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What do play, The DaVinci Code, multiplying rabbits, double-entry bookkeeping, and Roman numerals have to do with discovering the secrets of the universe or at least have to do with finding an easier way to do arithmetic?
 In the whopper of an opening scene in Dan Brown’s alternate history page-turner The DaVinci Code, a creepy robed figure corners a terrified curator in the Louvre’s famed Grande Gallerie, a room that displays the Mona Lisa and other acclaimed works. After a short […]

Continue Reading about Thank you Fibonacci for Playing with Numbers Published on:
January 19, 2012

As a kid, I had the good fortune of a basement playroom brimming with toys, from a massive pink Barbie Dream House to bins full of Lego bricks and even an air hockey table. Though I enjoyed all these toys, I gravitated to a box full of blank, hardcover books more than anything else in the basement. I could spend hours filling the books’ pages with stories and pictures, such as “The Cheese Family,” stories about a family of traveling […]

Continue Reading about More than Just a Toy Published on:
January 17, 2012

When I heard about Bioware’s 2011 release of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic (SW:TOR), nostalgia consumed me and I immediately added it to my wish list. This holiday season, the game proved the shiniest toy under my tree.
SW:TOR puts the player in the center of conflict between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire as they battle one another for preeminence in the galaxy. Aside from the epic battle, I most enjoy the variety […]

Continue Reading about Star Wars: The Old Republic: A Force-Filled Video Game Published on:
January 13, 2012

I grew up in a world without LEGO minifigures. I received my first set of LEGO bricks as a Christmas gift in 1973—a wide, white box full of flat, green “grass” pieces, primary-colored bricks, and potential. I constructed houses with doors and windows that opened and closed. I built cars, both the ones illustrated on the box and monstrous contraptions not unlike modern Humvees. And when I needed people, I made them. So did every other kid I knew. Two […]

Continue Reading about Go Figure Published on:
January 10, 2012

In high school I often worked as a caddy, hitchhiking to a golf course in the morning. (Oh, weren’t those the carefree days.) Flat rate for eighteen holes paid $1.75 for carrying a kangaroo bag with a fifth of scotch stashed in the pouch; if you carried double the rate jumped to $3.50. I used to play golf, too, on the free days when courses accommodated their toilers. And the two facts are not un-connected; it was caddying that cured […]

Continue Reading about Playing a Maddening Game: Golf Under Pressure Published on:
January 10, 2012

Have you ever thought about what rats have in common with comedy club audiences? No? I hadn’t either until I met neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp and some of his students.
Professor Panksepp studies the origin of emotions by examining the nervous systems of rats at play, and that got me thinking about the legendary comedian Henny Youngman. Nobody could deliver a one-liner like Youngman, the great comedian and screechy violinist. He’d roll the build-up and the punch line into one small, effective package. […]

Continue Reading about Of Rats and Men: Mammals at Play Published on:
January 10, 2012

Some folks have reported visions of sugarplums recently—I’ve worked so closely with museum artifacts that I’m hearing their voices. Call me the Toy Whisperer or just plain loopy, but I listen when the museum’s toys and games talk about their New Year’s resolutions. The artifacts have some ambitious goals for 2012, but this doesn’t surprise me at all—they were busy last year, too.
 Mobo Bronco has committed to proving he’s a big-boy horse by sleeping without his night light as often […]

Continue Reading about New Year’s Resolutions from the Artifacts Published on:
January 3, 2012

Recently, a museum guest asked me to tell her about the most interesting question I’d received as director of the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play. The answer was easy—I take great satisfaction in uncovering some elusive fragment of information that helps a researcher resolve an issue or solve a puzzle. As more information becomes available on the Internet and researchers become increasingly adept at finding their own answers, the questions that reach me have become more challenging and […]

Continue Reading about Playing in Time Published on:
December 27, 2011

We do! Recently, news reports cited as wasteful spending a $113,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to The Strong’s International Center for the History of Electronic Games to preserve video games. We disagree. We believe video games not only are the most dynamic, exciting, and innovative form of media today but also an important form of play and a driver of cultural change.
Games sharpen people’s ability to solve problems and overcome challenges. Games teach people […]

Continue Reading about Do You Think Video Games Are Worth Saving? Published on:
December 22, 2011