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BlogAn interesting dynamic exists between work and play. In my last blog, I discussed how domestic chores can be play. The work versus play issue came to mind recently since so much of what I do in my current job is playing (just don’t tell my boss that).
When it comes to a career, I never thought I would be someone who liked their job. It was called work for a reason. Before I knew any better, I envisioned finding something […]
Continue Reading about Work vs. Play: Do I Even Call This Work?
As a child, I always enjoyed playing video games, but I never paid too much attention to the musical accompaniment in the background. It wasn’t until college that I first heard gaming music on its own. Prior to that, I simply enjoyed the music as background noise for games, or as musical cues that prompted me to “jump” or dodge an enemy. But then I met the man who eventually became my husband, and while we were dating, we burned […]
Continue Reading about ICHEG, the RPO, and Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy
Pioneering Chicago-based gaming company Williams Electronics Games, Inc. donated the Williams Pinball Playfield Design Collection, 1946–1995 to The Strong. The collection consists of more than 200 original drawings of playfields (the pinball machines’ surface where the ball rolls) layouts (with a nearly complete set of sketches from 1947 to 1971), hundreds of mechanical drawings of parts assemblies, and numerous examples of pinball concept artwork. Collectively, these one-of-a-kind materials document how Williams created their games and how playfield designs evolved […]
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Childhood is sometimes punctuated with brief but potent moments of blinding fear. Children often have imaginations that run amok and dark, isolated places are perceived as settings of unspeakable horrors that must be avoided at all costs. Kids can convince themselves (and some of us, even as adults, are still convinced) that horrible creatures await in the basement to snatch an unsuspecting victim; that vengeful ghosts haunt dark hallways; and hideous monsters hide under the bed, preparing to grab the […]
What do you get when you take a grand Victorian mansion, all of its ornately detailed furnishings, wallpaper, wooden flooring, and inhabitants (including pets!), and shrink them down to 1/12 their natural size? Well, a dollhouse, of course!
Dollhouses were a passion for museum founder Margaret Woodbury Strong Strong, as they have been for people throughout the centuries, dating as far back as the 1500s. It is easy to understand the appeal of these tiny treasures. Anyone who has had the […]
From my childhood, I seem to recall an early TV advertising ditty that ended with: “Lucky us in a Greyhound bus!” Growing up in a village too small for Greyhound service, my introduction to the transportation line came from ads in magazines, newspapers, and television and from glimpses of Greyhound buses in movies, songs, and popular culture. It took me several bus rides during college and a wonderful donation to The Strong to appreciate Greyhound and its place in Americans’ […]
Paul Sams, former Chief Operating Officer at the American video game developer and publisher Blizzard Entertainment, has donated a collection that traces the history of the company and highlights the importance of its games. Sams worked for Blizzard from 1996 through 2015 and served as the Chief Operating Officer for eleven years. During his tenure, Sams accumulated more than 1,500 items representing the company’s many successful games and franchises such as Warcraft, World of Warcraft (an inaugural inductee into the […]
What is it about light that makes it so appealing as an element of play? One of my recent blogs focused upon glow-in-the-dark toys that use phosphors and a form of light emission known as photoluminescence to provide a familiar greenish glow. I also described chemiluminescence, a form of light emission dependent upon a chemical reaction. Glow sticks, for example, use this form of illumination. However, Lite-Brite, a toy first produced by Hasbro in 1967, applied an entirely different approach […]
In preparation for purchasing my daughter’s second birthday present, I polled my parent-friends to see what was the one toy their kids couldn’t live without. The answer was unanimous —a play kitchen—since it provides endless hours of play for a wide variety of age groups. In the back of my mind I thought, “I could just let her play in the real kitchen and give me a break from making dinner and doing dishes!” Of course that scenario presents a […]
Continue Reading about Work vs. Play: When a Chore is Not a Chore
