Daddy Types
the weblog for new dads
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- Can't Look: Bruno Munari Card Game/Book Things On eBay
D'oh I can't watch. Never mind that they've been in my browser window for three days.
Someone is selling some incredible, scarce game/book things that Bruno Munari did for Danese back in the early 1970's, on eBay, and they're already a fortune. [That's not the real problem, though, which is that I missed the one I really wanted by just a few hours.]
These card-based visual games were designed to trigger kids' imaginations, to enable open-ended storytelling, or to build memory and cognition skills. Plus And Minus [top], for example, is made of various textures, shapes, backgrounds and colors printed on transparent cards. A kid would stack them into various combinations to create scenes or objects for his own story.
Say It With Signs is an exercise in graphic design and abstraction, with multiple variations on basic shapes: a hand, a bird, a shoe, a light bulb, a fish.
My favorite--the one that got away [first]--is Strutture/ Structure, which combines the transparency layers into 3D forms. It went for $222; with a few hours left, the other two games are already in that ballpark, too. I don't know if it's a lot or not, though, because I can't find any comparable examples online anywhere to pricecheck.
Danese Milano Strutture Visual Game~Made in Italy~NIB, sold for $221
Danese Milano Say It By Signs Visual Game ends in 4 hours, and is $240 [update: sold for $304]
Danese Milano Plus and Minus Visual Game ends in 4h15min is $215. [sold for $215, too] [ebay]
Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:53:29 -0500 - Porter x Aprica UN Colabo: Dad-Friendly Baby Gear
Aprica is really on a roll. They've got the Italy thing, and they actually did a colabo [Japlish for cross-brand collaboration, see] with the venerable Yoshida Kaban to create a line of infant carriers, diaper bags, and other gear that works equally well for both dads and moms.
Yoshida Kaban has made something of a specialty of colabos, teaming up with everyone from weirdo publications like Wallpaper and Paper Sky to hype-chasing megacorps like Sony and, uh, Aprica. The Porter x ApricaUN collection came out last winter [quick refresher: Porter is Yoshida's main brand. It's different from Head Porter, which is Yoshida's colabo with designer/dj Hiroshi Fujiwara, who started this whole Japanese streetwear colabo nonsense in the first place, peace and/or a teetering cinderblock wall be upon him.] Like all things Porter, the bags are slightly puffy, mostly black, and mostly ripstop nylon.
Let's take a look at the details, shall we?
Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:15:26 -0500 - Be Of Use: Buy Baby, Be Of Use Books
Personally, I think any time's a good time to buy Lisa Brown's Baby, Be Of Use boardbooks. Why waste your baby's precious time teaching him to sit up, when you could be focusing on far more beneficial skills like making me a drink, fixing my car, doing my banking, or making me some breakfast?
Now is an especially good time to buy the complete, Baby, Be Of Use bundle from McSweeney's because it's on sale for a bafflingly low $16.80, 30% off the regular retail price of $24. Also, McSweeney's got screwed out of $130,000 when their distributor went bankrupt, and so they're selling anything that's not bolted down this week. [Next week: the bolted down stuff.]
Buy stuff like funny board books and McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, emphasis on the 'concern' at McSweeney's Store [mcsweeneys.net via kottke]
Previously: other suggested titles in the Baby, Earn Your Keep series
Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:55:31 -0500 - Urologists Talking Shop, Or, The NY Times Sperm FAQ
Maybe if we didn't have the Yankees-Red Sox playoffs of 2004, men might ramble on about the minutiae of sperm instead. And the result would have been pretty much the same as the NY Times' article.
Is that hard to imagine? Just ask your urologist what urologists talk about when they go out for some beers:
“Only a perfectly normal sperm can penetrate an egg,” said Dr. Harry Fisch, a urologist at Columbia University Medical Center, “and the majority of sperm are abnormally shaped.” Some may have pinheads, others have two heads, some lack tails, a third don’t move at all. As a rule, Dr. Fisch said, a man is lucky if 15 percent of his sperm are serviceable. “One guy I saw had 22 percent,” he said, “but that’s rare.”
