Perp play & Puppy puzzles
Hi Friends!
Welcome back. I hope the splashdown into 2025 was gentle and uneventful. What does it say about my current anxiety level that I am channeling a very “meh, shrug, like, so bored!” kind of year? A LOT. Whatever shakes out, I intend to keep things lively and colorful around here.
This week offers a glimpse into the dark psyche of LEGO nation, good news for dog brains, and some fog inspired photography (also brain related, but mostly a gift of weird weather).
Enjoy and thanks for being here!
X! She
Jailhouse Blocks
My 8-year old nephew is a LEGO maniac. He could open his own store with the buckets of bricks he’s amassed. It’s become hard to find sets he doesn’t have or ones that are challenging enough for him. Last winter he built the Delorean car from Back to the Future, a kit that is rated ages 17+, by himself. I can only hope he puts this kind of effort and focus into everything he does–like eventually caring for his favorite doddering old aunt. While I was searching for something new to get him for a holiday gift, I came upon LEGO City Police Prison Island.
The LEGO empire is sprawling with builds inspired by everything from pop culture and historical architecture to art works (van Gogh’s Starry Night; Hokusai’s The Wave), and robotics technology. If you can dream it, you can LEGO it. Evidently that extends to the darker side of the “imaginative play” the toys are known to inspire.
Action-packed adventure awaits on the LEGO City Police Prison Island–home to an array of fun features and notorious crooks!, reads the description. Talk about putting a kicky spin on DOING FELONIES. The set replicates a “cliffside prison” alla Alcatraz I’m guessing. It includes features such as: a break room; control room; a cell with beds (of course); a courtyard with a secret hatch (naturally); an escape tunnel that leads to an abandoned mine (because, sure!); AND a prisoners’ laundry room with jailbreak tools. There’s also a helipad and helicopter as well as a “cliff face with a loose rock for explosive exit.” I mean, IS THERE ANY OTHER KIND?
There are three officers, which tells me that this prison is wildly understaffed and ripe for the taking, and four prisoner figures. There is also a dog and a shark. They might want to sell an expansion pack with a Greenpeace boat and crew of environmental lawyers dispatched to defend the shark.
I feel like the actual target market for this set are child psychologists. Kids in the session play Prison Island while the doctor takes notes. Who chooses law enforcement, who chooses to be a felon, who picks the shark. Who shows real leadership abilities in organizing their fellow inmates in a daring escape. Which kid makes their character the hold out: “No way man, it’s too risky! I’m gonna stay here and work on getting my law degree.” Maybe one of the kids is the guard but shows their moral flexibility by stashing the jailbreak tools in the laundry, lacing the dog’s kibble with sleeping pills.
LEGO Police Prison Island goes for $130. That’s the real crime here.
In Dog We Trust
I ran into my friend Charles, along with his dog, Denali, just after the holidays. We became friends over the last few years simply by encountering one another out on morning walks. But really it’s Denali that is the glue binding our little trail clatch. One day when I saw them I slowed down, holding out my hand for Denali to sniff. She was already leaping and straining on her leash to either gnaw my face off or wrestle. It really could have gone either way. I had no sooner run my hand down the length of her back when she flopped on the ground in a very dramatic fashion and twisted herself around on her back–belly up, legs crooked. Love me, lavish me, WORSHIP me, she seemed to say. How could I not?
This became our ritual. She would see me approaching from 50 feet and start hopping around until I was within range and then–flop, flip, HAND TO BELLY PLEASE. It’s practically Pavlovian for both of us.
When I saw them most recently we chatted about our respective holidays. Charles told me his daughter had gotten Denali a special type of food bowl.
“It’s like a puzzle or something. I haven’t set it up yet.”
“A puzzle?”
“Yeah, it has these different components to it that she has to manipulate in some way to get her food. It’s supposed to keep her mind sharp or something.”
I pulled myself away from Denali’s soft belly and we parted ways. I enjoy dogs, but I didn’t grow up with them and have never owned one. For me, the responsibility continues to outweigh the companionship. This is also why I buy succulents and Ficus type plants that are two cellulose strands away from being plastic. The life giving bar is practically set underground for me. But I like meeting them out on my walks. Each one has its own personality, showing their eagerness to be liked, which, let’s be honest, is highly relatable.
While I don’t know a lot about dogs, I do know that the pet culture industry has ballooned into a highly sophisticated operation. As it should. In general we don’t deserve most of our pets. When it comes to dogs specifically, we routinely prove our inferiority by doing things like setting trash cans on fire after one of our sports teams wins a major contest or drawing boobs on our fogged up bathroom mirrors.
I know there are spas and daycares and puppy yoga classes; treadmills and strollers; and all sorts of gourmet, organic, high-end food that is probably Michelin star level. It makes perfect sense to me that a team of researchers are working to make sure that dogs have every advantage in the brain department. Whatever we can do to nudge them toward evolutionary dominance is fine by me. I cannot even make sense of all the charges to our Internet and phone plans; I’m ready to hand the wheel over to another species.
At the same time, maybe it would be better to leave dinner out of the equation, to keep the brain games part of playtime. Why should Peanut have to work for her supper? Seeing it from the dog’s perspective, she must think: “Look, I’ve already made many concessions here. I stopped peeing on the bed, you’re welcome. I bark at EVERYTHING and EVERYONE, okay? Amazon delivery dude, your sister, the probably serial killer, the trash barrels—-I got your back, lady. I even let you dress me up as a banana for Halloween and this time I didn’t even shred the pillows out of repressed anger and shame. So the least, I mean the bare minimum you could do is to give me my damn food in the bowl with NO STRINGS ATTACHED.”
Besides, Denali is plenty smart already. She has me trained, that’s for sure.
Lens Zen!
Who else is feeling this energy very hard after a punishing election season, a stretch of holidays that made every damn day feel like Saturday, and no clear idea of who exactly is “running” America—a car guy, a felon, a Russian dictator, Stifler’s mom. WE DON’T KNOW! I’m going to go ahead and sit right here until further notice. Send snacks.
I think this is the latest in a long line of LEGO prison-themed sets. Not sure what that says about them, or what it says about us as consumers, but I'm pretty sure we had at least a couple of 'em here. Always understaffed. Fire stations were too. Maybe the Danes are just more efficient when it comes to manpower? I dunno.
At one point, he got a huge cargo plane set, which I graciously helped assemble. you know; involved parent and all of that. It may or may not be sitting two feet from me as I type this...
Just what I needed for 2025! A dose of funny realisms about life and its absurdities. I laughed hard at this line, “There are three officers, which tells me that this prison is wildly understaffed and ripe for the taking, and four prisoner figures.” Like clearly Lego originates in a much more benevolent and trusting place cause yeah, the numbers don’t work.
Also about Denali / you must tell your neighbor that the puzzle is just a game and to be used with snacks and not intended for meals. I’d be worried the dog wouldn’t eat enough. We got my dog a similar kind of thing which took her all of a minute to figure out (like your nephew she’s highly intelligent and good with tactile manipulation (fine motor skills) apparently)