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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

PBS recently launched the Idea Channel, a bi-weekly series that examines the evolving relationship between modern technology and art. In the episode “Super Mario Brothers as Surrealist Art?”, host Mike Rungetta advocated for the game’s place in the canon of great surrealists.
In reviewing the gameplay experience, Rungetta said “you eat a flower that lets you spit fire…and there’s this guy that throws armadillo-type things from a cloud. These sound like the ravings of a mad man.”  Of the surrealist experience, […]

Continue Reading about What if Dali Made Video Games? Published on:
April 26, 2012

…except when it comes to toys.
We spend a lot of time talking about the way the media portrays women—how images of svelte, scantily-clad models on New York City’s sky-high billboards affect us mere mortals below, for instance. The struggle with body image and beauty standards begins at a very young age for girls, often with toys like Barbie, the beautiful doll who stares mockingly up at everyone unfortunate enough to be made of something other than flawless plastic. But this […]

Continue Reading about Boys Will Be Boys… Published on:
April 25, 2012

Players disagree about what constitutes cheating. In her book, Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames, Mia Consalvo defines cheating as an action that “breaks the magic circle,” meaning players leave the imaginary world to reach outside for answers. This “magic circle” concept originated in Dutch historian Johan Huizinga’s book Homo Ludens, in which he explains how play takes place in a closed-off area, separated either physically or mentally from the rest of the world. Consalvo further defines cheating as an action […]

Continue Reading about The Magic Circle: Cheating in Video Games Published on:
April 20, 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

“Hey, Mom. Where do toys come from?”
Perhaps kids don’t ruminate about the origin of toys as they might about a newborn sibling, but toys do come from somewhere. Toy inventors dream new ones up all the time, to the delight of kids everywhere. The National Museum of Play’s collections include toy prototypes and design papers from a number of toy inventors like Greg Hyman, creator of popular toys such as Alphie, Talking Barney, and Tickle Me Elmo. How Hyman became […]

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April 17, 2012

Did you know that it’s rumored that a simple game helped counterintelligence agents discover Russian Spies? For decades, this classic psychology experiment based in a simple, funny, yet devilish game continues to demonstrate how play reveals the inner working of our minds.
Try this. Read the following set of words out loud:
Red   Blue   Yellow   Green   Purple
Piece of cake, right? Now, (and here’s the brain-teaser) say out loud the color of the text in each word:
Red  Blue   Yellow  Green   Purple
Um, er, […]

Continue Reading about Playing with Your Head: What do You Do When Red Looks Blue? Published on:
April 12, 2012

Simon and Schuster published the first Little Golden Books in 1942. Filled with colorful illustrations and appealing tales, these inexpensive picture books hooked kids across America. Thanks to my cousin’s hand-me-downs, my childhood library contained a copy of the series’ Little Red Riding Hood. I confess, I forgot about this book until I began to work on a new display of Little Golden Books for Reading Adventureland at the National Museum of Play at The Strong.
From a ravenous wolf that […]

Continue Reading about Little Golden Books and Little Red Riding Hood: The Better to Read with You, My Dear Published on:
April 10, 2012

During one of my recent late night channel-surfing interludes, I came to rest on the classic film Northwest Passage (1940). Spencer Tracy stars in the role of Major Rogers, dashing leader of the ragtag Rogers Rangers, a militia that patrolled the Lake Champlain region in the French and Indian War as it is still known here in our post-colonial outpost. I joined the film part way through and stayed with it. My ear caught several instances of frontiersmen using the […]

Continue Reading about Playing with Words: Word Ranger Published on:
April 5, 2012