The MAJOR FUN AWARDS go to games and people that bring people fun, and to any organization managing to make the world more fun through its own personal contributions, and through the products it has managed to bring to the market.
Though I have written many articles about volleyball, devoted an entire funcast and even a full chapter of Junkyard Sports to volleyball, I have yet to find anywhere outside of my own writings any mention of the perhaps most profound and, dare I say revolutionary contribution to the very nature of volleyball - the Cross-Court Rotation Variation. Not even in the Wikipedia article "Volleyball Variations," or the obversely titled Thinkquest article "Variations of Volleyball," have my Googling eyes sighted anything approaching actual citing.
Perhaps a diagram is necessary. Perhaps two diagrams.
Here, from Wikipedia, the traditional method of rotating:
While in the Cross-Court Rotation Variation the Number One-positioned player in team A (herein illustrated as the Red Team) goes to the Number Six position in team B (the Green Team) while simultaneously the Number One-positioned player in team B moves to the Number Six position in team A, all other players moving down-position according to the traditional rotation rule.
Perhaps the merits of the Cross-Court Rotation Variation are too numerous to enumerate. Perhaps the concept is too subtle or simple to catch the attention of the sport-minded many. But the truth remains: simply by letting players change sides as well as positions we can not only satisfy all the purposes of the official rotation rules, but we can also make the game a lot more fun for anyone who wants to play. Anyone.
But wait, a note of hope from my colleague Roger Greenaway:
"You will find a reference to this variation of volleyball which forms part of the history of Turntable (née Revolver) ending with a climactic reference to Junkyard Sports.
"As you will discover, the cross-court variation was invented (or reinvented) in Scotland around 1990 by a group of playful trainers inspired by Terry Orlick's creative interferences with the rules of competitive games.
"I am not trying to compete for ownership of this non-competitive variation, although I do claim to be the creator of Turntable where the 'cross-court' move enables participants to take part on all sides of a discussion."
Thank you, Roger. No, no competition for ownership is implied. Key is that this concept is out there, in use, and extending beyond volleyball, eve. Hope is restored.
"The intention of playing tennis to improve one's health is not playful in this sense, because it is motivated by the expectation of some future good. In contrast, persons who enjoy the sheer pleasure of competing with others, for instance, exhibit a genuinely playful attitude. Exercising may also help to upgrade our health, but this anticipated benefit is not here the principal reason for the action. Viewed from a biological viewpoint, it makes sense to ascribe functional advantages to physical exercise, but these advantages are not the agent's primary motivation. People who play do so mainly because they treasure the experience of intense immersion that it uniquely affords. When pursued in a purely playful spirit, the ludic experience of tension, uncertainty or release is its own justification, not a means to some subsequent end."
I am always on the lookout for signs of playfulness - on the Web, in the world. Recently, I found this:
"Life is playfulness...we need to play so that we can rediscover the magical around us."
It was a quote, attributed to Flora Colao.
I was so drawn by this poetic and perceptive connection between playfulness and the sense of the magical that I had to find out more about the author of the quote. Fortunately, with a little computer-assisted magicalness, I found her on Facebook. I wrote her. She replied:
"In 1991, I was asked to write an essay about the meaning of life for Life Magazine when they were doing a book called the Reflections in words and pictures on Why We Are Here, The Meaning of Life. I am a social worker and a therapist by profession. Most of my work at that time was with traumatized children (children who were abused, were victims of or witnessed crimes, had terrible losses or who were in accidents). My work experience was that play therapy was the most healing thing for those children. When I thought about my own life experience as well as my work experience I came to the conclusion that life is playfulness and wrote from that perspective."
What a conclusion to reach. What a powerful truth to have come to. Life is playfulness. When we are playful, we are most alive. When we are playful, we rediscover the magical, we are ourselves magicians.
Jonathan Follett asks: "What makes a person want to use one particular digital product or service over its competitor? What makes one user experience more engaging, interesting, or compelling than another?"
He answers for us: "An often overlooked, under-appreciated, and rarely measured component of user experience is playfulness."
Yes, he's talking about "user experience" and playfulness specifically in the context of the design of digital services like Twitter and Flickr.
He defines playfulness in the user experience "...as those elements of a digital design that engage people’s attention or involve them in an activity for recreation, amusement, or creative enjoyment."
"Creative enjoyment." The lad's a definite phrase-turner.
In his article he lists four handy criteria for measuring playability:
lots of small rewards and positive feedback for taking action
no negative consequences for experimentation
the ability to take someone else’s work and build on it
and my favorite:
frivolous interaction
"Facebook," he exemplifies, "has perfected digital social interaction for no good reason other than pure fun. All playful applications should have a component of interactive silliness."
Bless his perceptive heart: Creative enjoyment. Frivolous interaction. Interactive silliness. How else could one explain the forces that draw us here to find each other?
During play, children also increase their social competence and emotional maturity. Smilansky and Shefatya (1990) contend that school success largely depends on children’s ability to interact positively with their peers and adults. Play is vital to children’s social development. It enables children to do the following:
Practice both verbal and nonverbal communication skills by negotiating roles, trying to gain access to ongoing play, and appreciating the feelings of others (Spodek & Saracho, 1998).
Respond to their peers’ feelings while waiting for their turn and sharing materials and experiences (Sapon-Shevin, Dobbelgere, Carrigan, Goodman, & Mastin, 1998; Wheeler, 2004).
Experiment with roles of the people in their home, school, and community by coming into contact with the needs and wishes of others (Creasey, Jarvis, & Berk, 1998; Wheeler, 2004).
Experience others’ points of view by working through conflicts about space, materials, or rules positively (Smilansky & Shefatya, 1990; Spodek & Saracho, 1998).
Unfortunately, all this wonderful documentation is about children before the age of 5. I guess we have to speculate about what the importance of play for adults. See, for example, Patricia von Papstein's detailed discussion of Integral Play.
Playfulness, curiosity, Einstein, Freeman Dyson, and you
Garry Shirts is a friend, game genius, and fellow recipient of the Iffil Raynolds award. But that's beside this particular point, which is about a quote Garry sent me, from this article in which philosopher Avishai Margalit says about Freeman Dyson: "... To me he is a towering figure although he is tiny - almost a saintly model of how to get old. The main thing he retains is playfulness. Einstein had it. Playfulness and curiosity."
I raise my conceptual glass to you, dear reader, in virtual toast: may you grow evermore playful, may you become curiouser and curiouser!
If you've been following my Delicious FUN bookmarks (as everso conveniently echoed in the Delicious FUN widget, as everso wisely installed by my everso increasingly appreciated son), you've undoubtedly noticed my current investigation of sites using the term "playful" and "playfulness" and even "playfulness training." It has been a rather, if you'll excuse the expression "delicious" search, leading me to some remarkable people and a remarkably wide range of applications of those terms to things like pet care and interactive design.
The reason for my renewed interest in these terms are all quite personal. I've come to a time in my life in which I can begin devoting more of my energy to developing my own sense of playfulness - in pursuing, with more devotion, my own Playful Path.
My awakening to this need has been stimulated by my sojourn in Israel, where the dead seriousness of the war has reached into the very soul of a war-weary country; by the wonderful conversations I've been having with my son about the connections between his growing faith in Judaism and my continued belief in fun, and especially by the freedom I've been given to notice those times when I could be having more fun - times with my grandchildren, their parents, my wife; times alone, just walking around Jerusalem - much more fun.
I have written a great deal about this idea of the Playful Path. When I released the most recent edition of The Well-Played Game, I gave it the subtitle: A Playful Path to Wholeness. But, after some remarkably deep conversation with my son, it became clear that I might have the most success in my search for fun by focusing not so much on playfulness, or the web, or even on the depths of the deep fun of flow, but on the experience I have called Minor Fun - those everyday invitations to enjoyment that come with the breezes, the smiles, the touches of love, the play and interplay of shadows.
Adventures on the the Playful Path - with Gary Berlind, Gambaist
Gary Berlind is a friend of mine. About 25 years ago, he helped me develop PR materials for my Technography initiative (see, for example, this archived page from my Coworking website). I asked him to share some of his story with us, because he clearly understands what I mean by following a Playful Path. Here's his response (click here and let Gary complement his story with a background music - Gary performing a Couranto from Simon Ives):
"Theoretically, I’ve been trying to have fun ever since I can remember. Usually, however, what fun I was able to muster would muster itself somewhere else, and then, feeling that I had been punished by the Universe for the "sin" of pursuing fun, I would try more conservative endeavors. Eventually, whatever tidbits of fun may have been lurking in those reasonably conservative endeavors dissolved mostly into nothingness, the pain became intolerable, and then I usually chucked it all and embarked on fun again.
"My life was therefore, in hindsight, mostly a fun/not-fun checkerboard. Back and forth, back and forth, until I was 61 years old. That’s a lot of checkerboarding. And come to think of it, a checkerboard has only 64 squares on it. It was looking to me like I had already used most of them up.
"So, in the beginning of 2002, when I was just turning sixty-one and a half, I left Berkeley California wherein I had hatched many shards of checkerboards, and moved myself to Istanbul, Turkey.
"In my last black square, (please forgive the continued use of the metaphor, but it seems to fit), I had been a hi-tech public relations consultant in the Silicon Valley. This square had lasted for a full 16 years. Itself, it was checkered: sometimes fun (Bernie DeKoven had been a client of mine in the early days), and sometimes not fun (I won’t name names). But mostly not fun. Coming to Istanbul made practicing public relations impossible, which was what I sorely needed.
"In 2002 I was convinced I didn’t want to sell out to the non-fun face of the world anymore. Maybe only two squares left. What could I do?
