Toys Are Made for Tinkering

Villains have all the fun. Even when it comes to kid’s stuff. As Mitchel Resnick of the MIT Media Lab pointed out, the movie Toy Story says a lot about what our culture lauds and what it disapproves of in children. The story’s hero, Andy, has a bedroom full of well-kept toys — frequently played with but never adapted or modified. The arch-nemesis Sid, on the other hand, turns everything he can into ghastly hybrids like a spider with a baby doll’s head and Erector Set legs