WHAT IT IS, IS BEAUTIFUL

If you're a fan of Lego it's been impossible in recent days to avoid the charges of sexism that have been levelled at the company since, well, pretty much since the first days that the Friends line hit the shelves. Arguments against the aggressively-girly line have largely centred around the genderisation of creative play: why does a toy that relies on a child's imagination to repurpose homogeneous elements need to undergo a gender split? There's merit to the argument: after all, there was a time when Lego itself marketed just such a question to parents to get them to consider buying the toy for their daughters--

Both my children have a Lego collection, and they've both been given open slather when it comes to collecting sets: we don't direct them, and the only limit we impose is one of price-- no matter who the sets are aimed at, they're fucking expensive. Even so, Master 9's collection is dominated by Star Wars, dinosaurs and a black/grey/dark blue palette, while Miss 12's Friends-heavy collection is a rainbow of pastel shades.

Which got me wondering, because as an AFOL, I love the Friends colour scheme and stock up on individual pieces whenever I visit Bricklink, but I've never bought myself a set, largely because I don't like the minifigs. So I decide to run a little experiment, to see whether something in the marketing was affecting my children's choices, or if it was, indeed, the range of parts and colours that was the deterrent. I asked the kids 3 questions, and these were their responses:

1. Your collection is very strongly dominated by (Miss 12: Friends, Master 9: Star Wars/ Dinosaurs) sets. Is there a reason why that is the case?

Miss 12: I like the story line in Friends, and the colours.

Master 9: I like the adventurousness of the stories.

2. Is there something in the colours and shapes of the parts that you prefer to other sets?

Miss 12: Yes. I like the Friends colours.

Master 9: No. I like the Friends colours, too. I like the Star Wars minifigs.

3. If I gave you $50 and sent you to the shops to buy a set, and you already had everything in your favourite range that was on the shelves, would you prefer to buy a set in the (Miss 12: Star Wars, Master 9: Friends) range, or would you prefer to buy a duplicate of a (Friends/Star Wars) set you already own? 

Miss 12: I'd buy a duplicate.

Master 9: I'd buy a Friends set.

So, conclusions drawn from this exhaustive survey: Miss 12 responds to the Friends sets aesthetically, and chooses them over other sets based on an enjoyment of the palette and the non-aggressive narrative possibilities; Master 9 likes the combat/adventure narratives implied by the "boy" sets (not surprising, given his love of the Star Wars universe), but likes the Friends colour palette enough that he would buy a set and incorporate it into his building. 

All very well and good, and easy to say. But would it hold true if, say, I instructed them to take 150 random elements from their collections and swap them? Could they happily build outside of their own preferred colour and set choices? Without telling them why, I did just that. The kids randomly picked 150 pieces from their collections, and then built with each other's selection. These are the results:

Miss 12 created three works: two different spaceships and a tuning fork.

The space scooper has a scoop at the back to collect debris. The scoop rotates through a 360 degree angle to make pick up and delivery easier.

The Junker is made from pieces of space junk discovered by the Space Scooper.

The tuning fork. A great use of leftover parts.

Master 9 took a different approach, and created a series of smaller works:

Girl colours for a boy concept? A ballista, at any rate.

A beach scene, incorporating a shark net, diving board, and lifeguard tower.

The entrance to a cafe.

A catwalk.

An armchair.

A couch.

An abandoned tree at the end of a garden path.

And to finish, the classic tablescrapper's use for that

pile of random pieces you can't do anything with: some ruins!

So, in a complete lack of surprise, two different genders of children quite happily extended their creative building techniques when confronted with a random assortment of bricks, although I did note with interest that the general theme of their builds did conform to the kind of bricks they thought they were using: girly-girl Miss 12 completing a space-themed build, and rocket-powered-boy-attack Master 9 focusing on situational and domestic concepts. 

What this shows, at least to me, is that the promotion of Lego does have an effect on how the demographic-- that is, the kids who receive the sets-- perceive the purpose of the bricks themselves, despite the fact that, as stand-alone items, the bricks are met with approval and enjoyment by both children. Miss 12, in particular, perceives a definite difference between 'boys' and 'girls' Lego, at an age when advertising and gender-based marketing are concepts she pays attention to. Just as clearly, their ability to create and enjoy the act of creation with any random group of elements that is placed before them, shows that gender-splitting Lego is not only limiting the potential market penetration for Lego themes, it's downright unnecessary. 

And as Lego themselves once understood, it always has been.

Oh, and for the record, I don't ask my troops to do anything I wouldn't do myself. Here's what I came up with, using the 150 Friends pieces I asked Miss 12 to give me:

The lost ruins of the Temple of Ice-Cream, the Pastel Battlestar, and, you know, some ruins...

THUMBNAIL THURSDAY WILL EX-CA-VATE! EX-CA-VATE! EX-CA-VAAAAATE!

Sometimes, an idea simply falls into your lap: I'm an archaeology nut, and when the following image started appearing around the news and geeky mailing lists I was on, well, one and one met at a party, had sex in the taxi on the way home, and somehow nevee found themselves spending any time apart anymore....

 

 

There's a nice explanation of the image here, at Sci Fi Scoop, if you're interested, but for me, and my little archaeology brain, this is what came out:

"We've yet to establish the reason for this long, quite flimsy, horn

but we assume it was important for display during mating season."

 

 

 

Sometimes, this stuff just writes itself.

