Sunday, May 28, 2017

Little Toy Cars

Why don't more adults play with toys?
I suppose lots of things that adults like are similar to toys (e.g. real cars and electronics)--but I mean toy-toys.

What are toys, anyway? 
I guess I'd say it's partly their function that makes toys toys: 
they are anything you play with.  
So a stick is a toy, if you play with it, right? but a toy that you never take out of its box is technically a toy, but is it more like a sculpture?
Well, no. It's still a toy, because the person who has it probably thinks of it as a toy---it represents the possibility of play, and sculpture doesn't.
And cars and electronics are like toys, but they have other uses, while toys are only for playing.

While I was out walking Astro, I got eleven little toy cars leftover from a garage sale, free.
I've been wanting to make toys that move--I'd thought toy cars would provide good bases to build on, but these're actually great in themselves--some have a ball bearing in their chassis for speed (I looked it up) so while they're very little, they have a pleasing heft.

I like toy animals, you know, but I don't have any toy cars. Now I must play with them!

4 comments:

Michael Leddy said...

This post gives me an appropriate opportunity to confess: I've been jonesing now and then for Lincoln Logs, the kind I knew as a boy and then as a parent. Green roof slats, plastic red eaves. I think we have a set somewhere in the garage. They're impossible to find in stores, though they exist on eBay.

Pocket multi-tools — like the Leatherman Micra and such — provide some of the satisfactions of toys and have a portability that you just can't get with Lincoln Logs.

Fresca said...

Lincoln Logs! I loved those. You'll want them for your soon-to-come grandchild, eh?

Tools make good toys!

ArtSparker said...

Thanks for this.

Anything little works for me, actually.

Frex said...

SPARKER: Watch your mailbox...