Sleek, Fast and Focused: The Cells That Make Dad Dad [nyt]
Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:16:49 -0500 - Can't Blog Now; Playdate
All type and no play makes daddy a loser. I'll be back this afternoon
Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:00:10 -0500 - Vik Muniz' Picture of Ink Looks Suspiciously Like Mr Rogers
The artist Vik Muniz is known for exploring the nature and techniques of photography and the way society reads and consumes photographic images. He does this by creating photography-inspired images using fleeting, unorthodox materials: chocolate syrup, dirt, paint chips, spaghetti--and ink--and then he takes photographs of them.
Which, to a kid making faces out of macaroni at preschool, makes perfect sense.
Christies is selling Pantheon I (American Men) Mr. Rogers (From Pictures of Ink) on July 10th in NYC. It's large, 40x30 inches, and is estimated to go for $8-12,000, which, in this freaked out art market, is a pretty affordable neighborhood. [christies.com]
Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:43:39 -0500 - Baby Beauty Pageants Ain't Got NOTHIN' On Tensai Electone Shoujo
First off, let me just say what this is: Johnny Depp appeared on a Japanese TV show, where he was serenaded--no, ambushed and stunned into submission--by four little stage-managed girls, ages 4-8, dressed in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 costumes. It's the most painfully bizarre and pathetic television 8 min. of television I've seen this year. [I'll wait while you watch it. In fact, I'm going to watch it again myself.]
...
OK, the show is called Gakkou e Ikou! MAX [Let's Go To School MAX!, here's a fanblog of the show in English], and it's on TBS. The kid[s] is/are known as Tensai Electone Shoujo, [Genius Electone Girls], after the Yamaha Electone organ/synthesizer they play. The 4-yo is named Kinoshita Rei-chan. TES has 15,000+ Google results in Japanese, and one [from yesterday] in English.
From the awkward studio setup, it looks like they taped the performance at a POC3 junket. Orlando Bloom's Rei-chan & co. ambush is set to air Tuesday in Japan, so stay tuned.
Tensai Electone Shoujo is from Yamaguchi prefecture, the backwoods of western Japan near [sic] Nagasaki. Rei-chan and her classmates were discovered by the MAX producers at the beginning of May, and they have been on the show several times before this Depp episode.
What the hell is wrong with these people?? Who the hell is this teacher, Yamazaki-sensei?? Sure, she's on TV now with her little mutant creations, but what were those kids doing up until six weeks ago?? The teacher has basically programmed her wacked out aesthetic onto hapless, impressionable kids. Watch their every move and utterance and tell me you don't see it. It's like Little Miss Sunshine-meets-Waiting For Guffman. Forget rural China; move the international adoption operations to BF Japan; these are some of the most unfortunate children I've ever seen.
So here are some more clips:
- Tensai Electone Shoujo vs Johnny Depp [youtube via japanprobe and boingboing]
- I think this is Rei-chan's audition tape, shot by her teacher [who bobs her head--and the camera. so annoying]
- Gakkou Max's hosts visit Rei-chan's class, who perform "Do Re Mi" with mortarboards, then giant ski hats.
- Gakkou Max's second visit to the dance/synth class, including some odd swing dance-ballerina thing, again with the giant ski hats.
- second visit, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" w/interpretive ribbon dance
Related; Gakkou e Ikou summary blog coverage of the Depp-isode
Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:24:07 -0500 - Dad's '67 Camaro Not Just Family Car, It's Family
Since he got it at age 14, Ryan Bell's has shared some of the most important milestones of his life with his 1967 Camaro.
It was with him as he dragraced his way through high school.
He dropped the big
blogblock 454 and the Turbo Hydramatic 400 in just in time for his wedding in 2004.And when the new '04 GTO LS1 engine was ready [hmm] and the car was destined for double duty as a drag strip racer and daily driver, he refabbed the interior just so, so that he could fit the dog and the car seat in back.
Hats off to Mr. Bell, his son, and his sweet ride. And two hats off to Mrs. Bell, who is clearly a saint.
