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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

What will your life look like a year from now? Most of us are intrigued—just a bit—to know what the future holds for us, curious about how our careers, relationships, or finances will go.  We’re certainly not the first to wonder about such things, nor will we be the last. For centuries, people of all cultures have pondered the same questions and devised a variety of ways to predict the answers. Some scholars believe the origins of fortune telling can […]

Continue Reading about Gypsies, Cards, and Tea Leaves: Foretelling the Future Published on:
October 23, 2012

ICHEG has acquired a collection of more than 250 drawings that document how designers at Atari created some of the most important games of the arcade era. Sketches show the development of games such as Gran Trak 10, the first cabinet to use a steering wheel, shifter, and gas and brake pedals; Touch Me, which inspired Ralph Baer’s Simon; the pioneering 3D dogfight simulator Red Baron; and the legendary dungeon crawler Gauntlet.
The artists who designed these cabinets made magic by […]

Continue Reading about A Fabulous Collection of Atari Concept Art Published on:
October 18, 2012

Watching the Emmy Awards recently turned my thoughts to the upcoming 2012 induction of new toys into the National Toy Hall of Fame on November 15. Although our induction ceremony doesn’t boast television stars, glittery evening gowns, or tearful acceptance speeches, it nevertheless offers suspense leading up to bestowing a significant honor on two (or sometimes three) deserving winners. No one goes away with an impressive trophy for their mantel, but classic toys receive their moment in the spotlight.

This year’s […]

Continue Reading about And the Winner Is… Published on:
October 16, 2012

Not that long ago, critics debated whether video games qualified as art. Now, thanks in large part to artist and microphotographer Thomas Shahan, Colin Northway’s forthcoming game Icredipede, available for preview, many put the question to rest.
Shahan specializes in capturing the personalities of countless insects and spiders in his arthropod portraiture. His muses—Tabanus Horse flies, Damselflies, and Phidippus jumping spiders, to name a few—have been featured in National Geographic and Popular Photography, among others. Northway, an independent game designer and programmer, saw […]

Continue Reading about Using Woodblocks to Reshape Video Game Art: An Interview with Incredipede’s Thomas Shahan Published on:
October 11, 2012

The Strong’s vast and varied holdings include several hundred artifacts in the museum’s KAR-MI Collection: magician’s props, throwing knives, swords to swallow, theater posters, satiny banners and table covers, and a tattoo set (tattoo set? yes!). But we have few documents or records to explain this interesting mass of materials. So, of course, I have wondered for years: Who was KAR-MI?
The short answer goes something like this: KAR-MI was the stage name of performer Joseph Hallworth (1872–1956), an itinerant entertainer […]

Continue Reading about The Magic and Mystery of KAR-MI Published on:
October 10, 2012

How do people use games, toys, and other playthings? It’s a question play scholars and historians must grapple with. A blanket, for instance, serves as a warm companion on a cold night, but it may also act as, among other things, a superhero’s cape or a princess’s gown. One needs only to scan ICHEG’s online collections to get a sense of the variety of ways in which video games might be used to entertain and educate. However, as media theorist […]

Continue Reading about From Training, to Toy, to Treatment: The Many Lives of Full Spectrum Warrior Published on:
October 5, 2012

The morning after the first Obama-Romney presidential debate, with the commentators having had a chance to sleep on it, we awoke to a flood of psychologizing. The president had looked tense and acted dismissive, they noted. This hopeful man who had once campaigned on the prospects of the bright future seemed worn down by the minute-to-minute demands of two wars, an economic collapse not of his own making, and a recalcitrant legislative branch. The challenger, an organizational man who seems […]

Continue Reading about What Big Bird Means to the Presidential Debate Published on:
October 5, 2012

For more than 100 years, parents have criticized the talking, walking, crying, eating, and drinking dolls that appeared on the market. They have complained that mechanical dolls leave little to children’s imaginations. These complaints sound familiar today, what with the scores of dolls such as Baby Alive, Baby Check-Up, Baby Annabell, Baby Wet and Wiggles, and Little Mommy Hide and Peek. In fact, toy makers and doll makers have offered so many crawling, creeping, speaking, walking, drinking, and eating dolls […]

Continue Reading about Martha Jenks Chase’s Simple Dolls for Simple Doll Play Published on:
October 2, 2012