Drinkable Languages Offered At LA Time-Travel Mart

An anonymous reader writes "Via the sci-fi blog io9 comes a fantastic project that not only has a great premise but backs a great cause. The San Francisco writing center called 826 Valencia works to teach kids passion for the written word. The program really works, and has expanded to other cities across the country in an effort to get more young people writing. To fund these outreach programs, the organization has opened some ... unique businesses in their new locales. The LA chapter, for example, features a Time Travel mart. The imaginative place features dozens of products like Robot Milk, Viking Oderant, and Olde Fashioned English Gunpowder. Other centers around the country offer similar themed experiences, like the NYC Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. or Seattle's Greenwood Space Travel Supply Corporation."

Wow, that's neat.

[Khaed]

I would have loved a place like that as a kid. The anti-robot fluid made me laugh.

Whoever made all those -- those people are creative geniuses and deserve applause.

Fun if you're in the mood

[Anonymous Coward]

My ex-gf did the design work for a lot of the packaging at the Greenwood place and it's fun stuff if you're in a good mood. If not, you could be a grumpus about the fact that most of the time it really is just packaging that you're getting - empty jars with custom space-themed labels, for instance. By coincidence, now I live down the street from 826 Valencia and it's similar - although the surprise and discovery aspect is more pronounced because items are hidden away in the many built-in drawers and cabinets.

Anyway, I'm not sure if the designers are credited - I believe all the work was volunteer - but I wanted to emphasize that at least some of this work is done by talented professionals.

yeah, really

[Karma Sucks]

With all due respect to the moderators and not withstanding above AC's lack of tact -- that article really is fucking drivel.

Java programming for kids

[wizardforce]

Drinkable Languages Offered At LA Time-Travel Mart

did anyone else see that part and immediately think Java?
anyway, this is actually a pretty good idea- the current educational system tends to destroy any interest in writing/math/the sciences so perhaps this will spark some interest where there was none before.

Re:Drinkable languages?

[n3tcat]

This is actually not too far off from my experience. I went to the military language school in California, and all the people in the various languages would struggle the whole 6 months to a year or whatever the requirement for that language was. Put a few drinks in them though and they would lose all that fear, and their minds would "clear" up allowing the language barrier to fall. Towards the end of the course, people would be able to speak fluently and without hesitation sometimes!

Re:Am I the only one...

[Seumas]

Hell if I know. All I know is that it's a lot of wasted effort to "get kids to read".

You know how you get kids to read? You start reading to them when they're very young. Then they'll want to start reading on their own. And if your home is full of books and the adults in it are always reading, the kids will naturally tend to have a passion for it as well.

Otherwise... I don't know... send them to a vocational school so they can clean pools or something.

Re:Am I the only one...

[Glyphstream]

The individual sentences are coherent enough. It's just when you put them all together that the English language goes to hell. Part A: They started a program to get kids to read. Part B: People opened weird stores selling Robot Turds and Ye Olde Fashioned Internal Combustion Engines. What Part A has to do with Part B, I don't know. I get the feeling RTFAing won't make the answer much clearer either.