ABSTRACT

The space-themed LEGO sets I grew up playing with are a little paradoxical. The galaxy beyond our atmosphere lacks any limits, yet this particular plastic toy, with its geometrically perfect rows of bumps, is all about boundaries. The possible configurations of LEGO blocks is nearly infinite—as evidenced by my children cheerfully mixing and matching my thirty-year-old set of pirates, knights, and astronauts whenever we visit my parents—but the blocks themselves are rigid and perfect. They can only click together in very specific formations. My gray space cruiser, in other words, is a set of unchangeable parts that suggest a universe free of restrictions.