07 September 2011

I Remember When He Was Just Starting Out...Do you?

My brother Pat and I stood at the edge of the observation deck, overlooking 164 stories of thin air between us and the ground.  It was the crowning achievement of his work, as far as I could tell - this 165 story megalith of steel and concrete.  "It's a mulitpurpose structure," he used to say during its design phase, quoting one of our favorite artists, "it's a box."  A box it was, to be sure, but this box was unique in that it was alive - the first multi-celled architectural organism ever created, and my brother was its creator.

"I derived a lot of the ideas for it from one of my first projects back in the Midwest," he told me as I marveled at its size and design.  "We built it from the sky down - a new method of construction.  When the exoskeleton was in place, we filled the interior sinuses with a protoplasmic liquid based largely on pecan nougat, chocolate and caramel.  We then super-charged the nougat with DNA from a very intelligent Sciurus carolinensis, hit the incubator switch and off we rolled.  And now here we are."

"Indeed, Pat, here we are.  I have to admit, I never thought you would get to this point, and I am damned, damned impressed."

"Thank you, Tom," he replied, lifting his glass of scotch in a toast, "here's to brotherly love."

"And here's to my brother the architect who went from being an assistant on the 'Zigby's Magical Possum Kingdom'  to the brains behind the World Headquarters of 'Chubby Squirrel's Nutt Hutt.'  You the man."

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