LS1 and a car seat: Family street/strip ‘67 Camaro [blog.hemmings.com]
Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:31:45 -0500 - You Should Buy This Citroen Station Wagon
And then let me live vicariously through you. And then when I can convince the wife of the wisdom of buying yet another Citroen, you should sell it to me.
1971 Citroen Safari wagon - $15000 [losangeles.craigslist.org via jalopnik, which just had a cargasm over it]
Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:01:07 -0500 - Parts Is Parts: Piles Of Creative Playthings Vehicles On eBay
Yeah, the purist in me cries a little to see fragments from so many broken up Creative Playthings Playtown sets: there's the boat from a Marina; there's the helicopters from the Air Field. The luggage haulers, too [hey, weren't those missing from the Air Field last week?] There's some gas pumps from the old Playtown parking garage, and on it goes.
But you know what? Fine. Collectors may not be interested in a pile of mismatched wooden cars, but they're all still made in Finland and sport some rocking, modern, imagination-spurring design. You can dump them in a big box, and your kid can play with them to his heart's content. And you won't be sweating that he'll gnaw away the resale value.
Creative Playthings wooden Trucks from FINLAND, ends Jun 14, opening bid $12.88+$7.90 s/h [ebay]
Creative Playthings wooden Planes & trains from FINLAND, ends Jun 14, opening bid $12.88+$7.90 [ebay]
Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:08:05 -0500 - My First Pride Parade
Jeff writes in,
Chloe marched in her 1st parade at the New Paltz Pride Festival last week. She was a stand-out in a splashy kimono, orange pants, and white beaded necklace. She actually didn't march, she rode on Dad & Daddy's shoulders.
Hmm? what's that? Oh, yes, she is, she's adorable. Sorry, I was just staring at your awesome t-shirt.Chloe Marches in New Paltz Pride Parade [daddy, dad & chloe]
Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:46:18 -0500 - Heil, Struwwelhitler!
It's funny how your day can take a turn. You go to bed thinking you'll be posting about the coverage of the new Louis Vuitton kid's clothing line in the new Japanese edition of Milk Magazine. And instead, you end up writing about a 1941 British parody of the classic German children's book Struwwelpeter featuring der Fuhrer himself.
Struwwelhitler: A Nazi Story Book by Dr. Schrecklichkeit was written by Robert & Philip Spence to benefit the War Relief Fund of the Daily Sketch, a now-defunct conservative British tabloid. [Proceeds went to "supplying cigarettes, dart boards, dominoes, draughts, musical instruments, playing cards, boxing gloves and footballs in particular" to British soldiers, a very worthy cause.]
Accounts of Struwwelhitler call it a very adept parody of the original, and it features all the biggies of day: Mussolini, Goebels, Stalin:
The Story of Cruel Adolph
I stumbled across a first edition for sale on the chldren's book section of NYC graphic arts dealer Barbara Leibowits' site, and I figured it'd make one more of those vintage oddity posts. [And it still does; Leibowits doesn't publish the price of her copy, but Abebooks has several dozen copies listed for between $125 and $700.]
The Story of the Nazi Boys
The Story of Little Gobby Poison Pen
The Story of Flying Hermann
The Story of Fidgety Adolph
The Story of Little Musso Head in Air
The Story of Flying RudolphBut it turns out Struwwelhitler has been reissued one, maybe even two times. It's available right now, in fact, new, on Amazon in Germany, France, and Japan, but the US Amazon site doesn't even recognize the ISBN number. Weird.
Buy Struwwelhitler, now reissued in German/English, at Amazon Germany, EUR6.99 [amazon.de, amazon.fr]
Previously: Der Struwwelpeter: Scarier Than Plastic Bottles, Even
Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:09:37 -0500 - Let's Stitch Frank! Sew-It-Yourself Toys From Egg Press
Egg Press has released Let's Stitch Frank!, a hand-screened canvas dog kit that's the first in a promised series of sew-it-yourself toys. [Well, the first if you don't count Hoot and Scoot, the other DIY stuffed animals Egg does.] They're very Marilyn Neuhart. Or soft doll Mr. T, but still easy enough for someone whose sewing technique never progressed beyond that paisley applique thing everyone had to make in third grade.
