Plastic bread and circuses

I really, really love Playmobil people. I have a Playmobil pirate and a Playmobil mummy that "unwraps" to reveal a Playmobil pharaoh.

Playmobil figures and sets are the bright paradoxes of the toy world. They manage to be detailed in their simplicity. Practically every character has blank, staring eyes, a fingernail crescent of a smile, and C-shaped hands--and women tend to sport uniform under-eye lashes--but the variety of "costumes" and snap-on accessories is fairly staggering. The themes range from the typical farm, zoo, and rescue team cliches to scaled-down sports arenas, sea ports, and a "leisure" category that boasts little plastic people sunbathing on a yacht (the Blue Marlin), racing around on jet skis and ATVs, and picnicking outside of a family camper. Anyone who's checked Commonplace in December might remember that we own a Playmobil nativity set, something that, I believe, Lego has yet to produce.

Tom's Toys, a shop in downtown San Luis Obispo, usually has a Playmobil set of some sort or another featured in its window. For the last month or two, the set-up has been sitting under a banner that says something along the lines of "The Triumphant Procession of the Romans."