LEGO blogging

I started a topic on LEGO blogging over on Classic-Castle. I'd like to invite anyone, particularly if you have your own blog, to add your thoughts. If you're not a member of Classic-Castle, it's really easy to sign up, just fill in a few blanks and within a day a friendly site admin :) will approve you.

Shinto Shrine

Around 100,000 Shinto shrines can be found throughout Japan. These structures are built to house kami, or spirits. In some cases these are more personalized deities and in others they are more less defined, like the spirit of the forest, etc. One of the most obvious marks of a shrine is the Torii gate, that marks the entrance into a sacred area.



Andrew Becraft (of the Brothers-Brick) built this tiny shrine as part of a display he will be bringing to the upcoming BrickCon gathering of LEGO builders in Seattle. The theme of this convention is 'Big in Japan', and Andrew wanted to include a series of recognizable sites from around Tokyo.

Let freedom ring

Proclaim liberty throughout all the Land unto all the inhabitants thereof. Leviticus 25:10

That's the inscription on the Liberty Bell, rung in Philadelphia for many public pronouncements, including (at least in tradition - there is some historic question on this) on July 8, 1776, to summon the citizens to a public reading of the Declaration of Independence. This LEGO sculpture sits in the Philadelphia airport.

Happy Fourth of July

The US Constitution, the practical outline of our governmental institutions, is completely secular by design. However, the Declaration of Independence, the philosophical basis for the nation's founding, sets that foundation on the support of an undefined creator God.
...the laws of nature and of nature's God...
...they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...
...with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence...
Since the Declaration was signed on this date 234 years ago, the interplay between the secular and religious has been a key theme in public and legal life. Arthur Gugick built this great Independence Hall.

When in Rome

Peggyjdb presents a great rendition of the Pantheon in Rome (this is actually a work-in-progress, as she intends to come back to the project and add the full dome). Built around 126 AD (after two earlier incarnations were each destroyed), this massive temple was devoted to all of the Gods of ancient Rome - i.e. Jupiter and company. The building was recommissioned as a Catholic church in 609 AD, which prevented it from falling into disrepair, though the interior has gone through many changes over the centuries. The structure also houses the tomb of Raphael and other prominent figures.

In the beginning . . .

Well, actually just back in 2001, Brendan Powell Smith started his Brick Testament project off with The Garden of Eden and five other illustrated stories from Genesis. He's gone back and redone this, breaking it into two parts: Creation and the Garden of Eden. Part of me asks why do this? Yes, there are many new elements that he uses here that were unavailable nine years ago, and Brendan's building has certainly improved over time, but those original scenes in Eden are so iconic to the Brick Testament that it seems they shouldn't have been touched (e.g. the scene with the Kaadu and Jar-Jar among the created animals). You can compare the old and the new on this page. And the original will always be with us in book form, so let's go on and look at these new iterations with fresh eyes.

Creation - Some nice bits in the start with the differences between dark and light and God lifting up the sky. Having God float over the creation scenes is a nice decision, presumably achieved via Photoshop layering. Genesis 1:10, the creation of land, is a great example of this. I'm really curious as to what piece is used for the sun here, some lid? And the moon and stars are great (and nice to bracket the story, as he uses a very similar technique in Revelations). Genesis 1:21 with the fish and birds is well done and along with Genesis 1:24-25, the creation of animals, shows how many more LEGO animals are available than when the Brick Testament began. Hey, there's the Kaadu! Now I'm happy again. Great new sheep design in 1:25. About the only non-LEGO aspect worth noting is 1:27, where God makes people, and Brendan chooses not to just make Adam and Eve, but a whole bunch of people. He comments on Flickr that he treated the Genesis 1 and 2 creation accounts separately, without trying to harmonize them. I do think it might have been better here to include racial diversity, with various flesh tone figs included, but perhaps there weren't blank torsos/hips/legs available in these other colors. The final scene, with God kicking back in a hammock on the seventh day, is priceless.



