Fun? Who is she? Do we even know her? What's your relationship to fun? How can fun help us be more

functional, more productive, and happier, well-rounded human beings? What does fun even mean? We're

gonna find out with Cass Holman, who's a toy designer, cool, and author of the new book, Playful.

Today on Getting Better. Cass, welcome to Getting Better. Hi, I'm so glad to be here. We are so excited that you're here. I feel like I can officially say you're our first ever toy designer on the pot. What? I don't think we've ever had, like, I know that we've had toy enthusiasts, we've had gamers, we've had people who partake in toys. But like, that like, but that sounded like dirtier than I met

forward to. But like, yeah, but I think you're our first toy designer. That is so cool. Yeah,

I'm pretty lucky. My day job rules. Yeah. When did you realize when you were like that you

wanted to be a toy designer? Uh, I was maybe 30 years old. And I had kind of accidentally

designed a toy. And I was in grad school

and kind of thought like well this is really playful and people really like doing this and I loved

designing for something that people would like imagine with and play with and learn each other with

and then I kind of said oh hey wait a minute this is a thing I could keep doing and looked into it and kind of realized that there was a need for kind of good,

open-ended toys that were not about plastic and recycling stories that we already knew.

So I was like, cool, let's try this.

Wait, so what was the toy?

It's called GMO.

And I actually have one for you. Oh, my God. And yeah, it's let's try this. Wait, so what was the toy? It's called GMO. And I actually have one for you.

Oh my God. And yeah, it's an open-ended kind of, it looks like... For our getting better watchers, this is going to be a visual treat because you're going to get to see it. For our listeners, I need you to, like, put on your, like, NPR, like, imagination goggles. So I'm holding a box and it says GMO on the outside.

It's G-E-E-E-M-O.

And like imagination goggles. So I'm holding a box and it says GMO on the outside. It's G-E-E-E-M-O. And you open it. Oh my god, this is like almost like a luxury dust bag. Can I just say? This is literally like an

ermaz like dustbag, but for like a gorgeous toy. This is amazing. Okay. And I love this drawstring. Come on luxury.

And then G-mo you... Oh my gosh.

Okay, it's giving me...

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