"Almost immediately I realized that my music career, which I had left in despair and sadness back in the late 1960s, might be a path. I wasn’t sure, but a few years teaching music at an Istanbul university made me realize that music was fun. Glorious fun. Playing music, I mean. Not so much teaching it to the unteachables, but going back to basics and playing. Making wonderful sounds. Expressing myself, digging deeper into myself to squeeze out ever more music from wood and gut. Burrowing more deeply into the musical minds of fun-thinking composers who had been dead for more than 300 years. Learning to learn. Learning to play. Learning to have fun.
"It’s been seven years now, and I’ve had lots of fun doing this. Purpose, meaning, fulfillment, have all been there, along with considerable amounts of hard work, deep introspection, and not a small amount of frustration and impatience. But ALL OF IT has been fun.
"It’s what I really wanted to do when I was playing on the home-rows of the checkerboard of my life, back in my teens and early twenties. Music was fun then, although I eventually ran into obstacles and limitations that seemed insurmountable at the time. And they WERE insurmountable to me back then, given the realities that imploded on me every time I attempted to keep the fun in music. My own limitations, and the vicissitudes of my circumstances.
"But a new country, a new instrument (actually an old instrument!), a new Gary, and a lifetime of experience that constantly shouted at me to avoid the black squares, worked. I kept my head down and practiced a lot. Learned a lot. For seven wonderful years.
"And now I’m in South Turkey, in a small resort village on the Aegean called Gümüşlük. Turkey is my playground. I’m playing the viola da gamba and it is a constant joy for me. Whether I’m playing for myself, for friends, or for audiences, more and more of my checkers are getting "kinged."
"It took a long time. And, hopefully, the experience is not over yet. I think often that I could have done this many years ago, theoretically. But in reality I couldn’t, and that’s that.
"When the player is ready, the fun will come. Not before."
This wonderful collection of art made from recycled cardboard. It is enough to restore one's faith in things like art and fun and playfulness. It's enough to make one believe that, out of little more than our passion for play, we might actually save the world, yet.
"Eunoia," quoth the Wikipedia, "is the shortest English word containing all five main vowel graphemes. It comes from the Greek word εύνοι&alpha which means well mind or beautiful thinking."
Eunoia is also the title of a book of, well, poems, by Christopher Bök. The following excerpt should more than amply explain our collective interest in the significance of the aforementioned:
Midspring brings with it singing birds, six kinds, (finch, siskin, ibis, tit, pipit, swift), whistling shrill chirps, trilling chirr chirr in high pitch. Kingbirds flit in gliding flight, skimming limpid springs, dipping wingtips in rills which brim with living things: krill, shrimp, brill - fish with gilt fins, which swim in flitting zigs. Might Virgil find bliss implicit in this primitivism? Might I mimic him in print if I find his writings inspiring?
Play. Word play. Deeply fun word play, cresting the poetic heights of monovowelism.
You've no doubt heard of Chapay that Russian version of checkers that is really a game of billiards played on a checkerboard with, well, checkers, and of course pool cues. And yet, oddly enough, you probably haven't heard of the American equivalent - Knockdown Chess. Actually, not so surprising, given that it was only recently invented, by, actually, this guy.
Then there's the equally recently invented sport of Tire Toss - a giant quoits-like game requiring a porch, fire hydrant, and several many bicycle tires.
As modeled by Ashley and Sophie, the invention of Sock Fighting anticipates a time when we might have to things like this for real, or face a future of blistering socklessness.
Were you to click this link, this entire, interactively graphic Deep Fun site would look impressively like a Microsoft Word document. And, should worse come to even worse, and you have ample reason to suspect that the person looking over your shoulder is in fact your boss, simply click on the "Boss Key" as herein illustrated, the site itself would appear to disappear entirely, and be replaced by a Word document about how to increase your job efficiency and avoid procrastination.
The fact that someone would go to the trouble to program such a thing, however tongue-in-cheekily, bears evidence of a certain kind of fun that one might call "sneaky." It is the fun that has a definitely sweet flavor of "being clever," yet possesing more than a hint of bitterness, don't you think?
This is an actual work of play. As much, at least, as it is a work of art, exhibited, actually, at the städtische galerie, in nordhorn, some time in 2007.
Especially given the artistic statement, a statement that doesn't conclude until at least this.
Balloon art, performance art, funwise, it has a taste that is predominantly artlike, yet suffused with an aroma of playfulness, whilst exhibiting an aftertaste reminiscent of swords-into-plowshare-making fun.
By deep study of the Codex of the Lost Ring, we hope to gather insight into the mystery and vasty significance of the The Lost Sport of Olympia. We seek further guidance from Ariadne, who says of herself: "I woke up in a Labyrinth of Feb. 12. They call me Ariadne." Ariadne, should you consult the Wikipedia deeply enough, also refers to: "Ariadne's thread, named for the legend of Ariadne, is the term used to describe the solving of a problem with multiple apparent means of proceeding - such as a physical maze, a logic puzzle, or an ethical dilemma - through an exhaustive application of logic to all available routes." Ah. Ariadne's thread.
The mystery deepens and at the same time widens. What actually is the Lost Sport? Where is Olympia? Who lost it in the first place?
ARG, don't you know, stands for Alternate Reality Game. Ah, so we are not speaking of an actual Lost Sport of Olympia, but something of a fantasy, something perhaps made up?
Perhaps in deed. But, reality-wise, the reality to which the alternate reality is an alternate, what we actually have is a quite fun game, which, as my colleague, covisionary and general friend Celia Pearce is quick to point out, is very much in the spirit of New Games of yore and ours. See, for example, this.
Exploring the relationship between play and games: discovering and affirming both the connections and distinctions - turns out to be ever more relevant to our understanding of the future of both play and games. In universities and art studios, in computer laboratories and workshops, investigations of game/play relationship are leading to a profound evolution of both. A goodly number of these leading-edge explorations can be found in the playful works that comprise the current Homo Ludens Ludens collection. See, for example, Stiff People's League, in the illustration accompanying this post.
"...play reflects more the idea, the notion, the vivid and spontaneous basis for the action as well as its relation to fantasy, whereas games are closed systems and environments governed by rules which demand discipline and a constraint space and time. Play is in a way the presupposition for the games that are its expressions and forms.
"Play as a notion is much more open and therefore it may even embrace elements that come in opposition with a game's structure. For instance play has no death or end; but games do, otherwise there s no meaning into it. Or think of cheating. While it can destroy a game by breaking its rules, it is still a part, an act of play. On the same line, while any game forms hierarchies, play creates interrelations between them."
"...We can be playful anytime anyplace, not only through games. Games are basically a construction which is made possible because of this playfulness that already exists in any aspect of life."
People are doing some wonderful things in the name of play and games, art and technology. If you're interested in getting a taste, Homo Ludens Ludens is a virtual banquet.
A couple years ago, I wrote about Ken Feit's remarkable sound poem, The Romance of Sound and Senses. Ken was the "holy fool" who taught me about the Frog of Enlightenupment. His sound poem is another example of his amazing wit, profound sensitivity, and endless creativity.
When I was in Fairfield I met a storyteller, and in telling her about Ken's sound poem, I realized how important it was to me that she knew about it, and that you knew about it. So I decided that maybe I needed to write yet another post about this amazing work, and to publish it again, in perhaps a more accessible format.
She explains how she remembered the hours she spent with Waldo books, searching endlessly for his image, and made the connection between her childhood pastime and the delight she takes looking through Google Earth.
It is a brilliant connection. Coles creates a remarkably effective translation of a familiar, well-loved, print-based activity into the endlessly complex realities of the virtual world, adding a new layer of fun to our global vision.
As you know, my interest in Improv Everywhere has been high ever since I first heard about their playful public theatrics. Most recently, Improv Everywhere launched a new, shall we say, play, which very well might prove, as they themselves describe it, to be the Best Game Ever.
Start here, with a video of the event. Then read about it. Then ask yourself what it would be like if you had actually been there, been one of the parents, or better yet, one of the kids.
This Best Game Ever is right on the edge of art, theater, and social comment. It wouldn't succeed if not for the playfulness and sensitivity of the Improv Everywhere company - the people who conceived and staged the event. It could have proven insulting to both parents and players, it could have proven upsetting, been perceived as an act of ridicule. But apparently the event stopped short of being ridiculous, just at the point of being almost entirely believable. If not because of the believability of the actor-spectators, then because of the player's willingness to belive. If not by the actuality of the giant scoreboard, then most definitely by the blimp. Why don't we do this for all kids, everywhere - invest great effort and expense, yes, but, for the kids, and parents - to give them one random hour, of sheer, magical, transformational fun. Beyond game and sport. A theater of total participation.
Fantastic fun. The fun of fantasy fulfilled. Ah, delicious.
Once I learned to see the connections between theater and children's games, I began to understand the wisdom contained in their playful dramas.
Once I started sharing this wisdom with adults, it became the thing I liked to do best - more, even, than designing games or reviewing games or writing about games and fun and stuff. I first discovered this when I was leading a workshop for teachers at the Durham Child Development Center in Philadelphia, and rediscovered my joy in ths at the Games Preserve and at the Esalen Institute.
I play with grown-ups, especially playful grown-ups. We play a kids' game together. I talk a little about the theater of the game - the play and interplay of roles. And then everyone talks about the "drama" of the game, as if the game were really some kind of theater piece - especially about the drama they experienced, personally. Not so much about their own, personal drama, but about about the drama of the game itself, about relationships, about the way of things in gameland.
I like what happens as we play and talk, play and talk - some kind of healing, playful, loving wisdom starts manifesting itself. Because we are grown-ups playing these games. Because of the growing honesty and openness and depth of sharing we are capable of, just the act of playing each game reveals to us a depth, a drama more profound, more personal, a truth more mutual, more freeing.
"I have learned to see children's games as scripts," I write, "for a kind of children's cultural theater. I see them as collective dreams in which certain themes are being toyed with - investigated and manipulated for the sake of sheer catharsis or some future reintegration into a world view. They are reconstructions of relationships - simulations - (myths) - which are guided by individual players, instituted by the groups in which they are played or abstracted by the traditions of generations of children."
