A week with Rootoukies
This warm weather we've been having on the mid atlantic coast is taking me out of the season. I come from the new england area. I like my Christmases cold. I haven't written a post in 10 days. I could say I've been reading not writing, but that's not best description. I've been writing like I've been reading and vica verca. Vaugley and unfocused, with an eye on the prerogatives of vacation, accomplishing nothing. I've been visiting the niece and nephews. My days are spent surrounded by Rootouki pellets, by which I mean Bionicle detritus. Entropy cuts a wide swath through the entire Lego world.
Bionicles or Biological Chronicle (
BIONICLE The Official Web Site) concern the Mata Nui's: Your Toa's, Visoraks, Rahi beasts, Roodaka, Keetongo. Rhotuka Spinners, kanoka discs, and a whole lot more. Bionicles, an outgrowth of the Technics line, are Legos with a back story. Trying to wrap my memory and tongue around these phrases my nephews were tossing over at my ears. I began to refer to them all as Rapanuies. "Isn't that Easter island?" my sister said. So I switched to Rootoukies. Easter Island; though, is exactly where all these critters come from. All this back story is cribbed from Maori and Polynesian (Easter island) mythology:
Bionicle - Wikipedia. So much so that the CEO of Lego once made a trip out to Auckland with a big wad of cash, which he had to hand over to a group of Maori who were disturbed that Lego was trying to brand and trademark significant words in the Maori language. Wikipedia has links to two BBC stories from 2001 outline how Lego re-leased Tohuga back to the Maori people
BBC News | ASIA-PACIFIC | Lego game irks Maoris and
BBC News | ASIA-PACIFIC | Lego agrees to stop using Maori names. Before learning this I had been trying to imagine how the Lego people came up with all this. I had conjectured that that they had some poor wretch with a comparative literature degree chained to a desk in a windowless room somewhere in Denmark with only used paperbacks of Hesiod, Frazer and some Pink Fairies albums (or Hawkwind) as company.
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