From Seriously! The Future Depends on Play:

In the village of Dithyrambalina, all the houses invite you to play them. Musical architecture in New Orleans!

“High concept and nontraditional as it may be, The Music Box has found a place in the long history of New Orleans music.” – Ann Powers, NPR

Dithyrambalina will be a sonic playground, performance venue and laboratory for musical architecture in New Orleans.

From fall 2011 through spring 2012 The Music Box, A Shantytown Sound Laboratory presented groundbreaking musical performances and cacophonous public hours in a miniature village of musical architecture on a residential lot in New Orleans. Constructed from the salvaged remains of an ancient cottage, invented instruments were embedded into the walls, ceilings, floors and staircases of musical structures created by 25 collaborating artists, inventors and tinkers. Performed on by over 70 world-class musicians for orchestral concerts and attended by over 15,000 visitors & 500+students, The Music Box captured the hearts of the New Orleans community.

The Music Box has closed, but 2014 will see the creation of five new musical houses that will be the inaugural structures of Dithyrambalina. We will use these new houses to form a roving village that will visit neighborhoods around New Orleans, and the country, sharing the wonder and possibility of musical architecture with new audiences as we continue to grow our village and work towards securing a perfect and permanent site for Dithyrambalina in New Orleans.

Dithyrambalina: The Music Box and Beyond from TungstenMonkey on Vimeo.

This mom is really mad that her boys, and most kids, are not allowed to play in a normal manner and not coddle or guide them the entire time:

I often think about the world my boys will grow up in. I often get angry when I think about it.

Many years ago, there was a time where young boys could run around with their toy guns, killing the bad guys. You could take the toy guns away from the little boys, and they’d find something else around them – a stick, their fingers, etc – and pretend it was a gun. Today, those little boys – if caught doing that – are labeled as threats, and immediate action is taken to remove that threat from the group.

Modern parents, who drop everything all the time to sit and play with the child, who “needs attention,” or drop what they’re doing to help the child the second he or she gets frustrated? How is Joey going to deal with the fact that there won’t be anyone in his adult life who’s willing to stop what they’re doing, stop living their busy lives, to cater to his every whim?

As a young parent, I get to see firsthand the kind of struggle this mom is talking about. She points out all the same reasons that play advocates do about why we need to let kids explore with real life situations, like good guys and bad guys, and bullies (to some extent), and frustration. Coddling kids or helicopter parenting shelters kids from getting to experience the joys of accomplishment and independence that we all craved as kids and take for granted now as grown-ups.

I say get angry, Stephanie! Get angry, people! This is life and death stuff we’re talking about here.

Check out more of Stephanie Metz here.

Yes, it’s true. Marketers have known for years that people want fun, playful experiences, but it’s only in the last couple of years that companies have been willing to take those playful risks themselves and go out on a limb to make those fun-filled experiences happen. From Forbes:

“The easiest way to create sharability is to give people an experience,” offers Franz Aliquo, Creative Director at ad agency RPM. “Something that turns their mundane day-to-day into something magical.”

Aliquo should know; not only does he worry about corporate brands in his day job, he’s the creative force behind numerous immersive experiences that have gone viral in recent years. His creations include a pervasive 30 day, 24/7 watergun assassination tournament called Street Wars; Rental Car Rally, a competition that’s part food-fight, part-Burning Man, part Cannonball Run; and Flavor Tripping Parties.
“Look at how people use Facebook,” continues Aliquo. “We all want to share the amazing things that happen in our lives – the things that make our lives seem less mundane. People post about what they do, that’s what’s really sharable.”

Whether it’s new races like The Color Run and Tough Mudder, or underground dining parties, organizations are dreaming up new ways to tap into people’s desire for unique experiences and camaraderie that makes them want to share."

While the Forbes article is focused more on the marketing aspect of it, to me the big takeaway is that people are looking for fun, playful experiences, and if large companies or marketers are willing to facilitate that play, people are happy to engage.

Found courtesy of Children & Nature Network.

Outside Magazine, December 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012

These days, screen-addicted Americans are more stressed out and distracted than ever. And nope, there’s no app for that. But there is a radically simple remedy: get outside. Florence Williams travels to the deep woods of Japan, where researchers are backing up the surprising theory that nature can lower your blood pressure, fight off depression, beat back stress—and even prevent cancer.

…

I was supposed to be listening to the cicadas and the sound of a flowing creek when a Mitsubishi van rumbled across a small steel bridge just downstream. It was probably depositing campers at a nearby tent village, where kids were running around with their fishing poles and pink bed pillows. This was nature, Japan style. I was in Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park, a 75-minute train ride northwest of Tokyo, with half a dozen other hikers out for a dose of shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing. The Japanese go crazy for this practice, which is standard preventive medicine here. It essentially involves hanging out in the woods. It’s not about wilderness; it’s about the nature-civilization hybrid the Japanese have cultivated for thousands of years. You stroll a little, maybe write a haiku, crack open a spicebush twig and inhale its woodsy, sassy scent…

Read the original article:

Take Two Hours of Pine Forest and Call Me in the Morning

Huffington Post – December 16, 2012

If you’re stuck in a creative rut, the best way out may be to just unplug and recharge. A new study, to be published in the journal PLOS One, shows that spending four nature-filled days, away from electronic devices, is linked with 50 percent higher scores on a test for creativity.
The findings provide "a rationale for trying to understand what is a healthy way to interact in the world, and that burying yourself in front of a computer 24/7 may have costs that can be remediated by taking a hike in nature," says study researcher David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah.

• [>] Read the full article

From my mom:

Here’s my Daily Om Horoscope. Always good advice:

Play can be a wonderful way to initiate change in your life. It is during or after periods of playfulness that we are struck by the most creative and inventive ideas. Imaginative play offers a unique opportunity to think outside the box and try different ways of being. Your mind becomes free to experience your unlimited creative potential, and you’re likely to come across a refreshing idea that you can apply to your daily routine in a positive way. When you use play as a means of instigating change today, your daily duties will become less routine.

Photo by Stan Milkowski/Woodland Park Zoo