I like to do this best. Teach people to see this. The artistry, the clarity, the wisdom of games.
And frankly, I'm hoping that by telling you about it, I'll get to do this more.
In an article in the New York Times, Alexander McCall Smith describes what can only be called The Really Terrible Orchestra. He begins: "WHY should real musicians — the ones who can actually play their instruments — have all the fun?" A profound question that set this particular funsmith's heart conceptually aflutter. He continues: "Some years ago, a group of frustrated people in Scotland decided that the pleasure of playing in an orchestra should not be limited to those who are good enough to do so, but should be available to the rankest of amateurs. So we founded the Really Terrible Orchestra, an inclusive orchestra for those who really want to play, but who cannot do so very well. Or cannot do so at all, in some cases."
Similar in spirit to Adam Sandler's Opera Man, The Really Terrible Orchestra completely avoids the question of "good music" by providing its audiences with very human performers who are having a great deal of fun making music that isn't really that terrible.
Smith concludes: "There is now no stopping us. We have become no better, but we plow on regardless. This is music as therapy, and many of us feel the better for trying. We remain really terrible, but what fun it is. It does not matter, in our view, that we sound irretrievably out of tune. It does not matter that on more than one occasion members of the orchestra have actually been discovered to be playing different pieces of music, by different composers, at the same time. I, for one, am not ashamed of those difficulties with C-sharp. We persist. After all, we are the Really Terrible Orchestra, and we shall go on and on. Amateurs arise — make a noise."
Cacophonic fun. But of course. Related, but not to be confused with, Musical fun.
I, myself, am somewhat of a virtuoso on the Cacophone...since I was in elementary school band, and discovered that if I played quietly enough, I could pretty much play anything.
The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra exemplifies at least 5 flavors of fun: cooperative, sensual, serious, silly, and transforming. Allow them to explain:
"The Vegetable Orchestra performs music solely on instruments made of vegetables. Using carrot flutes, pumpkin basses, leek violins, leek-zucchini-vibrators, cucumberophones and celery bongos, the orchestra creates its own extraordinary and vegetabile sound universe. The ensemble overcomes preserved and marinated sound conceptions or tirelessly re-stewed listening habits, putting its focus on expanding the variety of vegetable instruments, developing novel musical ideas and exploring fresh vegetable sound gardens."
Transforming fun, because they are playing on vegetables, for godsake. Silly fun, for pretty much the same reason. Serious fun, because these are serious musicians, and the music they are making is actually musical. Sensual fun because they clearly are enjoying the vegetables as much as the music - the color, texture, smell, feel.... Cooperative, because they are an orchestra, and it's about what they are creating together.
One of the "products" of the Games Preserve (of blessed memory) was an official "Notice of Appreciation" card. Which led us inexorably to the official "Notice of Disappointment" card. A clever concept they were, especially in the days of sending things by post. Large cards, they were. Clearly notifying the recipient and the recipient's postal workers of their appreciation- or disappointment-worthy status, written in the form of a lightly-veiled meaningful Madlib which led me, inevitably, to share with you my personal delight and sense of shrewdness in my discovery of the Bureau of Communication and the Formal OBSERVANCE OF HOLIDAY notice.
It could have led with equal inexorability to the Official AIRING OF A GRIEVANCE notice, as well as several other official notice opportunities, but, being the kind of guy I am in the time I find myself, the holiday notice seemed most appropriate.
It is for fun. A certain kind of fun, emanating from that often, upon retrospect, genuine, actual, deep need to give for formal notice.
Optical illusions are what you might call "visual puns." They tickle the same funny bone - confusing us in a most delicious way. They are, however, far more difficult to create, and require something on the order of the visual equivalent of the humor of Gilbert and Sullivan and the drafting skill of an M. C. Escher.
Dark Roasted Blend has recently released the third in its wonderfully comprehensive series on optical illusions, demonstrating, and demonstrating again the wealth of the connections between art and play.
"Two robotic arms attached to a large and vintage-looking machine are making the same movements again and again. They plunge into aluminium bowls containing a soapy mixture and emerge from it with a huge bubble forming a kind of delicate and fragile screen which contrasts with the industrial look of the mechanism itself.
"On the soap bubbles, appear images of living babies, people or animals. Some of them seem to struggle. Others just float around. Until the bubble pops a few seconds after its creation. The cycle is repeated: the machine spews out bubbles, which, like the organisms in the images, will survive for mere seconds. As Curator José-Carlos Mariátegui mentioned during the press conference, the bursting of the bubbles evokes the frustrating attempts experienced by creators, be they artists, inventors or scientists."
Ah, the every joyous evocations of frustration. Who can resist?
The Institute for Figuring "is an educational organization dedicated to enhancing the public understanding of figures and figuring techniques. From the physics of snowflakes and the hyperbolic geometry of sea slugs, to the mathematics of paper folding and graphical models of the human mind, the Institute takes as its purview a complex ecology of figuring."
"These funny clowns are made at the spectacular Foz do Iguacu (Iguassu Falls), which sits at the point where Brazil meets Argentina and Paraguay. Here, there are always beautiful, lush green plants growing everywhere, so no wonder the kids there have incorporated grass into their toys! Meet the Grass Head Clown, which is often decorated with the colors of the rainbow, the same colors created from the mist of Iguassu Falls which falls along 350-foot cliffs of river. The child who made this particular toy used all recycled materials: a pair of her mother's old' stockings, a piece of scrap ribbon, sawdust she found lying around her father's wood shop, and a small handful of grass seeds. As a result of assembling all this "junk" together, she has a toy that's fun for any boy or girl to make and play with . . . especially if they like to cut hair! These toys have become so popular in Iguassu Falls that some of the children make them and sell them to tourists who come to see their town. So they are not only toys, but they are also a way for the children to make a little money of their own.
"We like to call the Grass-Head Clown the original Chia Pet!"
"On my trip last June I walked by this propane tank just down the road from the friend's cabin where I was staying. It's always fun being surprised by someone's whimsy just when you are least expecting it!"
"When lit properly, the molded shapes that make up the city blur into a jewel-like mosaic of luminous color, volume, and light. However, I’ve discovered that the gelatinous material also evokes uncanny parallels with the geological qualities of the real San Francisco. While the translucent beauty of these compositions is what first attracts the viewer, their fragility quickly becomes a metaphor for the transitory nature of human artifacts."
So, see, it's not just fun, and it's not at all silly - it's art. Gotta love it.
The Persistence of Playfulness - a folk art tour of Kansas
"Kansas," did you know, "is a national leader in grassroots or self taught folk art."
Did you further know that self taught folk art is probably one of the best examples of what I sometimes, but not often call "the persistence of playfulness"?
The Hema department store has created what might arguably be the most playfully frame-breaking vision of an online catalog absolutely ever, so far. Click, watch, and, in a most Rubenesquely Goldebergish manner, be amused.
Theo Jansen is an artist who is building new forms of life.
He recently explained his universe to participants of the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference. You can watch his presentation here.
I know, I know. It's hard to accept the idea that his walking sculptures are a form of life, for God sake. But, well, listen to what he has to say before jumping to any conclusions. There is something awe-inspiring about his work. Something deeply playful. I found this on the TED site:
"His newest creatures walk without assistance on the beaches of Holland, powered by wind, captured by gossamer wings that flap and pump air into old lemonade bottles that in turn power the creatures' many plastic spindly legs. The walking sculptures look alive as they move, each leg articulating in such a way that the body is steady and level. They even incorporate primitive logic gates that are used to reverse the machine’s direction if it senses dangerous water or loose sand where it might get stuck."
This is fun stuff. Maybe the very stuff of fun. Art, science, vision, and deep, deep playfulness.
"I love this analogy Stuart Brown makes — after all his study of the science of play in intelligent social animals as well as human beings. At one end of the play spectrum in animals, there are labrador retrievers; at the other, there are wolves. Human beings act like labs in childhood and wolves in adulthood. But all we are learning about the human brain and body suggest that we are in fact hard-wired to learn and grow, by way of play and pleasure, across our life span.
"How to rediscover play if you've let it slide, I ask? Move your body, Stuart Brown says. Dig up your memories of what brought you pleasure as a child. Take cues from "the experts" — the children in your life today. Do what makes you happy, and what transports you beyond a sense of the clock, your schedule, that deadline — beyond time. And remember, he says, to the accomplished wolves and workaholic perfectionists among us, that while the idea of learning to play might be daunting, it's not rocket science. We know how to play, in good and deep and life-giving places inside us, just by virtue of being human."
Mes amis, it is with great pleasure that I present to you Jean Yves Blondeau, le Rollerman.
According to this, Blondeau "first conceived of his plastic Buggy Rollin’ suit in 1994, while he was a student at Olivier de Serres design school, in Paris. But the invention, which allows a wearer to top 60 miles per hour while maintaining any position found in the Kama Sutra, didn’t exactly catch fire with consumers. Not one to give up, Blondeau recently refined the suit to a stripped-down 31-wheel version and developed his own playbook of moves, like the Zaphial (rolling flat on your back with all four limbs pointed straight up) and the Smooth Buggy Dog (three limbs on the ground and one rolling along a wall)."
The Transforming Power of the Playful Mind, cont'd
Is this ship slurping pasta? Apparently, it is. Which, of course, is the whole point. The apparentness of it all. The illusion. The art.
OK. So you're in advertising. And you're working on a campaign for something called the Mondo Pasta Noodle Manufacturer. But, I mean, really: you see a ship, you see the mooring line; and you think spaghetti?! Who'd've thought? Who'd've made such a connection?
Someone we'd like to know a lot better.
Winning a position on the Clio shortlist for innovative media (foods), and gaining the attention of just about every blogger with a sense of humor, according to my particular lights, the accolades, the success, all go to show one thing: the awesome, the amazing, the transforming power of the playful mind.
