Safari Collection

Stephen.Xootfly: yeah, sounds like a good strategy.
Stephen.Xootfly: which I think is also what Custer said as well.

The instinct to collect and share, that's what this week's Safari was all about. Accumulation, classification, and determination. But we're always all about being determined. We are also about not minding if our faces suddenly disappear.

If you classify writers, you end up with a sort of fractal mental image. Not in the Dewey Decimal sense; something more philosophical. Good writers and bad, there's your first division, followed by famous/unknown, ancient and modern, fact and fiction, drunk/sober, read and unread, short-works/long-works, prolific and writers-blocked, reclusive and sociable. It forms a sort of lopsided flowing tree of all the people who, whether they ought to or not, put pen to paper, fingertip to key.

The beauty of the Project Alexandria Library (part of VIBE grid; addresses, as always, at the end of the post) is its off-centeredness, its heights and depths and curved corners forming a perfectly balanced place for writing and for writers. Built by Kalaeon Amulet, [correction, built by Kira Komarov, but cared for and updated by Kalaeon - thanks Stephen] there are carefully cataloged yet essentially incongruent bookshelves up on the floating islands, organized in categories, and clickable if you want real texts. 

The bubble-oracle will take you to your heart's desire.

There's an oracle at ground level. You type in a subject word - try 'love' or 'roses' - and the Oracle will suggest some authors. Click on your chosen author, then on the bubble again, and it will teleport you to the appropriate stack. 

But you don't have to. There's nobody here to ask you how you're getting on, or to inflict their work-in-progress on you. There's no angsty huddling together to keep mediocrity warm, like NaNoWriMo, or those ghastly poetry groups in SL. There's just you, and the sea, the underwater studio, the tower, and the books, and the quiet possibilities of the next page. 

 Our middle destination was Truelie Telling's regular monthly concert, this time on Francogrid, in our club called Phew, on the other side of the mountain from the Clubhouse. At the club, you will find a collection of Safari destination addresses, if you look for it. Many have asked for a LM archive, so what we've done is put together all the places we've visited in our first 35 weeks, minus the ones that are on dead grids, although many of the old OSGrid destinations are now available on new grids, so where possible the new address has been added. 
Why addresses and not landmarks? Because they are more reliable. You copy paste the address into your map, and off you go. Remove the name of the sim if you get problems teleporting, then look for the sim name when you arrive on the welcome area. This can be particularly important on Kitely where most of the sims are switched off most of the time. Hypergridding direct to a switched off sim will get you a 'No such region exists' message.

Wizard Gynoid and Scottius Polke attempting a new 'sit on it' record. Truelie sings on, unfazed.

Thirza Ember: I think wizzy and scott have a very different take on dancing
Scottius Polke: minimalist
Wizard Gynoid: I hope someone is recording this
Fuschia.Nightfire: I am filming it
Serene.Jewell: Really loving the slideshow.
Thirza Ember: stephen - VIBE - what a lovely grid, we all made it there this week
PatriciaAnne.Daviau: It was awesome! till I crashed

Truelie Telling was singing her latest creation, a song about HGSafari and how we occasionally break a sim.
Wizard Gynoid: we break a few sims on safari
Thirza Ember: a few??? 3 out of 4
Scottius Polke: hg safari... War of the Virtual Worlds
Serene.Jewell: Like Star Trek, seeking out new life and new civilizations

A Safari Slideshow illustrates some of our previous trips

Thirza Ember: so how many of you have bought your hundred dollar Bryn Oh calendar?
Stephen.Xootfly: not I. I'm not familiar with it.
Thirza Ember: I'm not familiar with a hundred dollar calendar either LOL
Thirza Ember: we're going to do a safari calendar for 2016
Billy Bradshaw: Thirza, great idea
Fuschia.Nightfire: will it be a naked calendar?
Thirza Ember: it'll be a 'where's my hair' calendar
Stephen Xootfly: lol
Lucy Afarensis: All of bald?
Billy Bradshaw: A song for departed attachments would not be amiss
Wizard Gynoid: I want whatever Truelie is drinking
Thirza Ember: I always imagine Serene's hg trips as being way more civilized
Serene Jewell: lol. Yes everyone on my tour has to wear formal attire and practice the queens manners.... not

Truelie's songs really hit the spot, with lyrics about hypergridding, missing hair, love, loss and underwear, but of course it was getting late - and some of us (naming no names, James) were supposed to be working. 

Our last stop was on Kitely, at Spiral Silverstar's sim, Phantasmagoria. He has art by a lot of really good people here. You're going to need some time to see the whole collection.

Spiral Silverstar's sim is an elegant game of architectural shapes. Spiral wasn't able to join us, partly because there's a 10 avatar limit on the sim. 

Not all of us were able to get there even though we tried to stagger our visits so that everyone could get a chance to visit, but that's just a good excuse to drop in on Spiral another time. 

It's nice to go alone, but it's way more fun to see art with your friends, new and old. 
More photos on Facebook, Flickr etc, as usual...

From fractals, to Fuschia, to phenomenal surrealism, there was a lot to see, but my favorite piece was this picture that made me think of Scott Rolfe. And how nice it is to have such a great collection of friends.

 This week's HG Addresses:
Project Alexandria, part of VIBE: repo.bio-se.info:9000
alternate VIBE Welcome Area: vibe.bio-se.info:9000
Francogrid Clubhouse: hg.francogrid.org:80:hgsafari
Spiral Silverstar's Galleries: grid.kitely.com:8002:Phantasmagoria