Wittle Ibby Bibby Diowamas!

There’s something creepy and infantilizing about full-grown adults reverting to elementary school activities:

THEIR glue guns were cocked, their scissors sharpened, their beer glasses full. Nellie Kurtzman announced that the evening’s theme would be “horsepower.” In a blustery tempest of shoeboxes, pipe cleaners and multicolored felt, they were off.

So began the third installment of Diorama Lodge, an occasional event held in the dingy back room of Freddy’s Bar in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Two dozen men and women in their 20’s and 30’s had come armed with empty cardboard boxes, ready to use them to create miniature scenes that would be their entries in the competition for the title of best diorama.

“Some crafty things are really popular now, like knitting,” explained Ms. Kurtzman, a marketer of children’s books who lives in Park Slope and who started the event in February. “But we didn’t want to join a knitting club. We wanted to make dioramas. When do you ever get a chance to make dioramas after elementary school?”

Thinking that others would be interested in reviving their childhood diorama-making skills, Ms. Kurtzman spread the word through Craigslist and local e-mail lists. She proposed the idea to the owner of Freddy’s, a favorite neighborhood dive bar known for holding quirky activities its back room. Diorama Lodge was quickly added to the bar’s schedule of events.

A keen observer might speculate that the presence of such behavior is accompanied by other disturbing societal trends — receiving financial support from one’s parents in apparent perpetuity, for example.