"If I had my way, I would live in shades of grey..." No need to wiki it, I said that. I'm just putting it in quotes so that it may seem more significant than it is so that I can feel more important than I am. Often though, as a designer, I have wondered what I wouldn't give to be able to play exclusively with shades of grey...

Well, slap me around and call me Susan. Portland, Maine's NuPenny Toy Store has done it! A whole place devoted to life monochromatic yet hued, filled with black and white toys. A place, to paraphrase one Monty Brewster, where I could die.

Unfortunately conceived as an inaccessible traveling art installation, NuPenny is nonetheless a monument to the need to express the many dimensions of existence, especially that of desire and longing. How better to do it than to tap into our collective love of toys? With every toy out of reach and bearing text rendered in teletype punch-tape code, Randy Regier, the artist, begs us to find within our own folds what excites us, what moves us, what makes us, us. Sir, for that you are Character Approved.

[Image: NuPenny Toy Store]