The Brothers Brick

I’m conflicted and confused about the recent controversy (and violence) over a cartoon of Mohammed published last September in a Danish newspaper. I spent a summer during college working on an archaeological dig in Jordan, where I became good friends with many Muslims. I’m also a writer and card-carrying proponent of free speech.

But the boycotts are especially baffling. Here’s a quote from a recent article (via ILENN):

From Havarti cheese to Lego toys, Danish products have been yanked off the shelves of stores in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other countries around the Middle East as Muslims await an apology for the cartoons, which the Copenhagen government has said it cannot give.

I realize that this is a complex issue. (Political cartoonist Mikhaela Reid provides a fairly balanced perspective, identifying the racist and xenophobic overtones of the original cartoon.) But punishing unrelated Danish companies like LEGO strikes me as an overreaction.

Should those of us in “the west” take to the streets, burn down the embassies of Muslim countries, and counter-boycott goods from such countries? No, absolutely not! But perhaps we can show our support for the right to free speech of artists and writers everywhere by buying a little extra Havarti and LEGO.

Joe discovers that there are grave consequences for foreigners who fail to remove their shoes upon entering a Japanese home.

(The image is a link to the gallery, when public. “Gaijin” means “foreigner” in Japanese.)

Just when you think LEGO builders have exhausted new minifig-building techniques, Uda-san gives us Cinderella with a glass slipper on her right foot and a bare left foot:

Name: Miyamoto Musashi (宮本武蔵 みやもとむさし)
Dates: ca. 1584-1645
Biography: Musashi was a famous swordsman of the Edo period. He is said to have won sixty duels, the first at age 13. According to legend, he arrived late at his last battle, with another famous swordsman named Sasaki Kojiro. Kojiro was so angry that he threw away his sword’s sheath. Musashi then said, “You have lost, Kojiro. Those who need no sheath are those who will die!” Musashi was also an author and a painter.
Further reading: The Book of Five Rings, Musashi, The Lone Samurai.

Name: Timmy Kennedy Classified.
Occupation: Special Agent.
Interests: Fragging exobiotic lifeforms, escorting non-Terran diplomats, monitoring the activities of super-intelligent molds and fungi, protecting the earth from Gthulinian invasion, providing security for Moonbase 4. Classified.

Name: Minamoto no Yorimitsu (源頼光 みなもとのよりみつ)
Dates: 944-1021
Biography: Yorimitsu was a legendary warrior from the Heian period of Japanese history. Although famous for many real-life exploits, he appears in several legends, including one in which he defeats the ogre (oni) Shuten Doji, disguised as an ascetic Buddhist monk, or yamabushi.
Further reading: Wikipedia (English), Wikipedia (日本語).

Working for a demolition company, Joe Vig takes his lunch break in the wrong place at the wrong time. Look out, Joe!

As if taming a lizard weren’t enough, Sugegasa goes a step further and tames a Dino Attack raptor:

Can’t wait to see a tamed T-Rex!

Chuck brings in the heavies with this Iron Reich soldier with a heavy-duty gun.

Name: Timmy Kennedy
Occcupation: Third-grader.
Interests: Candy and cowboys and ninjas and Legos and Star Wars and pizza pockets and Bionicle and Coca-Cola and Grand Theft Auto and peanut butter and Yu-Gi-Oh and…

Once you let it slip that you build stuff with “Legos,” the floodgates open for “Oh, oh, can you make a minifig of me?” So I finally broke down and did so. The resulting minifigs were all pretty boring, so I made alternate versions that give each person a little more personality.

First up, Joe, who’s always annoyed about something, and likes Audis:

Next, Melissa, who’s a contractor and is therefore my henchman (as opposed to a minion; thus the Oddjob outfit):

Pete, whose Greek heritage is a point of pride (of course, Pete’s family comes from a mountain village, not an island — something much harder to represent in a LEGO minifig):

Paul has a podcast (RSS), in which he plays really cool music and interacts with a mechanical entity named Weasel_bot:

(Paul gets a full-size picture only because both of his figs appear in the same pic; everybody else is like Superman and Clark Kent — they can’t both be in the same picture at the same time.)

Finally, just when you thought you couldn’t look at any more minifigs of my coworkers, BAM!!! NINJAS! Here’s Sky as himself, and as a totally awesome ninja:

This is just too funny to pass up. A couple weeks before Girl’s Day (Hina-Matsuri) on March 3, families with young girls display a multi-tiered stand of dolls (picture). You can see a minifig-scale version in Nelson Yrizarry’s recent vignette in this picture.

Izzo has turned this idea on its head with his Star Wars Hinamatsuri:

Note the brick-built Jabba the Hutt between Boba Fett and the Gamorrean Guard, as well as the mini-scale AT-AT and AT-STs. Sweet.

To welcome the figure-skating fans referred here to see my Michelle Kwan vignette, here’s Johnny Weir:

Johnny is wearing his unique swan outfit, and he apparently named the red glove on his right hand “Camille” (presumably after Camille Saint-Saens, who composed “The Swan”).

Too bad Johnny didn’t even medal…

MisterZumbi brings us a couple more interesting characters.

The Predator:

And the invisible man (visible on the left, invisible on the right):

These aren’t brand new, but Mike Psiaki recently updated his P-38 Lightning, so that gives me an excuse to post these — two of my favorite World War II fighter planes in LEGO form.

The Lockheed P-38 Lighting:

The Vought F4U Corsair:

(Click each image for the full gallery.)

And just for fun, check out Brenden Wilson’s Corsair Light Fighter — a space-worthy version of the F4U.