Oct 14, 2025 4 min read

Play's the Thing: October Links

And a special request.

I have a memory from my childhood that is remarkable only for how utterly unremarkable it is:

I must have been 7 or 8 years old, and an elementary school nearby where I lived had just installed a new playground. It wasn’t the school I attended, so playing on it occasioned a special trip. I don’t remember the moment of arrival and seeing the new playground for the first time, but I still remember the concept: this playground was an enormous wooden castle with various towers and turrets, bridges connecting the parts, and so many levels and hidden pathways.

Not the actual playground, but it was this style. Funny enough, this image comes from r/nostalgia

What I remember most distinctly from my first time playing on that playground was exploring around on one of the bottom levels where I needed to crouch down to fit through the lower pathways and at one point straightening just a little bit - but enough that I smacked my head on a wooden cross beam hard enough that I saw stars for a few seconds.

And then what happened next was that I…you know, just kept on playing. I was probably a little bit more careful, a little bit more attentive to my environment, but probably still mostly a wild little boy.

I couldn’t tell you why that memory is stuck so prominently in my brain, especially given that I have plenty of playground memories from my childhood. Why is that the one that comes to me most vividly? I’m sure it has something to do with the intensity of experience that comes from smacking my head…but I also know it wasn’t the only time I injured myself on a playground, and I don’t remember any of the other times nearly as vividly.

I bring this up because I’ve been thinking a lot about playgrounds lately, about the way that they are a visible embodiment of the way we conceive of childhood and of the kind of values we try to impart to our children. I’m working on something much more expansive on this line of thinking as a part of the bigger Play’s The Thing project (foreshadowing: I’m currently planning a trip to a place that is lowkey known for its interesting playgrounds), so I’m curious and want to hear from you:

Tell me about a playground you associate with your childhood. What kind of playground was it? What did you love to do when you went there? How did playing there shape you? Do you still see playgrounds like it out there in the world? Tell me as much or as little as you want - I am here for as much detail as you want to get into. Just respond to this email or if you’re seeing this on the site, drop me a line: seth at routine-chaos.com.

I want to know all about your favorite playground!

3 little things I’ve enjoyed lately…

To Read (and Ogle): Very related to playgrounds, Alexandra Lange gets into the way that the Charles & Ray Eames embraced the idea that the boxes they shipped a piece of furniture in could be repurposed for child’s playand how that led to the development of their own toys. Any time I link to anything Eames related, it’s worth clicking through just to see the visual palettes they played with. I’m an absolute sucker for patterns & textures, and the Eames’s were top notch.

To Listen: I’m pretty excited about this new collaboration between Endless Thread and 99 Percent Invisible, Hidden Levels. The first episode is worth it just for the anecdote about what Shaq did with the 2nd NBA Jam arcade cabinet he bought. Personally, NBA Jam was one of THE go to arcade games of my childhood/adolescence alongside Street Fighter II.

Not the actual arcade cabinet. This one is from a collab that the Big Aristotle did with NBA Jam much later.

To watch: OK, this really stretches the definition of “lately.” I’ve been sitting on this for like a year and couldn’t figure out the right time or context to share it, and this still isn’t it…but I just love it too much to sit on. Cabal Sasser goes alllllll the way down the rabbit hole of who was responsible for a particularly ambitious mural in a McDonald’s restaurant. If you click through, you will kick yourself if you don’t watch all the way to the end - the payoff is totally worth it.