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Mel Guymon.
Head of 3D Operations.
Google Inc.
Mr Guymon:
We met friends who astonishingly would turn out to be actually in Russia, Turkey, China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan,Portugal, Italy ,Norway, Sweden, Colombia....need I go on? Then one day it all changed. A Heavy Cloud swept over our sunny dreams... for yourself, as well as us.....we had not known there was any problem, we had taken our freedom for granted...as did Pinocchio! Giuseppe wanted to help Pinocchio, but he was caught in the storm and swallowed by a giant whale...he was spat out and tossed up on the shore among the seaweeds. It was only THEN that the TRUE MAGIC happened...Pinocchio cried : his first tear ran down his once wooden nose and plopped on the sand, now he was "really REAL"! So, likewise did it happen to us "Livelyzens": realizing, as the news made it's awful and inexorable way through all the time zones that our Lively friendships are with real people, not animated puppets! So we overnight became "really REAL", in joining together with one purpose...often working through our tears...and through the night...we were surprised by our own reaction! Are tears ever wasted? Beauty for her Beast? Pinocchio for Giuseppe? We so wish to help the whole 3D team as well as ourselves, and all those who have never had the chance to even discover the great joys and Beauty of LIVELY. In a way, I hate to be doing this, I hate to possibly burden you with this. It reminds me of Dicken's 'Christmas Carol': where Scrooge wakes after his nightmares of what might have been/what might be. He leaps from bed and looks from his window and...shouts: "OH..It's STILL Christmas!". If only that could happen.... Perfectly aware that Google's brilliant engineers know how to promote or "improve" the product, the only little thing that WE can do is focus on the subjective.....so that you may at least remember what a great and good thing it was, in which you have participated....if only for a little while... I remember meeting "KITTY" (see previous post) the day she was making her first coffee shop! She had spent hours and as yet no-one had come to see it! I stuck around making small talk and giving encouraging comments to this new acquaintance. Then behold! her first "customer" arrived...(these early meetings were a little awkward, like the first days in school!). Later that evening I returned and the room was now full of visitors. Kitty was having the time of her life, even when a mock fight broke out! Kitty's time zone is several hours ahead of mine, so I reluctantly went to bed. The next visit we exchanged "contacts". From there I have watched as Kitty demonstrated what a talented person she is, and how prolific her creations! I understood early on that her commitment to these projects demonstrated the possibility of a very successful future for her, aided by the practice she was acquiring within the Lively 3D world.... It is known that Google envisioned Lively as a social environment rather than a "content creating" fantasy life, (with the evident intention of promoting Gmail, Gchat etc.) In fact part of the shared fun in Lively is the improvisational skills shown using what is available: eg. fireplaces made from cupboards, motorcycle wheels from floor lamps, a whole riverboat from assorted objects, mountains from several "skydomes" placed one behind the other, a sea monster and a hot air balloon made from rotating photo spheres...but the list is endless.
I had often wondered what it was that made my childhood kaleidoscope so fascinating: I knew it was a simple one with pretty colours inside, but....what exactly was that elusive magic, that "something" I could never recapture in my work? It occurred to me to take shots of the inside of a little ($2.49) model. I first put these onto rotating photo spheres in the "void". I became very fond of using the void because of it's feeling of immensity: creating this and that, one day I put the kaleidoscope shots onto a "photofloor" then another, and another...adding matching Rotating spheres...some music from "Cosmos"...falling snow...and suddenly I was in that "Special Place" again! Totally absorbed in creating for the love of it....I realized with a shock that 3 hours had gone by...I really could not wait toshow it to some friends. (You can see it at the room called "Heavenly" before it is gone).* I went on to make a Christmas themed version too...a very happy place like an infinite Emporium. I had intended to make this much bigger in time, having only made the "gift wrap Plaza"...but. (You can see this at "Christmas". Bel's Emporium).* I have a place called SKYRIDE, where you can climb way up behind 6 skies and come zooming down again "like a comet" as a friend said.* I also made 2 Discos* and a Carnival,* and many other things. Best of all I love my "HOME" ("Once upon a time..." constructed in the shell called multi-goth which to everyone's satisfaction was provided with built-in fireplace!)* When I first 'rented' it, I left it open to the public and it was largely unfurnished . I still remember the shock and unexpected delight when I returned next day to find gift wrapped packages with "notes", a candy wreath, several Christmas trees...all provided by someone who became a very very dear Friend. This I will remember to my dying day. Being a member of Lively has returned my heart to me...a heart I assumed had been mislaid...umm...somewhere...? I rediscovered with a shock that all that made this person "me" in the promising days of youth is still there.... never gone away, but for lack of opportunity for expression. I understand much better how it is that people never get to use their gifts and share them with others. I only WISH that everyone could find Lively, and learn to live again in a new way. There is such potential for this electronic international networking that Lively or not, it will happen. if it is allowed to. And.."YES Virginia there is a Santa Claus!"
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