The Garden of Eden - This is generally well done and in keeping with the original version. I really like God building Adam up out of brown dirt, and then bringing him to life as a yellow fig. I'm really not a fan of the design of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I've tried using that stump element as the base for a tree before and come up short, and I'm afraid to say that Brendan's solution doesn't work for me here either. The Tree of Life, OTOH, has a very nice design. In 2:24, it's a little creepy to have God standing there while Adam and Eve get to know each other. In 3:7, I really like the way he's switched heads for Adam and Eve to the open-mouthed expressions, and then keeps these up for the next several scenes. Nice use of the brand new caveman torso for the newly clothed figs, and that last scene is great - especially the scraggly brown out-of-focus trees in the background.



By the way, Brendan also recreated Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, though it doesn't get used in either of these stories.

Lilla Malma

Minkowsky recreates the Church of Lilla Malma, found in Malmköping, Sweden.

Notre Dame

Marin Stipkovic presents Notre Dame de Paris.

Pisa

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, here depicted by Markmuel, is actually the bell tower, or campanile, of the Pisa Cathedral. The fact that the tower began to tilt soon after its construction really sealed its public image. It's in some ways too bad that the Tower gets so much attention to the extent that the Cathedral and the Baptistry, all built in the same plaza, get very little notice. I was actually there in 1991, a year after the Tower was closed to the public for a decade of restoration work, and all three structures are amazingly beautiful.

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat is surely the most recognizable site in Cambodia. It was first built as a Hindu temple over 800 years ago, and was later rededicated as a Buddhist temple. Here Arthur Gugick gives us a LEGO rendition.

Madonna and child

On Flickr, Moosebot has developed what he calls midi-figs, LEGO characters at about half the size of a minifig. This month he's been presenting a new one each day, with a range of characters from knights in armor, to Star Wars characters, to comic book superheroes, to Neil Armstrong. Today he presents Mary and Jesus. BTW, if you follow that link, there's a discussion there about Catholic views on Mary and the saints.

LEGO: A Love Story

Hi. I'm posting a copy of this book review to each of my four blogs. However, if you read more than one of my blogs, I'm including a unique paragraph to the end on each blog noting specifics of the book relevant to the topic of that blog.

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Review: A couple of years ago, I remember hearing on one of the LEGO forums about Jonathan Bender, a journalist who was planning on spending a year exploring the AFOL community as part of a writing project. He started a blog, Brick Bender, to document his journey. I read a few entries, but there are so many different blogs and websites out there that I kind of forgot about it. Recently, though, this exploration came to fruition in a new book, LEGO: A Love Story.

