Orbitwheels - yet another small step for playkind, especially for the kind of players who like to skateboard, and can appreciate the heightened maneuverability, the vast array of potential tricks, the back-pack-fitting portability, and, of course, the opportunity to be the bull of the skating herd.
I found out about the Orbitwheel from one of my more reliable online sources, and someone whom I can actually call a friend - the Presurfer. Following his lead, I Googled around until I found myself at a site called The Inventist, where one can also purchase, for example, the significantly cool-looking AquaSkipper that allows you to bounce your way across the water- that's right, bounce; the Stepster, demonstrating how much more you get when you "combine a bicycle, a scooter and a Stairmaster;" and even the Leantisserie - the "world’s first free-standing rotisserie inside an oven."
All of which leads us to the fun flavor of the day: Invented Fun. The flavor of fun you taste when you make something up, something new. Anything new, really. Even, or especially, a free-standing rotisserie. But it is a fun flavor that is exceptionally delicious when the thing you are making up is some new way to have fun.
The Sound and Fury at the Educational Centre for Games in Israel
I learned about The Sound and the Fury more than 30 years ago, when I first joined the New Games Foundation. Since then, I've been teaching it almost every chance I get. I have my reasons, in deed I do. It's a great way to get people involved, engaged, open, willing to play, exploring their own capacities for public silliness, and a perfect introduction to the idea of Coliberation.
I had the chance to teach the game again with some rather remarkable people in a rather remarkable place. The remarkable thing about these people was that they came from all over Israel because they value play and games and toys as tools for restoring health. The remarkable place was called "The Educational Centre for Games in Israel." And the remarkable woman who invited me to speak was its director, Helena Kling.
"Helena is by profession a psychologist specializing on Children’s Play in Hospita, and has for many years been working on projects about play. At present running the Educational Centre for Games in Israel, a non-profit association which she describes as follows:'We have a small building full of stuff, a veritable 'heritage centre' of play; there is 'hands on play' available; a work room where people can make games and toys; an exhibition room with miniature rooms and two model railways; a library that has become a centre of information on play; a large collection of Israeli board games and collection of collections and dolls and so much more that if I go on writing about it I am afraid of disbelief!'"
Such wonderful energy. Such a deep commitment to play. Such an honor. Such a fun person to play with.
"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!"
"These three boys were cruising along the side of the road with their toy cars as we drove by, while a fourth boy, a non-driver looks on. It is unlikely that these kids will ever own or drive a real car in their lifetime."
And yet, they made something new, and fun, clearly, very fun. We can feel sad for them that they have so little resources. We can feel even more sadness when we think about what they might be creating if they had the resources. (My guess, they'd be making dirt race courses for their children's size Power Wheels Kawasaki KFX Ninja Ultimate Terrain Traction mini-ATV.)
Marbles. Ah, marbles. I don't know if you've managed to read "A Million Ways to Play Marbles, at Least" - originally included in the appendix of The Well-Played Game. In it's own silly way, it reflects pretty much everything I know about the nature of games. And if you have read it, perhaps you'd enjoy hearing me read it.
But whether you've heard it or read it, the important thing is that you've played it. And here, for your conceptual delectation, a significant and well-illustrated collection of marble games from the veritable Land of Marbles, itself.
Actually, all these toys, and many more like them, are worthy of our collective attention. Building a marble run engages both creative and scientific reasoning. Every design must ultimately "work," not only aesthetically, but also mechanically. No matter how good it looks, if the ball doesn't go where you think it should, or if the run isn't as long as you hope it should be, you're just going to have to build it differently.
Now, back to Q-BA-MAZE. I promise not to use the word "amazing" more than once - after this. First, allow me to use the word "cube." As in Cuboro, the basic building block is a, well, block. Unlike Cuboro, there are only three types of blocks, they are made out of a durable polycarbonate, translucently acrylic-like plastic, and they fit together in most satisfyingly interlocking configurations. They can slide into each other along their sides, they can be stacked on to each other, they can be built up and out into cantileverishly cunning constructs. They also work. One of the three, the one that opens on both ends, works in a most curiously delightful manner. It is a switch, of sorts. With no moving parts. But when a ball drops into it, the ball will often hesitate before traveling left or right, sometimes hesitate a most tantalizingly long time, as if deliberating. And this turns out to be a particularly delicious deliberation, adding just that extra touch of surprise, just that extra change in rhythm that makes the whole, multi-colored construct that much more surprising, that much more engaging.
Q-BA-MAZE comes with a bunch of steel balls - not because they're easy to lose, and definitely not because they're easy to swallow (hence, the small child advisory), but because the more balls you drop into it, the more complex the pattern of the fall, the more fun it is to watch - a visual equivalent of the difference between melody and symphony.
Watch the video, read the blog, construct your own myriad of delights, or build any of the configurations you find online, like this one, if you happen to have purchased the 50 count set (36 blocks and 14 balls).
