as some kind of dadblogger novelty, and they wanted me to bring the kid, I said no. And then they'd say no, too. And it was fine.
Other blogging and then Instagramming folks made other choices, and managed their and their kids' public presence in different ways. Ours is sort of this first generation to grow up online, in the quasi-public realm of social media that blogging presaged. And some like Heather Armstrong have spoken powerfully and eloquently about their experiences.
From the long, searching, and intense article at the Guardian, it seems like kids are having a tough time when they discover our oversharing online. When they find out they're already a public figure, known to many, perhaps, and it's embarrassing, constraining, or awkward for them to be (or project) their own selves.
But you know what, being 13 was awkward before the Internet, too. So things might get better. Realizing your childhood was a Zulily-sponsored Truman Show may be a shock, but maybe once you've processed it, it'll give you a leg up on growing and managing your own online brand. Not every child actor became a crackhead; some became regular actors and showbiz people. [I do still think about the kid whose parents let her be photographed on the potty for that NY Times front page story on elimination communication, though. Hope she's alright. And that we realize embarrassing our kids in media is not new; it's just been decentralized.]
In any case, I think the article's emphasis on looping kids into the social media decision is admirable, but ultimately limited. No 4yo can understand what it actually means to post their Halloween costume on Pinterest. The children need you to think of the children, until you can help them think and decide things for themselves.
For our part, I have half a mind to turn this whole joint over to the kid, and let her write about her experience. But alas, she does not care that much. And the friends she texts and snaps with don't either. And for that I am grateful.
'I was so embarrassed I cried': do parents share too much online? [guardian]
Previously, related: "Hairy Banana"
Of all the posts about all the browser tabs in all the world, this is the one that brought be back to Daddy Types. It's an issue that goes to the heart of my idea for this blog, which is now almost thirteen years old. I know that because the kid is almost thirteen, too, and k2 is nearly nine.
And though I've long since aged out of the new dad demo myself, and I've yet to find the way this blog can provide a vital, or even useful, role for new dads today, maybe what I can do is provide some perspective. Maybe it's useful to take a look back, and see how our parenting, our advice, our priorities, our concerns, our experiments and guesses, turned out. So far.
Because on this front, of kids growing up to face the challenges of a digital world their parents have filled with info about them, I think we made the right call. From the very beginnings of Daddy Types, I wanted this site to be human, but not personal. In the vernacular of the pre-Facebook era, I specifically did not want DT discussions of my little kid's private life to flood her Google results. Or her Google Image results. It was a simple principle, and we stuck with it, and we adapted as needed. So whenever TV shows wanted me to appear on them as some kind of dadblogger novelty, and they wanted me to bring the kid, I said no. And then they'd say no, too. And it was fine.
Other blogging and then Instagramming folks made other choices, and managed their and their kids' public presence in different ways. Ours is sort of this first generation to grow up online, in the quasi-public realm of social media that blogging presaged. And some like Heather Armstrong have spoken powerfully and eloquently about their experiences.
From the long, searching, and intense article at the Guardian, it seems like kids are having a tough time when they discover our oversharing online. When they find out they're already a public figure, known to many, perhaps, and it's embarrassing, constraining, or awkward for them to be (or project) their own selves.
But you know what, being 13 was awkward before the Internet, too. So things might get better. Realizing your childhood was a Zulily-sponsored Truman Show may be a shock, but maybe once you've processed it, it'll give you a leg up on growing and managing your own online brand. Not every child actor became a crackhead; some became regular actors and showbiz people. [I do still think about the kid whose parents let her be photographed on the potty for that NY Times front page story on elimination communication, though. Hope she's alright. And that we realize embarrassing our kids in media is not new; it's just been decentralized.]
In any case, I think the article's emphasis on looping kids into the social media decision is admirable, but ultimately limited. No 4yo can understand what it actually means to post their Halloween costume on Pinterest. The children need you to think of the children, until you can help them think and decide things for themselves.
For our part, I have half a mind to turn this whole joint over to the kid, and let her write about her experience. But alas, she does not care that much. And the friends she texts and snaps with don't either. And for that I am grateful.
'I was so embarrassed I cried': do parents share too much online? [guardian]
Previously, related: "Hairy Banana"
You're on the internet, so you know KC Green's This is fine. dog. We are all KC Green's This is fine. dog now.
And now your kid can be, too. Green has launched a Kickstarter campaign to make a plush toy version of the This is fine. dog. It has already blown through its goal in two days, so it will definitely happen. The scheduled delivery date is November, much like the collapse of civilization itself.
The doll is available by itself, or with a foldable, full color cardboard diorama set. You get whatever you want, but what you really could/should do break out the paint and make a This is fine.-themed nursery for your plush toy-and your kid-to inhabit. The long-term psychological impacts of such a decorating scheme are, frankly, irrelevant, for the obvious reasons.
"This is Fine" Plush Dog. A plush doll to ease your pain [kickstarter]
kcgreendotcom [kcgreendotcom]
You're on the internet, so you know KC Green's This is fine. dog. We are all KC Green's This is fine. dog now.
And now your kid can be, too. Green has launched a Kickstarter campaign to make a plush toy version of the This is fine. dog. It has already blown through its goal in two days, so it will definitely happen. The scheduled delivery date is November, much like the collapse of civilization itself.
The doll is available by itself, or with a foldable, full color cardboard diorama set. You get whatever you want, but what you really could/should do break out the paint and make a This is fine.-themed nursery for your plush toy-and your kid-to inhabit. The long-term psychological impacts of such a decorating scheme are, frankly, irrelevant, for the obvious reasons.
"This is Fine" Plush Dog. A plush doll to ease your pain [kickstarter]
kcgreendotcom [kcgreendotcom]
On That Day, meaning yesterday, August 3rd, in 1967, William Kunstler and others founded the Law Center for Constitutional Rights. [via @JMitchellNews]
On This Day, meaning today, August 4th, in 1977, Kunstler founded Bring Your Daughter To Work Day.
]]>On That Day, meaning yesterday, August 3rd, in 1967, William Kunstler and others founded the Law Center for Constitutional Rights. [via @JMitchellNews]
On This Day, meaning today, August 4th, in 1977, Kunstler founded Bring Your Daughter To Work Day.
]]>you know what? I quit pic.twitter.com/2CCCqOJi0c
— World Princess Pt. 3 (@snpsnpsnp) July 12, 20163. Do not play Pokemon Go while attending a funeral, but if you just happen to drop by a funeral home while a funeral's going on, well...
2. Do not play Pokemon Go at the Holocaust Museum.
1. Do not play Pokemon Go while your wife is giving birth.
you know what? I quit pic.twitter.com/2CCCqOJi0c
— World Princess Pt. 3 (@snpsnpsnp) July 12, 20163. Do not play Pokemon Go while attending a funeral, but if you just happen to drop by a funeral home while a funeral's going on, well...
2. Do not play Pokemon Go at the Holocaust Museum.
1. Do not play Pokemon Go while your wife is giving birth.
I think the blog may have a new mascot.
Hmm. daddy.fr [daddy.fr]
]]>I think the blog may have a new mascot.
Hmm. daddy.fr [daddy.fr]
]]>