The Literalist and the Absurdist Use Legos
“I don’t know how to build a Toyota Tundra. Can you help me?”
“I’ll help you when I’m done building my silly car,” I said. I had cannibalized a bunch of odds-and-sods from our son’s Legos and was constructing ridiculous cars with them: the Pizza-Oven-mobile, with umbrella shooting flame out the top; the snowmobile powered by ferns and a giant rocket propulsion system. It came so naturally creating these gems of absurdity it was like riding a duck.
“What’s a silly car?” he asked.
“You know, a silly car.”
“Silly car?” he queried.
“Yeah, you know. Silly car.”
“A car made by Silly?”
I chuckled. “No, a silly car. You know, a car that is silly.”
“Is Silly the brand?”
“No,” I insisted. “Just silly.”
“Is it the make or the model?” Seriously, who is this kid?
“A car that is silly. It’s silly, ridiculous. It is a car that is just…silly. You want to make one?”
He pondered it for a while. Then he made a car with a cat box, a mobile lunch counter, with a retracting dump truck roof, powered by the sky. I think he’s embraced the brand identity of the Silly Car.
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Hi Q. It just occurred to me that there could be a slight distinction, but only a slight one, between a “silly” car, and a “funny” car, a category of competition racer seen often at drag rallies and such–stock cars so drastically modified they have lost most resemblance to their originals, and even to cars as we know them. What might Milo wreak should he become, somehow, besotted with Nascar? Love, Pop
Thankfully, Nascar freaks him out for now because of the ever-present risk of flaming fiery collisions. Otherwise we’d have to figure out how to get him into pee-wee racing.
Or more alarming, early engineering programs.