He's become our own personal cliché, the phoenix. Anytime anyone (well, anyone with no sense of style) starts yammering about a new reconstruction project or an overlay or a remodel, one braces oneself for a cheesy punch line about a phoenix "rising from the ashes." Insert groans here.
The story of the phoenix, originally a Greek myth, has been told and retold by everyone from Pliny the Elder to Bert Parks. Co-opted by early Christianity, the legend of the phoenix goes something like this:
One day, about a bazillion years ago, the sun looked down and saw a large, colorful bird with iridescent feathers sitting on top of a desert cactus. "Hey," said the sun to itself, "I want some of that!" Not satisfied with just owning a bird made of light and fire, the sun insisted that the poor creature live forever. And ever.
At first, the phoenix was thrilled: Immortality! But after a couple centuries of being dogged by people who wanted to stare at its beauty and maybe take home a tail feather or two as a souvenir, the phoenix took off for the East Coast, where the sun spent a lot less time. But the colder climes didn't agree with the bird and, after only a few hundred years, it began to feel tired and missed all the attention it got from its warm-weather fans. It headed back to the desert, where it called out to the sun, "Hey! Make me young and strong, again! And maybe get my old fan club back together again, while you're at it."
But the sun had gotten all ass-sore about the phoenix snubbing him, and instead of making the bird young again, the sun turned up its ultraviolet rays to full blast and fried the phoenix into a pile of ash. But our friend the phoenix apparently had taken some est seminars while living on the East Coast, because he quickly transformed himself into a new phoenix, rising from his own ashes into a bigger, prettier version of himself.
After giving the sun the finger, the phoenix took off for Heliopolis, the sun's hometown in Egypt, where he lives to this day, returning to our desert every 500 years or so to be reborn. And presumably to make sure we're still making reference to him every time we do a makeover on another strip mall.