After Lakers’ shooting-guard Kobe Bryant’s left Achilles tendon gave way catastrophically last Friday in a game against the Golden State Warriors, he tweeted from his hospital bed a plaintive question: “how the hell did this happen?” Bryant had dribbled hard to his left, a move he’d performed a million times. But this one time, and in an instant, the body failed him.
Failure came as a shock and a surprise even to a player who had seen plenty of injuries. In […]

Continue Reading about Pop Goes the Achilles Published on:
April 16, 2013

You might remember a famous scene from Charlie Chaplin’s movie Modern Times (1937) that features Chaplin’s character, The Little Tramp, at his impossible assembly line job. Two wrenches in hand, he tightens nuts on the parts that fly by, hour after hour. Conscientious to a fault, and falling behind during a sneeze—the line stopped for no one!—he dives after the parts he’s missed and is drawn deep into the factory’s mechanism where he literally becomes just a cog in the […]

Continue Reading about Tired of the Same Old Treadmill at Work? Try a Treadmill? Published on:
April 5, 2013

For this April Fool’s Day, let’s recall a truly elaborate prank. In 1993, a madcap group of California conceptual artists calling themselves the Barbie Liberation Organization (BLO) seized an opportunity for comic mayhem about gender stereotyping in a revealing bit of cultural parody that they called “culture jamming.” When a version of talking Barbie that recited the chatty phrase “Math class is tough” (in the interest of full disclosure, this is a sentiment I’d share, by the way) appeared on […]

Continue Reading about April Fools! Remember the Barbie Liberation Organization! Published on:
April 1, 2013

The recent galling decision to drop wrestling from the Olympics has me steamed, but it has me musing about the virtues of the hand-to-hand contest, too. Wrestling and the Olympics go way back—back to the beginning, in fact. The amphora pictured here depicts a wrestling match between Peleus, the Greek hero and father to Achilles, and Atalanta, the only woman to have signed on as crew with the Argonauts (whose famous quest for the Golden Fleece you may have heard […]

Continue Reading about Wrestling Rubbed Out? Now They’ve Done It! Published on:
February 15, 2013

In the big picture of play, all toys have a purpose: they teach physical and mental skills, develop young imaginations, and encourage kids to think in new ways. However one category of toys has puzzled me for years: housekeeping toys. The term seems like an oxymoron. I love a well-cooked meal, nicely laundered and pressed clothes, and a thoroughly cleaned house as much as the next neatnik, but housekeeping as play? Only the young could think so—because they are too […]

Continue Reading about (House)Working at Play Published on:
January 22, 2013

For almost a quarter century, I’ve divided my time between Rochester and Buffalo. This gave me the opportunity to observe the contrasts of two cities so close together yet so different culturally. If Rochester is the East Coast of the Midwest as some have joked, then Buffalo surely must be the West Coast of the East. Rochester could be transported to Rochester Minnesota and feel at home. Buffalo could move closer to New York and still feel comfortable. Rochester’s history […]

Continue Reading about A New Stadium and a New Museum Can Co-Anchor the Toronto-Buffalo-Rochester Mega-Region Published on:
October 25, 2012

The news that the Buffalo Bills recently released their longest-tenured player, punter Brian Moorman, came as a bit of a shock but not a surprise. With an injury rate of 100 percent, the average NFL career stretches only about three-and-a-half years; Moorman, though, has played in every game since he put on a Bills uniform in 2001. Over the course of his dozen seasons, the two-time Pro Bowler performed some amazing feats. He kicked an astonishing 84-yard punt against Green […]

Continue Reading about New Rule: No Punting Published on:
September 28, 2012

The Greeks imagined three kinds of water nymphs: Oceanids inhabited seas, ponds, lakes, and springs; Nereids swam in the deep salt water particularly the Aegean; and Naiads made their homes in fresh water streams, and even in wells and fountains. That Diana Nyad, journalist, radio commentator, ranked professional squash player, and most notably, endurance swimmer, should have a name that sounds like a water nymph is a coincidence too rich not to mention. Nyad turns 63 in a few days, […]

Continue Reading about Nyad the Naiad: Finding Play at the Extreme End of Competition Published on:
August 20, 2012

At home in the Carmel Valley, I enjoy a view of the steep ridge that holds the flood plain that the Carmel River (only truly a fast-flowing river in springtime) has cut into the rock. At points the shale is so friable you can dig into it with your bare fingers. The geologic past is not always easily readable in this valley; layers of sandstone, soft shale, sandstone, decomposed granite, and big stream rounded boulders in conglomerate residues piled helter-skelter […]

Continue Reading about The Tree House of the August Moon: Play and Solace in the Carmel Valley Published on:
August 15, 2012