"A yellow spot on the horizon slowly approaches the coast. People have gatherd and watch in amazement as a giant yellow Rubber Duck approaches. The spectators are greeted by the duck, which slowly nods its head. The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, it doesn't discriminate people and doesn't have a political connotation. The friendly, floating Rubber Duck has healing properties: it can relieve mondial tensions as well as define them. The rubber duck is soft, friendly and suitable for all ages!"
"The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers." O, my gooness! How deeply fun is that?
Found-object/assesmblage artist Barbara Irwin writes:
"One of the reasons that I enjoy creating found object/assemblage art is that it allows me to use anything and everything, old or new. My assemblage work stems from what I call 'whim of combination.' Sometimes things come together quickly and easily and other times it takes weeks, months, and years, to find that missing piece that ties it all together. I use objects that I find in antique shops, thrift stores, and garage sales, or that I find in the street and in people’s curbside junk piles....I love found object/assemblage art because allows me to look at an object and imagine a new way of using it. For me, found object/assemblage art is total play, total fun, and total joy. I get so much satisfaction out of giving something a new life. The more we see, the more we see that there is to see. The only limit is our own imagination."
It will make you laugh, and there will be much poking of the fun kind.
You could think, if you wanted to, about the secret joys of bean-smushing, and how it even more secretly appealed to that previously hidden bean-smushing part of your essential reptilian psyche. But that'd be missing the point. The point is: it will make you laugh. And there will be much fun poking. The first time you play.
You're not going to play this a lot, so it's not exactly what you'd call a game. Not like what you'd call these, really. More of one of those interactive flash-like things. Pointless, in a way. Except for two things: it will make you laugh, and the fun poking.
You will want to know more about the Lightning Doodle Project. Because it's a product of people at play together. People having very patient fun. I'll let Tochka explain:
Many are the theories that embrace the various phenomena known by some under the general rubric of Shoe Tossing. Yet, from the various manifestations of shoefiti to the remarkably collective testimony of the shoe tree, no single explanation has emerged. Is it an act of vandalism, of desecration, or perhaps some more hopeful sign of the human spirit emerging from its own trash heap?
Some, as the writer of the Roadside America article on shoe trees (op. cit.), see shoe tossing as a semi-noble artistic pursuit, starting "with one dreamer, tossing his or her footwear-of-old high into the sky, to catch on an out-of-reach branch. It usually ends there, unseen and neglected by others. But on rare occasions, that first pair of shoes triggers a shoe tossing cascade. Soon, teens are gathering up their old Adidas and Sauconys, families are driving out after church with Dad's Reeboks and grandma's Keds. The shoe tree blooms with polymer beauty. A work of art like this may last for generations, tracing our history by our sneakers . . . as long as the tree doesn't die."
As for me, I prefer the happier, less trodden shoe-tossing sport, known by the Fortunate Few as Shoeshoes.
In Japan, they call it Tunnels no Minasan no Okage Deshita. You'll find it on Youtube as Japanese Human Tetris. I prefer Tunnels no Minasan no Okage Deshita, because, even though I don't understand what it means, I even less understand the Tetris connection.
The game is wonderfully easy to understand. All you have to do is watch it for a minute or two. When two or more people play it, it becomes a test of teamwork worthy of ballroom dancers. It's funny. It doesn't really make people look embarrassingly silly. It seems reasonably safe. And it invites real skill. The challenge itself is as mental as it is physical - trying to anticipate how to position your body so it will fit through the moving shape. And it makes for great viewing. Worthy of all the attention it is receiving on the net. Worthy, even, of yours.
Ann P. Smith "spends her days making little robotic like figurines from broken electronics and machine parts." Little robotic like figurines that, apparently, gallop, and growl.
From the playful perspective, Smith's art is a near heroic achievement - a transmutation of the broken and useless into intricate expressions of life. It is a graphic expression of the same spirit that makes Junkyard Sports so deeply fun. There's something about it that redefines us. Something that frees us to see the world, and each other, anew.
Using watch parts to create miniature motorcycles becomes, in the hands of José Geraldo Reis Pfau, a form of high play.
As you look at the many examples of his art, you can see the exacting playfulness of each of his creations - the power of a vision that can transform watch batteries into headlights, wrist watches into wheels, parts of watch bands into seats, watch gears into engines. These tiny marvels, some scarcely larger than a couple of paper clips, demonstrate the discipline and skill that are requisite complements of true playfulness. The same kind of skill and discipline that we see in miniature when we watch children transform blocks of wood into towers of the imagination.
Words of a Feather - A Humorous Puzzlement of Etymological Pairs, in case you were wondering, is for people who like to play with words. Or who like the play of words. Pairs of words. Pairs of words you wouldn't think belong paired up. Like, for example, computer, and reputation. I extract:
"It's deliciously apt that the tarnishing of his reputation (HAL, the computer in 2001) is what pushes the computer over the edge, for both reputation and computer trace back to the Latin phrase putare, "to reckon," a word that encompasses solving mathematical and moral problems, implied in the phrase 'day of reckoning.'"
"Ah," you probably are saying to yourself, "how apt, how deliciously apt."
If in fact you find such aptness delicious, Words of a Feather will prove to be a conceptual banquet of conversation-worthy tidbits. "Which reminds me," you might say in answer to the question "why are you late for dinner," "did you know that senate and senile are etymologically related, and that it wasn't until the mid-nineteenth century that senile acquired the meaning of 'weak or infirm from age.'"
Written by Murray Suid, author of over 25 books, including Demonic Mnemonics - Eight Hundred Spelling Tricks for Eight Hundred Tricky Words, and an old friend of mine when I was working in Philadelphia some 35 years ago, the book reflects a deep love of language and learning, and, most significantly, a thorough appreciation for the incongruous.
Page after page of entertaining reflections on connections between words that simply shouldn't belong together - coronation and coroner, mercenary and mercy, stupendous and stupid - Words of a Feather is playful enough to make you want to flock to your local bookseller.
One must love this kind of thing - this reclaiming of the useless, this art of redefining refuse, the humor, the creativity, the reframing. It is most definitely a form of play, one that is most clearly connected to the same stream of hopefulness that nurtures the spirit of Junkyard Sports. It is a translation of the mundane into the play-worthy.
Clearly, this is not about old CDs. It's about the power of play to transform even the most tired of realities into something that can reawaken the soul.
All work and no play makes jack a dull boy goes the saying. And a report by American Academy of Pediatrics says essentially the same thing. And by PLAY, they don't mean structured, adult-organized team sports. They don't mean get smart videos, or so called enrichment activities. What they mean is old fashioned spontaneous free play.
Numerous studies have shown that unstructured play has many benefits. It can help children become creative, discover their own passions, relate to others and have fun. Yes, FUN. Remember that?
The Online Dictionary of Playground Slang is, perhaps, not something you would share with your children. But it is most definitely something you'd want to share with your inner child.
Here are some of the dictionaries contained therein:
There is much to be learned and appreciated here: Memories to be spurred. Childhood to be relived. And especially the yeoman-like devotion of its editor, Chris Lewis, and his minions. But, for me, as your local funsmith, the Online Dictionary of Playground Slang is rich reminder of broad reaches, and sometimes harder realities of the playful path.
"Knitta began in August 2005, when the soon-to-be-Knittas were discussing their frustration over unfinished knitting projects: half-knitted sweaters and balls of yarn gathering dust. That afternoon, they knit their first door handle."
Knit their first door handle!
Which led them, inexorably, to becoming: "… a tag crew of knitters, bombing the inner city with vibrant, stitched works of art, wrapped around everything from beer bottles on easy nights to public monuments and utility poles on more ambitious outings."
Alex of Neatorama adds the perfect label to this wonderfully playful, bizarre, and somehow socially significant act of rebellious knittage. He calls it "knit grafitti." He also notes that a group calling itself Masquerade posted a map showing how they are similarly engaged in knitting their nuances into the streets of Stockholm.
What a wonderful world playground this world can be!
Adventure Playgrounds! How could it have taken me so long? The epitome, the apotheosis, the sine qua of junkly pursuits: a playground made entirely of junk. So junky that no one cares what it looks like - just what it plays like. So informal that even kids could build their own playground apparata, should they be so moved.
What you see in the photo is part of one of the few remaining Adventure Playgrounds - this one, in the Berkeley Marina. Why so few? Because they're unsightly. And there just dangerous enough to make kids want to play there again and again and again.
"Adventure Playground emerged from movements in 1960s Europe that worked to reclaim derelict urban spaces, many caused by the devastation of World War II. Filled with trash and debris, the sites were considered unfit even for parking cars and were therefore abandoned by developers. However, children had no qualms about these forbidden sites, often playing happily in rubble heaps. They seemed to prefer the informality of dirt and scraps to formal jungle gyms. Eventually parents and park designers realized that these non-traditional materials inspired creative, thoughtful play. The adults and children worked together to construct the kinds of play spaces the children wanted."
Here, in the States, the main argument against Adventure Playgrounds is safety. It is that very same concern that is slowly but methodically closing all kinds of playgrounds, all across the United States. I found, in perhaps my favorite Adventure Playground site, this insightful perspective on the "safety issue":
"Conventional playgrounds are safe only if children use them in the way adults intend them to i.e. if children do not climb where they are not supposed to, stay behind railings, and don't climb on top of certain structures. Children do not necessarily abide by these rules and often get injured at conventional playgrounds.
"The safety record of adventure playgrounds in excellent,"states Joe Frost, a professor of education. The Mountain Park adventure playground in Houston, Texas recorded few injuries. Only .014 percent of the 15,000 people attending the park during its first 4 months of operation sustained injuries and these were mostly skinned knees, scrapes, and hammered thumbs."
When you compare these so-called dangers with the benefits, to kids, to community, you have to start wondering about what price we're paying for all this safety. O, sure, the playgrounds themselves may not be pretty. But the play that goes on there, the inventiveness, creativity, the sheer wonder of shared fantasy - is a thing of great and lasting beauty.
