Table of Contents
For Kate and my family
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the AFOL community for welcoming me into the world of bricks as soon as I stepped into the room. I had an excellent building tutor in Joe Menoany holes in my building repertoire are of my own doing. Dave Sterling demystified plastics, a testament to his ability rather than to my grasp of science. To Duane Collicott, Andreas Stabno, and their families: thanks for taking me into your homes and lives. Andrew Becraft was an excellent sounding board and gave invaluable feedback as a reader of an early draft. Dan Brown and his staff at the Brick Museum brought back my sense of wonder and reminded me that there is nobody in the world like the American entrepreneur. And thanks to all the fans who answered my questions without hesitation or irritation despite the fact that many were personal and definitely irritating.
The LEGO Group also made it easy to gain access to sources and places. LEGO Community Relations Coordinator Steve Witt helped facilitate relationships within the AFOL community as well as at the company. It still means a lot to me that he showed me his build room. Out at LEGOLAND California, Master Model Builder Gary McIntire convinced me to ride the third roller-coaster of my life through his enthusiasm for his job. Master Model Designer Bill Vollbrecht taught me about the park and what it takes to be a master builder; my thanks to him for the enjoyable afternoon I spent at a SandLUG meeting in his home. Serious Play consultant Gary Mankellow gave me a thorough walkthrough of the business side of LEGOcheers to Jay Liebenguth for introducing us.
While I was in Billund, Denmark, Jan Christensen was an exceedingly gracious host/tour guide, and the head of LEGO Community Development Tormod Askildsen opened a number of doors. I am still amazed, and grateful, that Jette Orduna trusted me with LEGOs history in the Idea House.
Thanks to my agent, Jonathan Lyons, a consummate professional who continually exceeds my expectations. At John Wiley & Sons Id like to thank Ellen Wright for steering the book through to production and my editor, Stephen Power, for making the editing process a discussion. He made my jokes better and the story strongerall writers should have such an editor. And to Nathan Sawayaan artist with LEGO bricksthank you for opening your studio and using your talents to design an unbelievable cover.
My family is my support network: thank you, Mom, Dad, and Andrew. Dad, anytime you feel like putting together the Sears Tower for a third time, Im there. To all of my family and friends who contributed bricks and encouragement, a heartfelt thank-you. As always, I want to thank my wife, Kate, for her patience and her willingness to build a life alongside me.
Back to School
A LEGO cow carousel sits frozen in motion outside the Toy and Plastic Brick Museum in Bellaire, Ohio.
Night has fallen in the school yard. Inside the chain-link fence at 4597 Noble Street in Bellaire, Ohio, a merry-go-round with cows the size of miniature ponies made of LEGO bricks sits frozen in motion on the concrete. A small tin sign to the right of the double doors at the front of Gravel Hill Middle School says the school grounds are closed after dark.
But the doors are open and the lights in the hallway are on. The trumpet notes of Buena Vista Social Clubs Chan Chan echo softly off the tiled walls as a skinny blond-haired guy wearing a military-style cap stacks pirates, Star Wars characters, and superheroes on a six-foot folding table in front of a row of black and red school lockers. Tom Erickson is focusing on getting the minifigure displayan army of LEGO menjust right to greet several hundred attendees of Brick Show 2008, a LEGO fan convention that will open in about six hours.
Its the first weekend of September, but children havent attended classes at Gravel Hill for half a decade, since the middle school was sold at auction in 2004. The building reopened in August 2007 as the Toy and Plastic Brick Museum. The brainchild of Dan Brown, a self-described adult LEGO enthusiast, it contains a mishmash of LEGO sculptures and rare LEGO sets sprawled over three floors of the massive tan brick building. A computer recycler by trade, Dan has spent the last three years turning the former middle school into an unofficial LEGO museum.
Its three in the morning, and Ive been snapping yellow LEGO bricks into a twenty-foot wall for the better part of six hours. I havent seen a kid in the last four; instead, Ive been building alongside Thomas Mueller, a thirty-two-year-old German transplant living in Los Angeles who is sipping Smirnoff Ice and handing me the bricks. Hes clad in black shorts, a black T-shirt, black socks, and black sneakers. With his round glasses and close-cropped brown hair, he reminds me of the stage managers from my days in musical theater.
While building, my hands develop a rhythm all their own. I roll a brick into my palm using my index finger, which leaves my thumb free to keep grabbing more LEGO bricks from the red bin at my feet. The passage of time is marked by the different parts of my body that begin to ache as I sit cross-legged on the hard linoleum. Both of my legs have fallen asleep up to the calves. A joint or tendon on the side of my right knee has been making an odd popping noise every time I shift my body. But I am inexplicably determined to finish this wall.
It is the fourth and final castle wall that rings a twenty-by-thirty-foot classroom, rising eighteen inches to meet the chalk-rail banister. Dan has erected the first three walls out of yellow LEGO bricks, working into the early morning for several weeks before the convention. He is driven by a compulsion to top last years Guinness World Record for the largest LEGO image in the world. According to Dan, this will be the worlds largest LEGO castle, even though Guinness isnt coming to measure.
He also sees this as a tribute to an elusive LEGO set: the Yellow Castle. In 1978, Set 375, Castle, was released in Europe as the first in LEGOs castle play theme. It came out in the United States three years later as set 375/6075. With a working drawbridge and fourteen knight minifigures, this kit has reached icon status in the adult fan community, with sets going for between $300 and $1,000 on eBay. Lost Yellow Castle sets are like Mickey Mantle baseball cardsgiven away by unknowing mothers cleaning out their childrens closets. An important milestone in the LEGO Groups history, the Yellow Castle also represented a new direction for the company because it was the first in a series of sets that focused on a given theme.
Im feeling my age, says Dan, forty-one, as he puts down the plastic tub. We should qualify for some sort of senior discount on LEGO.
He has the honor of putting the last brick in place, squatting down just as Tom strolls in carrying two blue 1 8 bricks (one stud wide by eight studs long) engraved with the words Toy & Plastic Brick Museum. World Record Castle Build 08. I dont know it yet, but eight hours later I will be supervising close to a hundred kids as they build the interior scenes that will make up the castle courtyard, connecting the walls with large gray baseplates, the flat LEGO squares that form the ground underneath many brick structures.
