cardboard boxes on the right. I’ve already managed that feat, so I move to offer her my open box in a bit of chivalry.
“Oh sorry, there’s no sharing of pieces,” says Esther quickly, seeing me push a pile of parts in front of Linda.
“I wasn’t... uh ... I was just trying to trade boxes,” I say weakly. In the three seconds of that conversation, Linda has opened her set, and I begin to slide pieces back in front of me. I leave behind my white LEGO kitten, until Linda and Esther point out that I have missed it.
I pretend to look as if I know what I’m doing as I sort pieces from the three sets. The Belville set has large pink castle pieces, white cones, sparkling pink gems, daisylike flowers, and fairy wings. Aqua Raiders features a treasure chest, water snakes, and the bricks to make a giant yellow submarine. Skeletons battle knights with a catapult in the Castle set.
A pile of just over two hundred parts sits on the white tablecloth. I move them around like a kid trying to stall as his parents wait for him to finish his vegetables. Only seven minutes have elapsed, but everyone else has started building. I can hear the click of bricks snapping together. Since talking to Abner, I haven’t looked at or talked to the other builders. I’m afraid that I’ll see what they’re building and be unable to come up with something original.
I immediately rule out using the large pink tower pieces sitting in front of me. I (correctly) guess that the others will use them in their structures, and I hope that if I can’t win through technical strength, at least I can be more creative. But so far, I’ve failed to show traces of either imagination or design skills.
A teenage attendee of the convention wanders over in a khaki fisherman’s vest, the lens of his Nikon pointed directly at me.
“What is this?” he asks.
“Belville,” I grunt, pretending to be authoritative in using a word I learned the day before.
“I’m going to check out the Mecha challenge,” he says, before wandering over to the adjacent table, where five more AFOLs are busy assembling robotic figures constructed of LEGO—emblematic of the Mecha style of building. The final product will look like Japanese anime superheroes or something out of The Matrix. I can see why he doesn’t stay very long to watch what I do with my Blossom Fairy set.
My first instinct is to build sea monkeys. As I’m mentally cycling through conversations I’ve had over the past day in an attempt to find some inspiration, I remember a moment with Joe Meno. Early Friday morning, I found him hovering over a collaborative Belville display, where convention participants were encouraged to bring rooms of a hypothetical castle in predominantly pink and purple. Joe had his hands in a small plastic container and was affixing green tentacle-like plants to a baseplate. I watched him work for a minute, until his hands found a scattered collection of alien minifigs waiting to be posed.
“Joe, those are Life on Mars aliens. I have no idea what to do with those,” I told him, excited to recognize a piece from my garage sale set. (Which, of course, is called Mars Mission, rather than the title of the canceled ABC drama.)
“Nobody knows what to do with them,” he replied. When I gave him a questioning look, he explained.
“The proportions are all wrong. They’re longer than regular minifigs and too skinny. Look at these arms,” he said as he affixed a sloped piece to the alien.
“So, Felix Greco and I were talking several years back. We decided that they’re aliens, aliens which live underwater as a race of sea monkeys and that led to building manta rays and attack crabs.” He pulled out his cell phone from the red LEGO brick case it is always inside, showing me a picture of a fierce tan creature with articulated LEGO claws.
He went on to describe the creation myth developed in a series of e-mails with Felix nearly six years ago. The sea monkeys apparently can
“Oh sorry, there’s no sharing of pieces,” says Esther quickly, seeing me push a pile of parts in front of Linda.
“I wasn’t... uh ... I was just trying to trade boxes,” I say weakly. In the three seconds of that conversation, Linda has opened her set, and I begin to slide pieces back in front of me. I leave behind my white LEGO kitten, until Linda and Esther point out that I have missed it.
I pretend to look as if I know what I’m doing as I sort pieces from the three sets. The Belville set has large pink castle pieces, white cones, sparkling pink gems, daisylike flowers, and fairy wings. Aqua Raiders features a treasure chest, water snakes, and the bricks to make a giant yellow submarine. Skeletons battle knights with a catapult in the Castle set.
A pile of just over two hundred parts sits on the white tablecloth. I move them around like a kid trying to stall as his parents wait for him to finish his vegetables. Only seven minutes have elapsed, but everyone else has started building. I can hear the click of bricks snapping together. Since talking to Abner, I haven’t looked at or talked to the other builders. I’m afraid that I’ll see what they’re building and be unable to come up with something original.
I immediately rule out using the large pink tower pieces sitting in front of me. I (correctly) guess that the others will use them in their structures, and I hope that if I can’t win through technical strength, at least I can be more creative. But so far, I’ve failed to show traces of either imagination or design skills.
A teenage attendee of the convention wanders over in a khaki fisherman’s vest, the lens of his Nikon pointed directly at me.
“What is this?” he asks.
“Belville,” I grunt, pretending to be authoritative in using a word I learned the day before.
“I’m going to check out the Mecha challenge,” he says, before wandering over to the adjacent table, where five more AFOLs are busy assembling robotic figures constructed of LEGO—emblematic of the Mecha style of building. The final product will look like Japanese anime superheroes or something out of The Matrix. I can see why he doesn’t stay very long to watch what I do with my Blossom Fairy set.
My first instinct is to build sea monkeys. As I’m mentally cycling through conversations I’ve had over the past day in an attempt to find some inspiration, I remember a moment with Joe Meno. Early Friday morning, I found him hovering over a collaborative Belville display, where convention participants were encouraged to bring rooms of a hypothetical castle in predominantly pink and purple. Joe had his hands in a small plastic container and was affixing green tentacle-like plants to a baseplate. I watched him work for a minute, until his hands found a scattered collection of alien minifigs waiting to be posed.
“Joe, those are Life on Mars aliens. I have no idea what to do with those,” I told him, excited to recognize a piece from my garage sale set. (Which, of course, is called Mars Mission, rather than the title of the canceled ABC drama.)
“Nobody knows what to do with them,” he replied. When I gave him a questioning look, he explained.
“The proportions are all wrong. They’re longer than regular minifigs and too skinny. Look at these arms,” he said as he affixed a sloped piece to the alien.
“So, Felix Greco and I were talking several years back. We decided that they’re aliens, aliens which live underwater as a race of sea monkeys and that led to building manta rays and attack crabs.” He pulled out his cell phone from the red LEGO brick case it is always inside, showing me a picture of a fierce tan creature with articulated LEGO claws.
He went on to describe the creation myth developed in a series of e-mails with Felix nearly six years ago. The sea monkeys apparently can
Similar Books