According to the website, Cooperative Sports are: "New ways of 'playing' our favorite ball games with a gentle twist, resulting in lots of healthy action and exercise, and a big dose of fun and friendship (like how sand lot games and practice used to/can be). Competition is eliminated (we really don’t have to compete in order to excel or to have fun), and the games have been modified, emphasizing: participation, success, action, safety, fun, re-creation, friendship, challenge, diversity, player driven, in the moment, no competition." What the author calls "The 12 Key Elements of 'True Play.'"
Many examples are given, including cooperative versions of softball, kickball, soccer, hockey, basketball, volleyball, tennis, etc. Whether you agree with the premise or not, you have to be touched by the promise - alternative versions of competitive sports that emphasize fun and friendship. The author, Dick Bozung, is passionate and creative enough to make you want to at least try to play a different way, and that's an achievement worthy of or collective notice, and applause.
(voice hushed)"Welcome once again to the World Stone Skimming Championships, to be held once again this year at Easdale Island, Argyll, Scotland, September 23. Stone Skimming, or, as you Yanks have it, Stone Skipping. And, yes, and ah, the excitement is palpable, is it not, the anticipation fairly overwhelming. Each competitor, don't you see, is allowed 5 skims using specially selected Easdale slate skimming stones. For a skim to qualify the stone must bounce at least three times - it is then judged on the distance achieved before it sinks, last year's winner having achieved a remarkable 63 meters, in deed."
In deed. And in fact. Stone skipping or skimming is what one must call an archetypal Junkyard Sport, at least until someone invents plastic stones, or some such. And it is very much alive and significantly well, both hither and yon.
Plastic Bags in New York City is one of several art projects by Richard The. Before you read further, take a couple minutes to watch the movie. Note, especially, that the only people who pay attention to this wonderfully junk-enabled wonder are those who are naturally given to such wondering.
The artist comments:
"The main idea was to use the Marilyn-Monroe-Effect: Above the subway track there are grids on the street. Once a train runs through a very strong flow of air is blown up.
"The chosen objects to get lifted by this wind were plastic bags. The subway line, which connects very different parts of the city, was supposed to be visualized by several plastic bags, each from on of these districts (i.e. green line: spanish harlem, upper east side, chinatown etc.)
"Thus the subway line, which can not be seen on the street, would be made visible, but also the different (sub)cultures and communities which exist in these neighbourhoods."
In answer to the question, how, oh how can I waste some more time while at work, here's 1000 ways to waste working time, which I, given me, would re-title: "1000 ways to refresh the soul and rekindle the spirit while at work."
Let me exemplify, numerically speaking, by selecting the first ten:
Approach someone at work you don't know and say hello
Add up a series of numbers your social security number, your date of birth, your telephone number, to see if the total is divisible by seven
Add up your debts
Annoy a friend
Argue with a colleague about who is the best football quarterback ever
Arm wrestle with a colleague
Arrange a protest march for a cause you believe in
Arrange a seating plan for the office
Arrange to meet a friend in the washroom to chat
Arrange unpaid bills by date order
Which leaves you with 990 more still to read. In fact, not to be overly meta, but there are at least 1001 ways to rekindle the spirit while at work herein illustrated, the additional one being the reading of the list. And, should you need yet further inspiration, you perhaps could even do more spirit rekindling, seeing if you can come up with working time wasters not already on the list.
There's a certain genius of the spirit - in my lexicon, I call it "playfulness" - that turns things upside down, redefines the social order, transforms our fundamental understandings of the game.
Philip Workman performed one such act. It was his last. He was in death row at the time, convicted of killing a policeman. Before his execution, he was, as custom has it, asked what he wanted for his final meal. He said that he wanted a vegetarian pizza. And that he wanted that pizza delivered to any homeless person near the prison.
I hesitate to call it a "saintly act," because a man like Workman, a murderer, just isn't a likely candidate for canonization. It was the act of a condemned man, denying himself the one small solace of a last meal, so he could find perhaps greater comfort in one, final act of anonymous irreverence. A silly thing for him to do. So silly that it challenged the very nature of the institution, because prisons, you see, don't give to charity. And so, of course, his request was denied.
Pizza. Vegetarian pizza. Not even meat pizza. Nothing that required the death of anything. Something almost kosher, almost halal, if you know what I mean, something almost anybody would celebrate.
And the story goes on. Somehow, some people heard about Workman's final request. And decided to fulfill it themselves. And so 165 vegetarian pizzas were delivered to a rescue mission, and 17 vegetarian pizzas made their way to a teen center, and no one, except the donors, knew why. And a miracle was wrought that day. And it was a pizza party.
"This took me about an hour or so constructed of paper, an eraser, packing tape and paperclips. I used a sprite bottle to take the green shot of the dragon."
From Artwork from the Workplace - a living, blogish testimony to the survival value of playfulness at work.
Some of the best fun happens where it shouldn't: vacant lots, stairwells, alleys, and, as we see in this video, subways. An anthropologist named Victor Turner explored a concept he called liminality. I quote:
Liminality is a state of being in between phases. In a rite of passage the individual in the liminal phase is neither a member of the group she previously belonged to nor is she a member of the group she will belong to upon the completion of the rite. The most obvious example is the teenager who is neither an adult nor a child. "Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial" (Turner, 1969:95). Turner extended the liminal concept to modern societies in his study of liminoid phenomena in western society. He pointed out the similarities between the "leisure genres of art and entertainment in complex industrial societies and the rituals and myths of archaic, tribal and early agrarian cultures" (1977:43).
What we see in this video is liminal in every sense of Turner's definition. It is also inspirational, a documented instantiation of the transformational power of play.
Finger Jousting"...is a sport where two consenting players square off in an attempt to prod their opponent with their lancing (right) index finger before the opposing player can. The competitors must keep their right hands locked in an arm wrestling fashion and not use their legs or latent (left) arm in an offensive manner. The competitors are known as jousters, and the act of touching the other person’s body with the index finger is known as lancing. A player can lance anywhere except the lancing (right) arm."
Finger Jousting? Could it be just a jest, this jousting-with-the-finger concept? A jest? Surely, you joke. How could anything as challenging and artful and demanding of physical prowess and as contest-worthy to lead to the establishment of the World Finger Jousting Federation be taken as anything but or else? Verily, one could, having perused and pondered the patently Pseudo History of Finger Jousting, conclude that it is little more than a laughable lark, a prank, a juvenile josh. And yet, at heart, there is a clear smackage of something fun and physically sportlike and worthy of patently public approbation.
Veteran Dice Stacker Todd Strong was telling me about this hot Dice Stacking YouTube video, posted to follow up on this equally remarkable YouTubed News Story (German). So excited was my self-effacing friend that he almost failed to mention his most remarkable Two Columns in One Cup Dice Stacking YouTube video. Why, I asked, would he be so excited about a YouTube video that wasn't his own, given his own proficiency at said same art. Well, he explained, the success of that particular YouTube video has drawn a veritable flock of folk to his Dice Stacking Site, wherein he makes his Dice Stacking book, video, and paraphernalia available to the Dice Stacking masses. "Ah," I concluded, exclamatorilly, thus: the very fame garnered by one YouTube Dicestacker inures to your benefit. What a gloriously connected world it is when one's person fame leads to an equally deserving person's fortune.
Zoomquilt is a "collaborative art project," more than faintly reminiscent of the surrealist game Exquisite Corpse. One image zooms to reveal another which zooms, seamlessly, to reveal another, and on, and apparently on. Many of the images are a bit, shall we say, macabre - all of which contributes rather exquisitely to the corpse-connection.
You control the speed and direction (back and forth) of the zoom with a slider that appears when you mouse towards the left of the screen.
Apparently, someone named David C. Lovelace has been afoot (and even more ahand) at producing new and evermore complex variations of more mature versions of the apparently global game of Rock Paper Scissors. [Wikipedia notes the following additional names:
"Janken (Japan), Jiandao Shítou Bu (China), Rochambeau, Paper Scissors Stone (UK), Steen, Papier, Schaar (Netherlands), Scissors, Paper, Rock (Australia), Paper Scissors Rock (NZ), Ching Chong Cha (South Africa), Chi Ku Ba (Tamil - India), Even Niyar Umisparayim (Israel), Schnick, Schnack, Schnuck (Germany), Schere, Stein, Papier (Swiss German), Morra Cinese (Italy), Piedra, Papel o Tijeras (Latin America)...Pedra, Papel, Tesoura (Portugal), Chin chan pu (Mexico), Ca Chi Pun (Chile), Bao Sing Soum (Cambodia)... Pierre, Papier/Feuille, Ciseaux or chifoumi (French), Roche, Papier, Ciseaux (Quebec), Petra, Psalidi, Charti (Greece) and Kgauwi-bauwi-bo (Korea), Kivi, Paperi, Sakset (Finnish), Pao, Ying, Choop (Thai), Jack en Poy (Philippines)... "].
Lovelace has created RPS-7, a version of Rock Paper Scissors with 7 different symbols, RPS-9, etc., etc., until, in what we hope is the culminating Rock Paper Scissors variant, RPS 101, which is, as you might guess, Rock Paper Scissors as played with 101 different symbols.
We do not know what would happen if these two great forces in Rock Paper Scissors innovations combined, and we probably don't want to know what would happen if they in turned combined with structured mayhem of Rock Paper Scissors Tag, but we do know a good game when we see one. Rock Paper Scissors, a children's game, profound enough to span the globe, to reach all the way from the playgrounds of the world to the heart of corporate culture.
Maze Zing mazes are made of real objects. Exactly like the Gone Fishin' maze in this illustration, actually made out of actual fish hooks. Fish hooks!