 

 

 

 

 

A QUICK NOTE ABOUT WEBSITES

If you've ended up here because you were trying to get to my website and discovered the big Ain't Nobody Here or Nuttin' sign strung across the entrance, an apology: unfortunately, my hosting arrangement has come to an end, and I'm currently too skint to renew it.

Normal service will be resumed once I have some cash to spend on it.

BUSY LEE IS BUSILY

Okay, let's catch up:

It's been a mad period for both appearances and writing recently. Having parted company with my previous agent over concerns regards a lack of communication, I've spent the last couple of week editing Father Muerte & the Divine in order to send it to an agent who caught me on the hop by requesting to see the full manuscript earlier than expected: a good sign, I hope, but let's never line-edit and input 200+ pages of a manuscript in such short order again....

Working so hard on that project threw my timing out for September, which meant that I've spent this weekend blasting my way through The Daughters of John Anglicus, a 5000 word short story I need to deliver by the end of the month. I've always enjoyed writing short stories in compressed time frame: there's something about an impending deadline that's good for stoking the crucible of creation, but it's no damn good for family time: I own Luscious and the kids some serious attention over the coming weekends to repay their indulgence. This week will be taken up with editing and getting it to the market, and then I'll finally have a chance to draw breath and look at what to do next: with Nanowrimo looming in November I may consider revisiting the 15 000 words I've completed on Cirque and pushing that towards the 50K I think it'll take to visit that YA project.

I've also been oot and aboot doing the talking-head-type thing: in August I revisited my old stomping grounds at Curtin University to deliver my annual guest lecture, and Book Week saw me taking to the stage at Churchlands Senior High School to talk about my work, idea generation and the art of entering short story competitions. And when I say 'take to the stage' I wasn't kidding: have a gander at the theatre the school boasts.

No pressure, right? It was a great day, to be honest: I spoke to three groups of incredibly engaged, fun kids, and discovered that one group had been using Luscious' story The Hanging Tree as part of their studies, so I was able to tickle her sense of history when I got home. 

And I've not been the only one: Master 9 has been King of the Kids in the last fortnight, hanging out with famous author types and generally being windswept and interesting. Back on the 9th he was an invited guest at a public talk by his literary hero, Andy Griffiths, after cool frood and AHWA buddy Mark Smith-Briggs organised a personal invitation in the wake of a bad bout of Rumination Syndrome. Master 9 had been one place in line from hearing Griffiths speak at last year's Perth Writers Festival, only for a couple of kids to cut in and leave him at the head of the queue when the door closed. To make it up to him we bought a copy of Griffiths' The 39 Story Treehouse, which he devoured in double quick time, then went out and bought for himself The 13 Story Treehouse and The 26 Story Treehouse, reading all three to the point of destruction. Until that point, he'd enjoyed reading (more on this in a moment) but hadn't been a reader. Those novels changed him. A five minute meeting alone with Griffiths, as well as a signed gift of the new The 52 Story Treehouse just about counts as the gift of the century: it hasn't left his bedside since, and has been read, as of today, no less than 5 times.

How is that grin?

A signed copy. Boy Geek Heaven!

A boy and his hero. A wonderful moment to witness.

Now, Griffiths' ever expanding Treehouse may be the series that gave Master 9 his obsessive love of reading, but the book that taught him how to read was Norman Jorgensen and James Foley's The Last Viking. Indeed, the reason he was at last year's Writers Festival at all was to meet James as he launched his book In the Lion. So imagine his insane delight when the day after meeting Griffiths, we took him to the State Library for the launch of Jorgensen and Foley's newest, The Last Viking Returns, and he got to meet Norman in person for the first time, as well as catch up with James again, both of whom treated him like an old friend. Norman and James are just about the nicest guys in the West, and the way they both took time out of their being-famous duties to catch up with him was absolutely heart-warming to see. And was my boy bouncing like a crazy thing? What do you reckon? The paper Viking helmet he coloured and cut out on the night is up on his wall, and the book itself hasn't left his bedside table since he got home: he averages one session every two days of lying back on his bed, thumbing through it at his leisure. 

Viking Boyz!

Master 9 meets the lovely Norman Jorgensen. 

That is the smile of a very content and happy young man.

His three literary heroes, in 24 hours. Not a bad two days' work :)

And then there's Crimescene WA, the crime writing convention Luscious and I will be attending in three weeks' time. I'll be presenting a workshop on writing settings, and assisting Lyn deliver a presentation on strong women in crime fiction, which has required watching a metric fuckload of Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Girl With Dragon Tattoos in Fiery Ants Nest, and, in the coming weeks, Number One Ladies Detective Agency episodes, as well as trying to plough through the accompanying novels as best we can. Enjoyable, time-consuming, work, but frankly, it beats what I do during the working week. 

So that's where I've been: racing around, desperately trying to keep myself immersed in the writing world that means an increasing amount to me as my work life becomes less and less satisfying, and Real Life (tm) presents an unending series of complications. There's been a family funeral in there, and money worries, and yet more issue with maintaining my crumbling house, but the truth is, it's the writing life that keeps my psyche above water these days (apart from my relationship with Luscious, who is the only person I can turn to at any moment, sure in the knowledge of pure and instant understanding). Keeping in touch with the writing world is a constant struggle, but it's the one I want to make.

Who'd have a peaceful life?

OFF WITH THUMBNAIL THURSDAY'S HEAD

Sometimes a joke is just a joke. Which is my way of saying I thought this was a funny idea and I've got no greater insight than that.

"What a snob!"