The result is a highly enjoyable book. Jonathan follows the journey that many of us took. He remembers playing with LEGO as a kid, but then goes into a long dark age. Little things remind him of his hobby, and eventually he digs his old bricks out of his parents' basement. He nervously buys new LEGO for himself, afraid that others might learn of his purchase. Then he starts building MOCs. He connects with the community, and is initially nervous that his MOCs won't measure up to the amazing models he sees.
Along the way, Jonathan met up with a great number of people from the AFOL community. One of the first things I noticed when flipping through the book was that it has a great index, and, yes, I looked myself up. To my utter surprise, delight, and honor, there I was. On page 106 he quotes something I posted on Lugnet several years ago about vignettes. But I'm a minor player, of course. He talks to a great number of the major players in the AFOL world, from bloggers to fest organizers, to current and former LEGO employees. He also researches the LEGO company and the growth of the fan community, with a lot of the major events along the way. He travels to several fan events like Brick World, Brick Bash, Brick Show, and BrickCon (hmm, see a pattern in fan fest names?) and gets behind the scenes tours at the Toy and Plastic Brick Museum, Legoland California, and the homeland itself, LEGO headquarters in Billund. And he invites us all along for the ride.
There are several audiences for this book. If you are just interested in the hobby as an outsider, particularly if you are, say, the spouse of an AFOL, he gives a great insight into these crazy people and their plastic brick masterpieces. If you are just coming out of your own dark age, you can learn a ton about the hobby and the people in it. If you're someone who's been in the hobby for years, it's like going to a reunion, where you encounter old friends and share great memories.
Are there shortcomings in this book? Yes, of course. No book can hope to be a comprehensive view of such a large and diverse community. I saw a couple of small errors, and places where I remember events a little differently than he reports. It felt in places like he gave a larger weight to some individuals because he got to know them personally, while other very important members of the community were missed, especially those outside the US. I do wish that he'd spent more time on the evolution of the on-line side of the Legoverse. He has a good picture of the growth from Usenet newsgroups to Lugnet. But as he reports, Lugnet is pretty dead these days, and he doesn't really go into the way that other, more specific forums grew out of Lugnet, or the variety of blogs (other than the Brothers Brick, which he rightly points out as the most important LEGO blog) and Flickr groups. The other thing I really felt the book needed was more pictures. There are black and white photos at the start of each chapter, and eight pages of glossy color photos in the center, but with such a visual medium you could have put photos on almost every page. As a pretty active AFOL I remember a lot of the different MOCs he mentions, but someone less involved in the hobby would benefit from photos of these. I want to reread the book with Jonathan's blog open in front of me, so that I can go back and forth and see his photos along with the events he describes.
The book is intensely personal. In addition to inviting us in to his own feelings as he becomes an AFOL - the fun of discovery, the nervousness about others learning about his hobby, the fear that his efforts would not be accepted by other AFOLs - he invites us deeper. We get to see him building LEGO with his dad as a child, and then again reconnecting through LEGO as an adult. Even more personally, we get his and his wife's fears that they may never have children of their own. I'm not afraid to admit that my eyes were tearing up at the emotional climax in the last few pages. This is ultimately a book about love. Yes, we all share a love for little plastic bricks, but in the end it is about love between people - the lasting friendships built up between community members, the love of a husband and wife, the love of a parent and child. That's what makes this hobby so special, and that's what this book celebrates.

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GodBricks specific material: Jonathan has a discussion with Brendan Powell Smith about the Brick Testament. He also has a passing reference to these crosses produced by the LEGO company in their early years of molding plastic. He also talks with Brian Korte of Brickworkz, who has been featured here before.

Cathedral

This cathedral was on display at a recent TwinLUG event. Can anyone provide the builder?

And on the sixth day ...

Brucey-wan shows us creation out of the clay of the ground. In case you don't know, those little pellets are the raw plastic that is molded into LEGO pieces like that minifig.

Temple

Pbpancho gives us his rendition of a Buddhist temple.

Jesus loves LEGO

Son of Robins visited the Chicago LEGO store and left this message.

From the new to the old

After just posting Tony Sava's masterpiece, the most recent large cathedral incorporating all kinds of modern building techniques, let's turn to one of the oldest large cathedral MOCs. Diepuppenstubensam has been posting old LEGO advertisements, including this Cologne Cathedral from a 1959 ad in Das Spielzeug, or The Toy, a toy industry magazine. The text says that this construction proves the quality and precision (presumably of LEGO as a building toy). Realize that this is back when only basic bricks, plates and slopes were available.

Cathedral of Saint Francis

Those in the LEGO hobbyist community are probably already aware of Tony Sava's great Cathedral of Saint Francis, but I think (hope) that I also have readers from outside the LEGO community who found my blog due to their interest in religious topics. Anyway, Tony's project has been a real labor of love. He designed this fictional cathedral based on aspects of St. Patrick's in New York City and of Chartres Cathedral. It's been really fun to watch along as Tony posted work-in-progress pictures and discussed the issues he came across while building. Please go through the whole gallery to see the details. I've been (slowly) working on an article on Gothic cathedrals, and Tony has really paid close attention to all the aspects of traditional architecture.