Created by Jeff Montayne, these mazes are testimonies to the man's playfulness, patience, and ability to scrounge. He explains:
"The mazes were set up for the picture and then taken apart immediately after. Most of the objects in the mazes were purchased through Internet auctions and from local stores. I am looking forward to hunting through yard sales for items as I continue to create more intriguing mazes. I got the idea for creating the mazes one Saturday while reading books with my little cousins, Kayleigh and Taryn. We exhausted our collection of picture puzzle books and began searching the house for items to make our own picture puzzles...Using my digital equipment, I spent a Saturday building and photographing four picture puzzles to entertain Kayleigh and Taryn. I didn’t want to recreate what someone else had already done, so I began experimenting with my own styles. The four pictures I created kept the kids amused for a while but I quickly learned that my work would never be finished. They wanted more and more. Thus, Maze Zing was born."
The mazes in Maze Zing represent many small, but brilliant contributions to the World Maze. Montayne's discovery that little bits of stuff can make great mazes, that different stuff has different properties which lends itself to different kinds of mazes, that the digital camera makes temporary things permanent...each and all opened new doors for maze play. And Montayne's willingness to be guided by his cousins' playfulness demonstrates once again how children can lead us into new forms of art and play, and how love can make it so much worth doing.
(image found in Lee Stranahan's weblog) Today's FunCast is inspired by a quote from Dr. Brian Sutton-Smith, my friend for over 30 years now, and, as all of my friends, my personal mentor. A play-advocate who has brought more understanding, compassion, scholarship and original thinking to the study of play than Piaget or Huizinga, professor emeritus of the University of Pennsylvania, and author of, among other things, The Ambiguity of Play. The quote: "The opposite of play isn't work, it's depression."
You have to be just a little bit of a rebel if you really want to have fun. You have to be doing something you're really not supposed to be doing. Nothing really bad or hurtful or even really dangerous. Something slightly naughty. A little bad maybe. A tiny bit illegal.
Like playing where you're not supposed to be playing, when you're not supposed to be playing, with people and things you're not supposed to play with. Or playing in a way you're not supposed to. With maybe not exactly the "real" rules.
For some reason, no matter how old you are, if fun is something you really want to be having, you generally have to be doing something you shouldn't be doing, really. That's how you get to the liminal spaces, at the edges of acceptability, predictability, respectability.
So when people talk about bringing fun into the workplace or places of learning, it's always just a little bit threatening, a little bit disturbing of the status of the quo.
And in places where such play becomes so threatening that it is rigidly, thoroughly disallowed, where this minor expression of playful illegality is systematically suppressed, you get depression. Deep, thorough, mind- and brain- and soul-numbing depression. In those places, work places, learning places, living places, you get the opposite of play.
Imagine being a kid, 10-15, and spending 3 mornings a week, for two months, learning magic. Imagine, furthermore, that this class is being conducted by a place called The Magic Academy, founded by the famous "illusionist" (a far more accurate description of what magic is all about) Gopinath Muthukad.
While you're at it, imagine how sheer the fun of mastering illusions that can mystify parents and friends alike. Imagine the impact on the kids' experience of themselves, and the world, on their understanding of the rational grounding of all illusions, on their belief in themselves, on their growing mastery of mystery.
Now imagine this school taking place in India, where magic is everywhere. India, where people still astound audiences with the famed Indian Rope Trick. India, where magic and illusion abut religion and science. Read, for example, this paper Illusions and Images of Magic India and Indian Magic
So this is powerful play, this magic. Powerfully informative. Powerfully healing. Stage magician David Copperfield and psychologist therapist Julie De Jean have developed something called Project Magic, specifically for "people with physical, psychosocial and developmental disabilities or those recovering from accidents and illnesses." They have found that magic "motivates the rehabilitation process and develops and improves self-concept while boosting hand, gross motor, problem-solving and social skills."
Magicians, as this article explains, "know an awful lot about how people perceive the world."
A summer camp in magic. What a gift to give a child.
For today's Funcast, we find ourselves engaged in a semi-polemic contemplation of vicissitudes of intergenerational play, intergenerational community, intergenerational family, and all things inter, um, generational. It's not a very playful polemic, as polemics go. But it might very well help to move you or someone who needs such movement, to consider more carefully the importance of playing with. It begins:
The separation between parents and children, adolescents and family is so wide that we hardly recognize ourselves in each other. Our generations have become institutionally isolated, divided out into schools, businesses, factories, day care centers, hospitals, rest homes. Our days have become so filled with working and consuming, so consumed by "communication" that with have little time for ourselves, less time for each other, and no time for our community. The result is a steady deterioration of marriage and family, community and planet.
You can, should you find yourself so moved, read the whole of it here.
And, by sheer coincidence, here's a collection, not of what you might call actual games, but of some gently sweet, silly, pointless things that playful couples might find themselves doing together, not for the game, but for the fun of it, not for points, but for the love of each other and of being in the world together.
The following is from one of the first posts on a new weblog called "Digital Mavericks. It is written by Drew Buddie, a Scottish schoolteacher and virtual correspondent who I am both proud and puzzled to discover has become my friend - proud, because of his commitment to playfulness, puzzled, because we have never actually met. After you read it, the reasons for this friendship should be self-evident.
A few months ago I was sat on my sofa having returned from work dog-tired, and promptly fell asleep. I still had my shoes on. I was awakened by some furtive activity at my feet and looked down to see my six year old daughter admiring her handiwork. She had undone my shoelaces and now proclaimed loudly that she had managed to lace them back up again.
Now, I felt I should be cross at her - after all you don't do shoe laces up as shown in the picture. You just don't. But wait a minute, she did! She chose to lace up my shoes that way. So just because they are not laced up the traditional way, is there anything wrong in that?
This set me thinking, we as teachers are so quick to judge the work of our students based on them producing out put that conforms to our expectations.
You can read the rest of this touching and insightful story here
There are so many wonderfully playful videos being released of late that many of my favorite blogs o' fun, like, for example, Milk and Cookies, have become almost totally devoted to sharing the best and the silliest. Though many of these videos are often paradigms of playfulness, I've been hesitant to populate the funsmithy with their often quite moving images.
This one, however, caught my conceptual eye, not only because of its playfulness and artistry, but also because, for a brief moment, the Frog of Enlightenupment, him- or herself, makes a pointlessly poignant appearance. Hence, this:
Guido Daniele's "Hand Art" is a product of deep, and deeply skilled playfulness. It has to be. There's something magic about how he manages to transform the human form into something close to pure illusion. It's what one (especially this one) might call an act of "slight-of-hand."
As you view these photos (caution: if you go deeper into Daniele's portfolio you will come to images that could easily be considered unsafe for workplaces in these United States, hence, I most proprietarilly recommend this site), you will find it a bit difficult to get beyond the faithfulness of the illusions. Upon a second, or perhaps third viewing, you'll begin to see the hands beneath the paint, how they are positioned, how the fingers are folded and extended, lending shape to the illusion. And you can almost imagine Daniele sitting at some cafe, playing with his hands, over and over, shaping them, superimposing his visions on to them. And begin to appreciate how this art, like so many, was born of play, hours and days and years of play. And maybe you can find in all this wonder one more reason, one more permission for you, yes, yourself, to play.
Forgive me, I needs must enthuse. All that talk about serious games and serious play and here we have someone who has sponsored the epitomical manifestation of purposeful play and functional fun - the Play Pump. As explained in the Frontline special, punfully subtitled " Turning water into child's play:"
"(Trevor) Field then teamed up with an inventor and came up with the 'play pump' -- a children's merry-go-round that pumps clean, safe drinking water from a deep borehole every time the children start to spin. Soup to nuts, the whole operation takes a few hours to install and costs around $7,000. Field's idea proved so inventive, so cost-efficient and so much fun for the kids that World Bank recognized it as one of the best new grassroots ideas."
Yes, and of course yes, the Play Pump is only part of the solution to the rest of the world's crying need for an accessible supply of potable water, and my focusing on the use of a children's playground device doesn't begin to do justice to the seriousness of the problem. But, see, fun is my passion, my purpose. Fun, the kind of fun that is central to human growth, essential to the evolution of the species, is what I'm here for, what I'm working for. And the Play Pump, and the similar "Power Wheel" (which also generates electricity) are the very embodiment of that very thing. And, though I haven't actually played with a Play Pump, it is clear that it embraces everything I ever thought was major about Major Fun. Functional fun. Lasting, liquid laughter. Purposeful play.
It was Feb. 2 - one of those special, once-a-month, symmetrically numbered days (2/2). But I didn't realize how special the day was until I found this message in my inbox:
I discovered your website today. It was very timely. For fifteen years, I have been soulsick, paralyzed by depression. I start becoming more active, but then I lose energy, and isolate myself.
A few days ago, I volunteered to be a docent for the Chinese garden, for a group of university students. Afterwards, I was supercharged. It felt so good to give these students something that might influence them, and it was FUN to run my mouth off for an hour about the garden. Yesterday, I bought myself Koosh balls and a yoyo, but I have been thinking of these things as distractions. But no, perhaps my life's work is to have fun.
I have bookmarked your site.
Thank you, Mary
Almost immediately after I was able to exhaust my exhiliration with an extended Dance of Glee, I emailed Mary to ask if she would please, o please allow me to share her note with the known universe. She responded:
Sure, you may add it to your web log.
Today I had a day loaded with fun, and I didn't even feel guilty over it. (Well, not much.) I am happy to say that I have been too busy playing to visit your website again. I am glad that someone has the nerve to stand up and say that having fun is serious business. It seems like I have always thought fun was okay, once all the useful bits of life were taken care of. Of course, work will expand to fit the time allotted to it.
Mary
Which resulted in what one could only call a moment of personally pure "Primal Glee."
Oddly enough, fun is a hard sell. Most of us think we know everything we need to know about fun and the having of it, while, at the same time, most of us seem to be having so little of it. The people whom I've named Defender of the Playful are a few of the many who, like I, have given so much of their lives to bringing more fun into this world. It is not often that our work is appreciated, and less often that it is actually supported. Luckily, it hasn't stopped us. Even more luckily, from time to time, someone like Mary appears in our lives, to remind us that it is not all in vain. Not at all in vain.