With the "hand-sewn by _____" tag on there, it's safe to say these are better gifts than new-parent projects. [Can you imagine how enticing any new project looks at B+3 sleepless weeks?] Just remember to stuff the toy with something non-chokeable. So pennies and rocks are out.
Do-It-Yourself Kits, $24-26 [eggpress.com via cookie mag's daily finds]
Previously: [LOTS of] Vintage Mr. T Cabbage Patchy Dolls
Marilyn Neuhart Dolls: just like the Girard Old Days
Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:03:00 -0500 - Aprica UN Perpapa: Neoprene Carrier Clothing For Dads
You know what I was thinking just the other day? We don't see enough neoprene in the baby world. Especially functional pieces of gear for guys. [I know, I know, the guys at BuiltNY make neoprene bottle carriers and bibs, but they made them for their wives.]
Somewhere in their European design outpost in Milano, however, the Aprica UN team was apparently thinking the same thing. Aprica UN is the Japanese baby giant's high-end, high-design collection [I've also seen it spelled ApricaUN, without the space, which I guess rhymes with leprechaun? Can we get someone from the agency to chime in on this, please?], and it actually has its own boutique on via Montenapoleone. Their website is, awesomely, only in Italian. [Clearly, Aprica's launch of their flagship carseat there almost two years ago was not a one-time PR stunt--after all.]
Now where was I? Right, Perpapa [trans: for dads] hooded neoprene jackets and vests for dads with integrated 3-way infant carriers with a horizontal position for newborns, and forward- and outward-facing positions for kids up to 14.9kg. Unbelievable. The carrier also detaches completely for that pure, bambino-free, neoprene fashion feeling.
The only online mention I can find anywhere besides ApricaUN Montenapoleone's own site is their Taiwanese web store. They listed the vest for 8,500 Taiwan dollars, about $US 257. Perpapa was for Automne/Inverno 2006, though, so they're all out. Maybe someone needs to hotfoot it over to the store in Milano and see what the hell is going on with these things.
And if Aprica keeps releasing such mindblowing products without telling anyone in the English-typing world, Daddy Types may have to man a round-the-clock stakeout of the store. I'll take July. Who's got September? [August, the whole freakin' country shuts down, it's the damnedest thing.]
Aprica Montenapoleone 27 > Marsupi > Giacca Perpapa [aprica-montenapo.com]
ApricaUN Perpapa Vest, 8,500TWD - None Available [apricaun.com.tw]
Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:55:50 -0500 - Family Portrait By Google's Second Most Popular Phil Collins
A friend once wrote of artist Phil Collins' photographs, "his subjects speak volumes without giving too much away."
He likes to use his camera as a pretext or catalyst for some kind of social micro-phenomenon. He has filmed auditions a disco marathon contest in Ramallah in the West Bank; for the Istanbul Biennial, he invited people whose lives had been ruined by appearing on talk shows to tell their stories--in taped, hour-long interviews; he advertised for nude models, ages 18-88, to have their portraits taken in the penthouse suite of the nicest hotel in San Sebastian, Spain; for ""El Mundo no Escuchara", he shot a karaoke video version of The Smiths' classic album in Bogota.
So if you know even just a few of the specifics behind a particular project, you're fine. In the absence of such details, though, the guy is painfully Google-proof. When I saw this 2003 photo, titled cathy, torsten, jammy last night, I tried to figure out the circumstances behind it, but no luck. And anyone I could ask in the art world is either in Venice or Basel or somewhere in between at the moment, so the context will have to wait. Mean time, it's kind of an affecting, interesting portrait of a young family.
Phil Collins shows at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in NYC and was nominated for the Turner Prize last year. Image via Kerlin Gallery, Dublin [kerlin.ie]
Mon, 11 Jun 2007 06:57:53 -0500
