PUZZLES OLD AND NEW: Head Crackers, Patience Provers, and Other Tactile
Teasers

[including more variations on Rubik's cube than I've ever seen before]

EXHIBITION TOUR:

Craft and Folk Art Museum, LA	Nov. 26, '86 - Feb. 22, 1987
MIT Museum			April 6 - June 15, 1987
Hudson River Museum		July 22 - Sept. 27, 1987
Science Museum of Minnesota	Oct. 19, '87 - Jan 3, 1988
Ontario Science Center		Jan. 25 - March 6, 1988

Accompanied by the book PUZZLES OLD AND NEW: HOW TO MAKE AND SOLVE THEM
by Jerry Slocum and Jack Botermans ($20).

The exhibit discusses
The Art in Puzzles
The Social Experience
Cultural Values
Puzzles in the Industrial Age
Puzzles in Education
Puzzles and Science

It aims "to explore the history, meanings, and design of mechanical
puzzles." The extensive displays categorize puzzles according to their
object:
Put-Together Puzzles
Take-Apart Puzzles
Interlocking Solid Puzzles
Disentanglement Puzzles
Sequential Movement Puzzles
Puzzle Vessels
Dexterity Puzzles
Vanish Puzzles
Impossible Object Puzzles
Folding Puzzles

Puzzles have been lent by collectors and museums around the world. The
exhibit consultants are Benjamin Kilborne and Martin Gardner.

There are hands-on puzzles, but too simple and too few. It's a
wonderful and tantalizing display of puzzles. I was SOOO frustrated not
to be able to handle all the beautiful, enticing pieces. Of course, if
I had been permitted to, I would never leave....

-- Rodney Hoffman