Nancy Nurse is one of the three clowns developed by one of the few people I know who has mastered the art of compassionate humor, Patty Wooten. Patty becomes this particular clown as part of her effort to lighten the often overwhelmed hearts of the nursing profession. Nancy Nurse, explains Patty, "is a wild, red-headed clown, armed with a combat belt of weapons; such as, bedpans, urinals, enema buckets, and over-sized syringes used to fight disease.. Her stethoscope is made from a garden hose and a toilet plunger which is great to use on those big-hearted patients... it can also be used to relieve constipation!"
Several years ago, Patty came down to one of my seminars at the Esalen Institute. She made us laugh so hard, and so deeply, and with such a loving purpose that, for many of us, fun became even more functional, even more central to our reasons for being.
Patty's attempt to bring a little joy to those who so desperately need it, has been a constant struggle for her. Bottom-line priorities, twelve-hour days, scant appreciation for their dedication and skills have all but overwhelmed the caregiving professions. And yet, Patty continues, when- and wherever she can, to heal with humor, to soothe with silliness.
Shari Elf describes her "Junk Art" as being created from "95% trash, made from stuff I find on the ground, at yard sales and thrift stores, broken stuff and stuff my friends send me."
What she doesn't need to tell us is that her art is refreshingly childlike and welcoming. No pretensions or aspirations to finding her place in the art world. Just simple fun that comes from the heart.
You look at it, and you think "I could do this, too." And you'd be right. And that's the whole point.
Shari's art is an invitation, directly to your own, personal, childlike, artlike skills.
I don't mean to brag. I didn't mean to brag when I first told you that I was given the Ifill-Raynolds Award for "outstanding achievement in the field of fun." But, see, I was only told I received the award, I mean, I received the award, but I didn't get it, I mean I didn't get something tangible, except for the plastic stencil I told you about. I guess I mean I didn't get something tangibly award-looking until now. And I'm embarrassed to say that now, now that I have this shiny, engraved, ready-to-hang award, I find myself allowing myself to believe that I really received this award. Really.
Which makes me muse on the whole trophies and awards thing, and how I've worked so hard to create games that are played just for the sheer fun of it all, trophy-less, awardless, scoreless games.
Because I believe that people need to play more than they need to win.
And, frankly, the older I get, the less fun it is to win, and the more fun just to be able to play, just to be able.
Maybe I've forgotten to mention how deeply, satisfyingly, meaningly, majorly kinds of fun I'm having with this award thing, with having it in my hands like this. This elaborately rendered, shiny plaque, this engraved affirmation, from many of my own peers, of my very own, life-long work.
And because I have already found the place to hang this award, I get a kind of fun just looking at it. A meaningful kind of fun. Already more meaningful. Already more fun.
Moschen: The mathematics of juggling, the art of play
Michael Moschen is another artist who, like Greg Kennedy, has been able to elevate juggling into the realm of high play. He is also one of the few artist/performers to have made the connection between juggling and mathematics.
According to his bio, he is
"deeply involved in understanding and sharing the physical and mathematical principles that underlie his work, and is a sought-after public speaker. He presented the Keynote Address for the National Conference of Teachers of Mathematics in 1996, and in 1998 for the Association of New York Teachers of Mathematics. He has lectured on innovation and creativity at such prestigious institutions as Carnegie Mellon, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Lincoln Center Education Program."
A playfully profound performer, who, as you can so plainly see here, is fun, very much fun.
Michael Moschen is hereby officially entitled to all appreciations and honorifics due to a "Defender of the Playful."
I have a thought. One, it seems, in retrospect, given the Newness of it all, yearwise, somehow appropriate. I begin like this:
"Having done something stupid and embarrassing again – and I’ll tell you it was so stupid and so embarrassing that I really don’t want to talk about it, at all, ever – I found myself really punishing myself for having done what I did. And after about half hour of surprisingly brutal internal rhetoric, it became obvious to me that what I needed more than anything else was some kind of recess. I just had to take myself away from all this. It was something we all needed."
And I somehow manage to conclude like this:
"So Wrong, just when he was supposed to offer the strongest opposition, simply let the rope go. And Silly was yanked so hard by the combined strength of Serious and Right that he landed on top of them both, causing all of them to fall into a pile. And just as Serious and Right were about to express the equivalent of moral indignation, Wrong completely doubled over in laughter. Doubled over so completely that there were, for a brief moment, two Wrongs, which, with an unseen flash, made another Right. And suddenly, there were no Wrongs at all. Just two Rights, either of whom, by all rights, could have felt deeply wronged by all this silliness, but didn’t. In stead, both Rights also doubled over in laughter. Which turned out to be exactly the right thing to do, because neither Silly nor Serious could be found. And everything was all right again. For everyone. For, especially, me, alright, all right."
Well, it's not actually juggling hemispheres. It's more like juggling inside a hemisphere. And you're not actually inside the hemisphere - just the balls. And you're not throwing the balls in the air, but rolling them inside the hemisphere, so it sometimes doesn't seem like what you'd call juggling.
But whatever you'd call it, you watch this guy, and you see the art of it, his mastery, and even though it seems to sometimes kinda border on the, well, dumb, it's mastery, all right, and has the same power to amaze as any amazing act of whatever it is that people call juggling. And you don't get that way without playing. A lot.
Reminds me of the hours I spent rolling marbles around the inside of a cookie can lid. And the fascination. The fascination.
Defender of the Playful Ze Frank, author of, for example, the visually delicious, play-invitingly voice-activated Meditation Flowers, has, since March, been producing, five days a week, video- and podcasts that range from the strange to the deeply strange. He calls it "The Show," and he intends to continue creating the show for exactly one year.
Since you're obviously one of the fun few, I thought you'd especially appreciate Ze's reflections on the game of Scrabble. It's a frank (naturally), funny, informed, often silly, and sometimes uncomfortably familiar exploration of his experiences as a member of a Scrabble-playing family. If you find yourself so moved, you can even read The Script.
There's a weblog called Question of the Day, which, as advertised, asks questions, every, apparently, day. Questions like: How many boxes of cereal are in your kitchen?. What makes this site work so well is: the cleverness of the questions, the responses of the readers, and the rule that when you respond to a question, you must add another question of your own. For example, the first response to the cereal question went like this:
"6 open and 4 or 5 unopened.
How many pairs of jeans do you own?"
The next:
"I own 15-20 pairs of jeans.
How many siblings do you have?"
et, most wonderfully, cetera.
I played a game like this at a NASAGA conference years ago. We were learning about a process for discussing a book. The leader began with a question. Anyone who wanted to respond answered, and then concluded by asking another question. As we progressed, our questions and responses became increasingly more genuine. It was strange, odd, even, because the structure didn't allow for what we commonly think of as "conversation" or even "discussion." And yet, as we progressed, we each experienced the development of a deeply and honestly shared inquiry, and understanding.
Then, of course, there's the Questions Game that has become a standard among improvisational theater games, and was enshrined by the not-yet-dead Rosencrantz and Gildenstern in the Tom Stoppard play - in which everything anyone says has to be a question?
It's Thanksgiving for some of us here Americans. Literal translation: family feast - with gratitude. Which brought in mind, considering it's my mind that it was bringing to, a game I call "The Out-Blessing Game, which is played as follows:
Get in pairs. Put your hands on each other's heads. Take turns out-blessing each other. Continue until you both feel truly blessed or have had enough of this loving silliness.
A round of out-blessing might go like this:
* You say: May the fruits of your labors never spoil * And I say: May they all be delicious * You say: And may they be always ripe * And I say: May they be available in your local supermarket * You say: On sale
Which might also remind me of the "No-No, Thank You" Game, that could go like this:
* You say: Thank you for this delicious meal * And I say: No, no, Thank you for sharing it with us * You say: No, no, no, thank YOU for being such a wonderful parent * And I say: No, no, no, no, thank YOU for the joy you have brought me all these years * And you say: How about them Indians?
The Mobius Shoe from a company called "United Nude," is, as you might have guessed, a shoe, made of one strip, twisted and joined to itself in a most mobius-manner. Why anyone would even think of designing such a shoe becomes a bit more self-evident when one considers other "Nude Shoes" such as the Eamz shoe, the heel of which looks very much like the leg of a chair, and especially the Porn shoe, made of a loop and a strip.
What we have here is evidence of high playfulness, ingenious genius, as one such as I might be all too tempted to say. These are very real shoes, very fashion-sensible, very foot-wearable, and everso obviously fun. Hence "Nude."
If you happen to be in Woodacre, CA, this coming December (the 2nd, actually), you might consider attending this seminar - so you can meet, among others, Gwen Gordon, author of a quite profound and lightening article: Play: The Movement of Love. Here's a taste:
If we forget to play, we lose our love for life, and loving life is what will save our world, not fearing destruction. We’re desperate to be invited into our joy, into our energy source, the belly laugh, the burst of giggles, wild abundance, bright color and zest for life of play. The laughing Buddha is fat to show that even the most massive bulk can lift off the ground–with a big enough laugh. Laughter is the sound of play and a doorway into play. Right now, wherever you are, put this article down and laugh. Not because there’s anything funny going on, but because you’re free to laugh. It may seem awkward at first, but stretch into it. Get off your spot. You will discover that you can find ecstasy just by moving toward it. Play is the movement of love, and love is what moves the Universe. Never underestimate, especially during a time of crisis, the power of play to move the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever did.
Thanks to the amazing Bryan Alexander for the find.
Orbit is one of 6 unusually creative play opportunities offered to us by the unusually creatively playful people at Benetton. Each is an invitation to enlighteningly light-hearted, online play. Each is designed so that you can compose anonymously or record and share your gifts.
