Gigantic teeter-totters (called 'wippen' in Germany) by DS Landscape Architects

Kindergarten Taku-Tuka Land by Susan Hoffman Architects

A not-so-grown-up conversation with my lovely friend Ashley, reciting recess rhymes and indulging the nostalgia of playtime, led to an amazing discovery - the blog PLAYSCAPES about the unique architecture of non-commercial playgrounds. The image samples above hint at the wonderful, informational curation of playgrounds worldwide new and old. Totally an under rated form of sculptural art, the kinetic experience a playground offers is beautiful and important. Insightful commentary about where each playground exists and why accompanies each image and the author often notes the impact playground design has on a child's learning process. Such as, the fact that seesaws are one of the few playground devices that require cooperation for play to occur (re the giant teeter-totters in Germany). 

F/W '09F/W '09F/W '09S/S '10

S/S '10

S/S '10Parisian atelier Talc is turning out adorable looks for little Kings, Queens and wild things as is evident by the delightful and sophisticated lookbooks for Fall/Winter 2009 and the preview for highly anticipated Spring/Summer 2010 collection. Available in specialty children's shoppes worldwide and online. Doing a little research, Brooklyn bebe boutique Finn's Finds carries select pieces from the line and 10% of all order totals will go to support Doctors Without Boarders in response to the earthquake in Haiti. Très Bon!

Dream team, for marketing fancy footwear anyway - Daft Punk and Darth Vader (yes, this is correct) have teamed up to hawk some new kicks by Adidas. Its hard to tell what the line looks like, there are hints, but the commercial is  h i p. Synopsis: The Sith Lord and Daft Punk descend on a full street of revelers, including David Beckham, to sell everyone some shoes.

Adidas x Star Wars from viacomit on Vimeo.

A recent Street Carnage article brought the smackdown on Hipsters w/KIDS -

"[Hipster parents] isn’t exactly a recent phenomenon; I’ve seen the NY Mag article on “the Grups” and another on “hip parenting” in TIME Magazine. My problem is, this has been more of an analysis than an outright INDICTMENT against this sort of behavior...  I’m hoping to God that down the line the parents just drop the fashionable power couple shtick and become old and boring like the rest of the civilized world."

Well. Don't knock it till you've tried it. Case in point, what a cute family photo (!) one I immediately added to the PROOF section. AND, looks like some "hipster parents" are readers of Street Carnage as the retaliation is in the comments (warning: among other various lewd, crude and really funny comments)

Hipsters w/ kids 4 by Hipstersw/kids

BOOOOM! Start 2010 off right with some snappy tunes...  Happy New Year!