The opening of NFL training camp put me in mind of an encounter in a different field. On a routine doctor visit, I was answering the usual questions. “Do you smoke?” the doctor asked.  I said, “no.” “Never did?” she persisted. “Nope,” I replied. “And never will?” she asked meaningfully, leaning forward. A little weary of the interrogation I said, “well, Doc, I’ve been trying to start, but I’m having no success.” Not a smile; not even a twitch. Next […]

Continue Reading about Knocked Cold and Loving It Published on:
August 6, 2012

I can’t pretend to care much about genteel Victorian pastimes. Bar skittles? Not a fan. Shove halfpenny? The game won’t get me going. Quoits? Shuffleboard? Zzzzzzzzzz…. But I will admit to amazement when watching Olympic badminton, resurrected from that bygone era, but startlingly athletic in its modern materialization. Engineers describe the shuttlecock, the feathered conical object that players bat about, as a “high-drag” projectile. It starts out fast when furiously swatted, but quickly slows and hangs excruciatingly—the hang time allowing […]

Continue Reading about Tanking the Game: Scheming and Disgrace at the Olympics Published on:
August 2, 2012

Psychologists tell us that by age four, children are very good at differentiating playing from fighting. But, what about those events that fall in the middle, play-fighting and rough-and-tumble play? Can fighting be playful?
Here we have an instinctive sense of the answer to the question—one that most of us boys honed by experience. We know the difference. The culture informally discouraged fisticuffs (but not verbal rough-and-tumble) for girls of course. And legal strictures discouraged it, too. For most of the 20th […]

Continue Reading about Is Boxing Play? Published on:
July 31, 2012

I gave Droopy his name when he first appeared outside my office window at the National Institute for Play headquarters nearly ten years ago. He’s old for a wild crow. An injured wing made him easy to pick out as a youngster but has not seemed to hinder him since. He’s raised a brood each year with a crow version of aggressive mentoring and attentive tough love. Crows brood cooperatively and for long periods, and so crow young get plenty […]

Continue Reading about Droopy the Crow, the Surprising Bird Brain, and Play Published on:
July 12, 2012

To stand at the brink of Niagara Falls—sun shining through the transparent water, the mist rising, the roar underneath, a rainbow overhead—is to experience a beauty so humbling that philosophers and painters describe this dizzying, unsettling moment as “the sublime.” While viewing the Falls, not many can suppress the overpowering thought of how the rushing current would easily sweep them away. Over the years not a few have tested this notion, but only a few have survived. Some have plunged […]

Continue Reading about Skill, Risk, Play, and the Daredevils of Niagara Published on:
June 19, 2012

While in Seattle for a conference a couple of years ago, I ditched the scheduled luncheon and scooted over to the EMP Museum, a flashy, entertaining, interactive museum devoted to music, popular culture, and science fiction. When I went down to the basement annex, I found the Science Fiction Hall of Fame packed, wall-to-wall, with deeply absorbed science-fiction fans, some in alien makeup or mocked-up space suits. I never counted myself as one of these fans. Until that is, while […]

Continue Reading about Ray Bradbury, 1920-∞: At Play in Space and Time Published on:
June 11, 2012

The French have a saying: les pensées d’escalier, “thoughts on the stairs,” or in America, we say, “what I shoudda said.” Usually the perfect comeback doesn’t come to you until you’re leaving the event—in your overcoat on the stairwell—and it can do you no good. The witty riposte that surfaces fills you with regret. Alas, I had one of these experiences recently at a meet and greet for Lance Armstrong. He was scheduled to speak at the Ride for Roswell, […]

Continue Reading about One Question for Lance Armstrong Published on:
May 11, 2012

Less than a minute into my scheduled interview with world-renowned sculptor Albert Paley, we knew we had a problem. I wanted to talk about how he played as a child, but Paley wanted to know what I meant by play. And just like that he became the interviewer and I was the one reaching for answers. It’s a great question. I gave the answer most people interested in play can agree with: play is self-initiated, self-regulated, and self-limited. Play has […]

Continue Reading about Albert Paley: Gravity, Sculpture, and Play Published on:
April 27, 2012

I’m a bit of a mossback when it comes to language. Specialized usages and jargon set my teeth on edge. So when I overheard the rent-a-cop at the county fair lean into his walkie-talkie with “what’s your six?” when “where are you?” would do perfectly well, I started to grind molar enamel. But of course to close one’s mind to innovation of this sort walls one off to the creativity of the evolving language. And because we Americans give ourselves […]

Continue Reading about To Gender or Not to Gender, That’s the Question Published on:
April 19, 2012