Mark Applebaum writes about his Sound Sculptures: "The instruments consist of threaded rods, nails, wire strings stretched through a series of pulleys and turnbuckles, plastic combs, bronze braising rod blow-torched and twisted, doorstops, shoehorns, ratchets, steel wheels, springs, lead and PVC pipe, corrugated copper plumbing tube, Astroturf, parts from a Volvo gearbox, a metal Schwinn bicycle logo, and, indeed, mousetraps."
And, in case you wondered, Applebaum appends:
"I play the sound-sculptures with my hands and with a number of different strikers and gadgets including Japanese chopsticks, knitting needles, combs, thimbles, plectrums, surgical tubing, a violin bow, and various wind-up toys, tops, etc. Located in the midst of the sculptures is a mixer and a small rack of electronic signal processors with their associated triggering pedals, mostly junky analog delays, early-era pitch transposers, unnatural reverbs, and the like."
The Bubble Thing, by David Stein, maker of the Bubble Thing Bubble Maker Wand, here so vividly depicted - the Bubble Thing Bubble Maker which, in turn, is the maker of giant, truly giant, bubble-like thing, beyond round, rainbowed, fragile, bursting into memory like a breath.
Am I sounding poetic here? Well, how'd you expect me to be after watching and listening to him read what might be the world's biggest, most personal, most bubble-loving bubble poem: Spheres of Air, in which he writes:
This lofting spheres of air-- Is it a sport? Is it an art? --Well, it’s done outdoors with something of the grace
of skating or of surfing or especially of hang gliding where timing’s everything and one must tune oneself
to ice or surf or air. Or weightlifting might compare, a stationary sport whose goal is greatest weight, or
--about as stationary-- putting shot for furthest cast, or (when the children chase) any sport where catching
of a flying ball (no ball so huge and hovering as these) is all that counts. A mob chasing a ball while crowds
arise and cheer. Well, maybe it is something of a sport. Yes, and most like golf-- Outdoors in a field, a stroll,
not very great a sweat, split second skill to loft the ball. Or (lacking irons, ball, and distant goal) less like golf
than tai chi or karate or aikido, or rite of stick or sword, or other Asian sport wherein-- in practice anyway--
no blow is ever struck, each kick or punch is pulled, and the opponent is oneself, or especially one’s mind,
which is invisible as the wind that fights the spheres while lofting them, and whose instant moves of open,
hold, and close are similar--
Am I sounding perhaps a bit abashed? As might be you if you had publicly overenthused about something called "Beebo Bubbles" - as Bubble Thing Maker David Stein so clearly reminds us, waving in our virtual faces the Record Bubble Making achievements of Alan McKay, who "arose from obscurity and astonished the world. Inspired by the Bubble Thing, he had developed an enormous loop supported and controlled on two long poles, and he’d brewed a thundering good soap to go with it. He managed to photograph a tubular bubble 113 feet long"?
Or overly analytic? Perhaps because of all Mr. Stein's amply bubbly links to further splendiferous repositories of bubble science.
Probably just dazed, as one might understandably be after watching this.
Kids, Magic, and The Confoundingly Crazy Crate-O-Mystery
The Confoundingly Crazy Crate-O-Mystery (from Fundex Games, available here) is a confoundingly clever way to introduce kids into magic. They get magic apparatus (ok, toys), comic book-like instructions, and an instructional DVD that shows them how each of the ten tricks included in this kit is performed, and the secrets that make each trick work. These materials are central to the magic of the Cofoundingly Crazy Crate-O-Mystery. The biggest obstacle to mastering any illusion is learning how to do it. You can go to a magic shop and buy hundreds of wonderful tricks, but when it comes to learning how they work, and how to perform them, you have to rely on cryptically written instruction slips, usually in small print, that convey little if anything of the art of it all.
Most of the 10 magic tricks are performed with with the assistance of wonderfully toylike apparatus, which is exactly how it should be. There's plastic monkey with detachable tail, feet, arms, hat and banana. And a sheet of tattoos. There's the crate itself, made of sturdy cardboard with magnetically sealing doors on 4 sides. There's a special magic handkerchief. And some other stuff. I don't want to get too specific here, because it might give away some of the secrets to the Confounding Craziness of it all. You'll also need two cookies and a dime. And I can't tell you why.
Magic is a very special kind of play. It's part science and part theater. The Confoundingly Crazy Crate-O-Mystery is a well-presented introduction and invitation to a unique form of fun - one that can last a lifetime. Especially recommended for kids who are old enough to read (8 and up), disciplined enough to practice and perfect their secret arts, and enjoy being the center of awe-struck attention. MajorFUN, indeed.
Orbitwheels - yet another small step for playkind, especially for the kind of players who like to skateboard, and can appreciate the heightened maneuverability, the vast array of potential tricks, the back-pack-fitting portability, and, of course, the opportunity to be the bull of the skating herd.
Marbles. Ah, marbles. I don't know if you've managed to read "
Q-BA-MAZE
The Bubble Thing
The Confoundingly Crazy Crate-O-Mystery (from