Le Safari

             This week's Safari was a trip to the little known French province of Lagetaine. Eyewatering buckets of slowness, crashing and general frustration seemed to dog our every step, from the starting point at hgsafari sim on Francogrid, through to Virtual Dreams, on to the Louvre sim on OSGrid. Only the very last stop worked perfectly, by which time a mere handful of bold and tenacious Safaristas were still on board.

           
Was the global intertubation slow because Microsoft has begun force feeding Windows 10 on an unwilling population? Was it the vast number of prims on Destinations 1 and 2? Could it have been a plot against all things French? Hard to say. One thing for sure these three destinations are worth your time, so drop by and check them out for yourself... HG Addresses at the end of the post, and as always the Landmarks can be found at both clubhouses, at Teravus Plaza OSGrid and hgsafari sim Francogrid, until a few hours before next week's event.

           First up was ForestDream sim on Virtual Dream Grid, a Francophone grid with a distinctly Old World feel. Our hostess was Iphigenia Kaufmat, and her sim which is overstuffed with inspiring poetical prims proved slightly more than most of ur viewers could take. A few of us managed to sit in the charming poetry circle, with Japanese accents, but in the end for reasons of lag in the chat and generally not being able to see where we were, we moved back to the clubhouse on Francogrid.

IPHIGENIA.KAUFMAT : hello all, sorry for the bad visit, ...so we prepared a list of our poetry in music in the player, but it was difficult for all, I can't speak the night with voice, but I had afternoon on wednesday.
Truelie Telling: what I heard was beautiful, even tho I didn't really understand
IPHIGENIA.KAUFMAT : thanks, we don't have poem in english because it's difficult to translate
Truelie Telling: I understand the problem, my lyrics do not translate either
Sunbeam Magic: I didn't understand a thing, but enjoyed the music and the lilt of the language :)
Thirza.Ember: is it contemporary poems or old poems, Iphi?
IPHIGENIA.KAUFMAT: no it's slam, poem of the street, the spoken word, we have a great poet in France, Grand Corps Malade, he's not a singer because he talks, and his poetry has music too
Thirza.Ember: so can we also contribute with poems if we come to the event?
IPHIGENIA.KAUFMAT: of course, it's not necessary to write like us. You can read poems you like, or read a story.   IPHIGENIA.KAUFMAT:  this is of our better duos, my friend and I. I like writing in duo, we exchange our parts by email and we wait for the other part, and after, I record with a logiciel, I send my voice to Mysterio and he puts a music. 

          More Frenchness our second stop, in OSGrid. Ogeywon Stromfield has a set of regions here that are simply immense. The theme of the sims is The City of Paris, and though Ogey got a last minute real life commitment that meant he was not able to join us on the build, there are Notecards available on site that fill in the basics, including (these days something of a rarity) details about what he made and what he imported. Here, you can delight in the magnificence of Place d'Etoile, Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower... on a grand scale.  

          Our first stop was the Louvre museum. The mesh architecture is delicious, and combined with a vast array of 2d artwork, that thing happened to our viewers... so much to see that many, if not most of us, ended up seeing nothing, getting fed up, and logging off after about fifteen minutes. 

Louvre... waiting for the floor

          That's always the paradox with big builds, so slow rezzing is to be expected, much like trying to digest Xmas dinner, it's delicious but takes time and many I'm sure will make return trips, hoping that being alone, things will move along a little faster.

Louvre fully rezzed

          Waiting for the floor to arrive creates a surreal effect, but in a way it's a good thing because you might not realize there is a huge art gallery under your feet when you come here.
Lucy.Afarensis shouts: Norman Rockwell in the Louvre ?
James.Atlloud shouts: There is batman too
Billy.Bradshaw: This is a huge site, 6 or 7 large vars
Thirza Ember: ogey has a build of notre dame, very detailed...would be great to do a Hunchback event there, in the future. Here as you may be able to see is a range of TPs to take you around the regions.

Art Blue: i would love to see the Louvre once in real, to compare
Thirza Ember: Ogey who made this build, I don't think he has ever been to France
Billy.Bradshaw: There should be a crowd funding for ogy to visit the real thing 
Sunbeam.Magic: what a wonderful sentiment Billy
Thirza Ember: the build is worth the wait, although I understand your frustration. So much attention to detail has its price, it calls for some respect.
 Billy.Bradshaw: Hopefully the opensim technology will meet with the expectations of this build, one day
Art Blue: hope the same and working on it
Billy.Bradshaw: one thing I often miss with vw builds is the scale, but here they seem to be much closer.
Art Blue: i dont mind on the color I could use windlight, but I don't see it rezzed
Billy Bradshaw: agree Thirza, kind of demands respect

Hard to believe this is not a photo of the real thing... great job Ogeywon!

Lucy Afarensis: i am glad i can fly
Sunbeam Magic: It's the only way to travel Lucy :)
Art Blue: it slowly comes
 Billy Bradshaw: maybe Art close in your view distance then open up as things nearby rez
Thirza Ember shouts: over here where I am standing there are tps to the other parts of Paris, if you want to try some... the Eiffel tower is pretty amazing... if we lose each other see you on parcdesarts sim on Francogrid at the top of the hour...
          And so we did. 

          The final stop is on a different scale and yet intrinsically as important and expressive of the French tempérament. The Charlie expo on Katia Parcdesarts' sim is thoughtful and invites opinions on world events, the question of religious sensibilities in a secular state, and the importance and consequences of tolerance. 
          Speaking of tolerance, congratulations to Billy Bradshaw, Lucy Afarensis, Sunbeam Magic and Wizardoz Chrome for making it right to the end... I had to bow out, with a big forest fire and gale force winds in my real world, distracting to say the least.

          Katia invited people to look at some of the cartoons that were circulated in papers around the world in reaction to the terrorist attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo about a year ago. She has also included some interesting insights into the history of French satirical drawings and cartoon. The build is interactive even long after the inaugural event, because it invites people to submit their own cartoons, and also raises questions that continue to exercise the mind... what exactly is the nature of tolerance, what is its place in society, what role does the law play in protecting people from intolerance; and where... does one draw the line? 

Our kind hostess, Katia

          The gallery is a wonderful liminal space, Katia encourages local artists from her real life locality in Western France to put their works on who in this charming building, and is always well worth visiting. 
          Vive la France! and Vive Opensim! 
HG Addresses
Iphi's poetry place      virtual-dream.com:8002:forestdream
Ogey's City of Paris     hg.osgrid.org:80:louvre museum
                                 hg.osgrid.org:80:eiffel tower
Katia's Charlie expo    hg.francogrid.org:80:parcdesarts