On Authority

I'm way behind in the Brick Testament updates. I think to catch up I'll just do this in much smaller bites, one installment at a time, rather than wait until I have time to do a big chunk. So, on to On Authority. First up, the LEGO. As usual, these are all impeccable builds. In the first couple of scenes, the Nazi flags are all very striking, and I like that the Hitler scene is built into a corner rather than against a flat wall. With the American revolutionary soldiers, I really like how Brendan did the bayonets by, presumably, pinching the knives between the muskets and their hats. I can imagine that would have been very frustrating to set up and shoot. I'm not so thrilled on George Washington's hair. Those round plates look more like Princess Leia to me, or maybe earmuffs.

On the argument, Brendan is implying here that the clear reading of Scripture is that Christians are compelled support all kinds of dictators and never disagree with them. I understand that that is a possible reading, and that the divine right of kings was balanced on this passage. I do think, though, that Brendan is leaving aside a fuller reading of the Bible and millennia of Christian thought. Things aren't so cut and dried. For instance, Peter writes in an epistle that we should obey our rulers (1 Peter 2:13-17), but argued before the Sanhedrin that when the civic law opposes God's law, we should follow God's law (Acts 5:29). I would submit that the Christian view is that God established certain institutions among us - the family and government - to promote our well-being in this life. Of course those can become horribly dysfunctional, but that doesn't mean that the institutions themselves should be discarded. E.g. the fact that there are abusive parents doesn't negate the fact that I have both an authority and a duty under God in teaching my 2 year old that she has to go to bed on time and eat healthy foods etc. To take Brendan's implication the other way, we would say that just because governments can become tyrannical doesn't mean that there is not a proper place for civic authority in creating an ordered society. Where is the balance? I think Peter struck it in the two passages cited above. I think Paul struck it in the very passage Brendan cites. Romans 13:5 says that the civic authority is to punish the wrongdoer, not to kill off people the tyrant doesn't like. I also think that the American founders struck this in the Declaration of Independence (since Brendan's second image is of George Washington rebelling), in saying that we were created by God with certain rights, that government has a proper role under the Creator in protecting those and promoting civic order, but there comes a time when government does not live up to this charge it should be changed. In the context of Nazis, we should look to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's consideration of when it becomes lawful to oppose authorities and his ultimate involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Basically put, my contention here is that Brendan has read a few verses and said 'here is a simplistic literal rendition', the exact thing that I'm guessing that he would criticize in a fundamentalist type of Christian (and where I would agree with him).

Two other thoughts: First, I'm afraid that Brendan has Godwinized himself here. Yes, there are proper places for Nazi analogies, but I don't think this is one of them. Second, while these are great illustrations, they may fall prey to less thoughtful use as they are copied and pasted all over the web. I've certainly seen Brendan's illustrations of slavery spread around in less than mature ways. Or you could see people using these pics to point out how horrible LEGO fans are, like we've seen before with the London Sun article on 'Osama Bin LEGO' and LEGO Nazis. For these reasons, while the Nazi scenes are great as LEGO illustrations and as powerful rhetorical devices, I kind of wish Brendan hadn't gone there.

Alamut

Dita Svelte presents a great rendition of the Citadel of Alamut for the Prince of Persia theme. Alamut was an actual fortress city in Persia between 840 and 1256. I include this here because the thin tower inside the city to the right-hand side of this image looks like a minaret to me, so I assume that structure next to it is a mosque.



I go back and forth on the inclusion of creations in general from this area, as I understand this style to be called 'Islamic architecture'. I was corrected once when referring to it as 'Arabic', since, of course, there are a lot of Islamic areas (including Iran) that are not Arabic. 'Islamic architecture' styles can refer to religious structures such as mosques, and also tombs, which have a relation to religious themes, but also completely non-religious structures such as a fortresses or palaces.