If you're a game designer, or some Defender of the Playful trying to bring a little joy to the institutionalized, Benneton offers a welcome resource, and a paradigm of its own for commercially-supported, personally empowering fun.
It's a maze made out of cardboard boxes. Constructed, according to the terse description, "out of cardboard boxes, duct tape, and 300 bolts. The maze spans two rooms and a hallway." (See this for a larger, annotated image.) Cardboard-box-maze-making being a minor passion of my son and his family, I cannot but applaud the joyous absurdity of the abovementioned.
Willard Wigen's wonders are almost unimaginably small, almost unimaginably challenging to create. I extract:
"The smallest sculptures can only be measured in thousandths of an inch which is why they can sit, very delicately, on a human hair three thousandths of an inch thick. When working on this scale he slows his heartbeat and his breathing dramatically through meditation and attempts to harmonise his mind, body and soul with the Creator. He then sculpts or paints at the centrepoint between heartbeats for total stillness of hand. He likens this process to 'trying to pass a pin through a bubble without bursting it.' His concentration is intense when working like this and he feels mentally and physically drained at the end of it."
OK, kids, this is what I mean about fun. What's Willard doing, if I may ask, getting in touch with the Creator so he can make a sculpture too tiny to see, if not having fun?
Oh, he's having fun, all right. Big fun. Deep fun. Really real fun. Playing in a teeny, tiny world, too small for the naked eye to see.
Play Art is the brain child of artist Ernst Lurker. It is a term he coined, not only to describe his own playful work (reminiscent to me of the art / puzzles of Piet Hein), but to describe what he considers an art movement. He explains:
"Play Art is a new art form that calls for active participation of the viewer. Only through interaction does Play Art disclose its secrets and inherent principles. It is the intention of Play Artists that their work be touched, influenced, and experienced; these are works that demand to be manipulated, rearranged, or set into motion.
"Some Play Artists focus on shapes and structures, others rely on scientific techniques like mechanical principles, physics or digital technology. Whatever the elements, Play Art aims to stimulate curiosity and creativity. Play Art captures the viewer's imagination and gives rise to the joy of discovery by encouraging hands-on experimentation."
Because of the email conversation that led to yesterday's post, we have been given permission to publish the following excerpt from Chapter 4 of Pleasurable Kingdom by Dr. Jonathan Balcombe, himself, as today's post.
We do the Dance of Glee. Here, for you, special, the answer to the question - "Do animals have fun:"
Though play is undeniably adaptive, it is pleasure, curiosity, and joy that provide the motivation for play in animals and humans alike. Play is a good indicator of well-being. It occurs when other needs, such as food, shelter and safety, are sufficiently met, and when unpleasant feelings like fear, anxiety and pain are minimal or absent. Otherwise the animal’s efforts would be directed at meeting these needs or relieving these feelings, at the expense of play. Play serves many functions that may help an animal to survive and succeed in life. These include: developing physical strength, gaining skills, acquiring knowledge, learning the ropes of social behavior, and exploring.
This is probably why it evolved. But when a pair of mountain goat kids chase each other, jumping, twisting and kicking, they are hardly training for becoming good grown-ups. Animals play for fun, not for keeps.
There are at least four good reasons to believe that animals are having fun when they play. First, they look like they’re having fun. Cats chasing pulled string, young squirrels romping, or otters sliding down snowbanks look like they are heartily enjoying themselves. I remember watching three little eastern gray squirrels romping and wrestling around the base of a palm tree in Orlando, Florida. They leapt on and off the bole in pursuit of each other, and at times fused into a single squirrel ball as if they were one.
Second, humans enjoy playing, and much of our play resembles that of other animals. There is an element of funktionslust in the playing of sports.We usually put our all into it and strive to do our best. We tend to favor games we are good at, and performing well is one of the rewards. Animals may get similar pleasure from their play because it invariably involves doing and refining things they are good at. The play of young predators commonly involves chasing and catching things, such as an adult’s tail or flying insects, and wrestling with each other. The play of herbivores, such as young goats, entails leaping, running and zigzagging, skills useful for negotiating difficult terrain and evading predators.
Third, animals want to play. In the laboratory, young chimps and other species will play rather than eat unless they are very hungry. Some animals will work for the chance to play. Junior, acaptive orangutan at the Saint Louis Zoo, would clean up his cage in return for the opportunity to play with his whistle. The urge to play can be irresistible.
Fourth, there are chemical changes in the brains of playing animals that suggest they enjoy it. Rats show an increase in dopamine production in their brains when anticipating opportunities to play. Jaak Panksepp reports a close association between opiates and play, and that rats enjoy being playfully tickled (see Chapter 7).
Because play often mirrors serious, dangerous interactions such as fighting, attacking prey or escaping predators, it is important that individuals recognize the playful intentions of others. Most animals have body language to signal their desire to play. Dogs use a ‘play-bow,’ in which the soliciting animal faces her playmate with forelegs flat on the ground and hindquarters raised up, tail usually wagging. The facial expression is relaxed and ‘smiling.’ Tail wagging in dogs is without doubt a means of communication. Dogs wag their tails when receiving food in the presence of humans, but not when they are videotaped by a hidden camera.
And for you special, go here and download all of Chapter One of the abovequoted.
Given the air of renewedness that accompanies the commencement of the school year, many of us in the business world find ourselves engaged in lengthy creative and problem-solving meetings. Which brings me to this week's FunCast, the text of which and more may be found here.
Edouard Martinet is one more artist of the found, so to speak. Click on his home page, and read: "The work represented on this site consists of metal sculptures created using found materials which are fixed without welding. Edouard carefully selects his raw materials found in brocantes (yard sales) and junk yards. The finished pieces achieving a life of their own."
Found materials fixed without welding. Once again, the playful heart of a junk-inspired artist revealed! Who else would have such an appreciation for the parts of his art that he would actually hesitate to make the connection too permanent? And yet, the works themselves seem so complete that you can barely distinguish the components. Barely is key, here. Because in getting a hint of the junkly origins of his art, the viewer experiences the ingenuity and playfulness of the work, and finds herself everso much more in awe of the artist's ability to capture the living essence of his subjects, birds and insects, frogs and fish, in junk.
"On the morning of Sunday 7th May the little girl giant woke up at Horseguards Parade," reads the description, "in London, took a shower from the time-traveling elephant and wandered off to play in the park." The little girl giant of which they speak is a puppet, if you can believe it. A giant puppet. I mean, really giant.
But you can see the strings!
Cables, actually. And cranes and uncounted puppeteers (I didn't count them). All of which makes it, well, that much more fun, to see the art of it, to see the trick and how it's done, and still almost believe.
There seems to be a genetically encoded need for human beings to share new information with each other. It's a good thing, I'm sure, accounting, in so small part, for our continuing growth as a species. So innate is this need to share, that it frequently trumps any attempts we might make to determine the relevance, value, or accuracy of the information we so gleefully exchange.
I suppose the same could be said about jokes and games - hard to keep a good one to yourself. But here, in this collection of "Ponderables," we see how far beyond mere humor this need and corresponding glee extends.
One of my favorite sections in this formidable collection is called "Things You Never Knew." Not only are these things you probably never knew, not only are these things you problably will never need to know, but also and especially are these things that you will find yourself delightfully obliged to tell everyone you know. For the sake of clarification and edification, I conclude with a randomly select few:
Camel's milk does not curdle. In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere. An animal epidemic is called an epizootic. Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants. The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used. Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan. All porcupines float in water. Hang On Snoopy is the official rock song of Ohio.
Knot Zoo. Not, as you might easily conclude from the accompanying image, what you might call a real "zoo," actually. More like, shall we say, a "petting zoo."
"Petting Zoo?" you exclaim! "A petting zoo for knots!" you sputter in raucous disbelief?
"OK," I respond, daringly. "Go ahead. Click for example knot herein aligned right. Especially if you're amongst the Java-enabled many. Click and behold, after a while, depending on the broadness of your band, that very knot, rotatable. With your very mouse. 360 veritable degrees. Drag and wonder!"
The Knot Zoo. Not a zoo, in the traditional sense at all. More, you see, a Knot Petting Zoo than a Zoo at all.
Gary Berlind
This wonderful collection
"Boss Key" as herein illustrated, the site itself would appear to disappear entirely, and be replaced by a Word document about how to increase your job efficiency and avoid procrastination.
this
The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra
Liz Hickock
Theo Jansen
Krista writes:
Is this ship slurping pasta? Apparently, it is. Which, of course, is the whole point. The apparentness of it all. The illusion. The art. 
Ann P. Smith
Words of a Feather - A Humorous Puzzlement of Etymological Pairs
Adventure Playgrounds
(voice hushed)"Welcome once again to the 
Plastic Bags in New York City
Philip Workman
Finger Jousting
Hot Dog Sculptures
Imagine being a kid, 10-15, and spending 3 mornings a week, for two months, learning magic. Imagine, furthermore, that this class is being conducted by a place called 
Gopinath Muthukad
A few months ago I was sat on my sofa having returned from work dog-tired, and promptly fell asleep. I still had my shoes on. I was awakened by some furtive activity at my feet and looked down to see my six year old daughter admiring her handiwork. She had undone my shoelaces and now proclaimed loudly that she had managed to lace them back up again.
Guido Daniele
Yes, and of course yes, the Play Pump is only part of the solution to the rest of the world's crying need for an accessible supply of potable water, and my focusing on the use of a children's playground device doesn't begin to do justice to the seriousness of the problem. But, see, fun is my passion, my purpose. Fun, the kind of fun that is central to human growth, essential to the evolution of the species, is what I'm here for, what I'm working for. And the Play Pump, and the similar "
Nancy Nurse
Several years ago, Patty came down to one of my seminars at the 
Shari Elf
I don't mean to brag. I didn't mean to brag when I first told you that I was given the 
Michael Moschen
Well, it's not actually juggling hemispheres
Willard Wigen
Play Art
Knot Zoo
knot