"MY" Lively - Part VIII

From Laura:

Atlantis... and Once Upon a Time

it was only around the end of Lively that i met Malon and Belavar,who have been great friends to me ever since. It's thanks to them that I ever made it to Second Life: without their help and their teachings it would have been impossible for my poor av to survive in that world - let alone to enjoy it! You all know them well, because they are both active members of the community; they are both sensitive, imaginative, funny, and playful - but they are not at all alike!

For Malon, virtual reality is just fun - a way to play, explore and meet people from all over the world. I think this journey he's making through America and Europe is a sort of "pilgrimage" to find the real people behind those cute avatars - and "confirm" their friendship.

Bel is very different. He's a dreamer, and to him VR is a way to create new worlds of which HE is the Lord and establishes the rules- to make his dreams come true and share them. He is gifted with an extremely bright mind, but he's also completely crazy, and has brought a touch of madness into my very rational life, which i don't regret, because it's been great fun, even though it has sometimes been hard not to lose rational control and not to get involved too much in those dream worlds!

The three of us were together in Belavar's magnificent "Party" room when lively suddenly ceased to exist (I had, by then, left both the human and the cat form to become a bear).

And then... a miracle! Someone had devised a way to get into the lively servers again... and so we were in.... Malon had already emigrated to SL, but Bel and I stayed on... and I spent, oh, so much time in those two rooms with this cute, funny, crazy little bear...

Atlantis was my favourite. It was a dreamworld, filled with the strangest things and creatures that could be found in inventory... A sunny place in Nowhereland.

I also liked very much the "Once Upon a Time" room - and it was such an emotion when Rossen recreated the shell in IMVU! Actually there were more than one room with that shell... I never knew how many, because Bel kept changing and modifying them all the time. And sometimes there were even two Bels...

And so we stayed on, the last two sentinels of a world that had ceased to exist. It was like being suspended in a bubble of soap somewhere - or nowhere - between heaven and earth. It felt absolutely unreal. It was fantastic.

It was magic.

*****************************

... and this was going to be the end in my original plan... but on second thoughts, I decided to write an epilogue...

....coming soon....

laura

"MY" LIvely - Part VII

From Laura: Cafè Concierto and the Journey I didn't have any pictures of his rooms, so I asked Solum. He not only sent pics, but also shared some memories... So this is gonna be a very special part of my blog! ...And i have a scoop too....he has shared his most private pics... nobody has ever seen him like this - his very last incarnation on Lively: Manuel/Solum can be somewhat linked with both the beginning and the end of my Lively experience. It was one of my very first days on Lively when I discovered "Cafè Concierto", a wonderful theatre where you could listen to good music. I was trying to learn Spanish at the time (which i never did btw) so I think it was the Spanish name which attracted me to the room. There i found this bald avatar who was very nice. I tried to communicate in my (VERY) broken Spanish, but it took very little to find out - to my relief - that he spoke perfect English... Much later on, one evening I saw that Manuel (who I hadn't met in a while) was in a room called "the Journey - how far can you go?" and went in to say hi. There I met Solum Deus, his cute, playful, most imaginative alter ego, who was experimenting with the lively "void". And creating a most extraordinary room. Manuel says: "there was a special star at the very VERY TOP of The Journey...it was called The Rofl Star...everybody should rofl up there...it was a ritual started by Kosmik, Shiakara, Imajika and others...." About the Journey, he also would like to share a memory that is very dear to him... a message that Izzie left him... "I was out feeding my horses last night and saw the night sky black and the stars shining upon me brightly. Oh, how I wanted to "jump" up to them and look down at the still and silent earth. Lively has given us a little dream, and thank you, Solum, for taking the time to put this room together and share it with all. For quite some time I thought I had reached the top but realized there should be something more than just a star to twirl upon. So I searched with great care and kept on my journey, pressing on towards the goal. Here you have waiting a cozy fire by the cold bench, but trees to block the north wind. I shall rest awhile, then go back to reality, but, thanks again for the dream :)) p.s. my wish: For Solum to never stop creating ;) I am laughing, and I am free!!!" Manuel is one of the funniest people I've ever met - he has a wonderful sense of humour - I still laugh each time I see his comments on my cat pictures! He is also very kind - and it is thanks to his kindness that I have a video of my lively room, which he volunteered to shoot in December. We miss you Solum! laura

"MY" Lively - Part VI

From Laura:

Laura's place

Of course, I can't speak of "MY" Lively rooms leaving out mine own, "laura's place"

I wanted (as usual!!) to bring a bit of my RL into the virtual world, so I chose a simple shell and created a very ordinary flat. I put pics on the walls showing myself, my cats, my husband and even my home, so I could tell visitors:"that is me!" "that is my world!"

I also put a screen playing videos of folk music and dancing. One of these showed two musicians playing bourrées (traditional French dances) on their hurdy-gurdies. One day Raven came to visit the room. He stood in front of the screen in silence and finally said, "I'm enthralled"

The room was so plain and ordinary that...for Lively standards, it was very original!

... so it was very successful... it was often on the first page, and I had lots of visitors... Actually, I met many of my Lively friends in that room...

....Emma Goldman, with her very serious, grey-haired, jacketed avatar... Emma created a lovely room later, a Museum, but it was too big and I lagged all the time, so didn't visit her much...

...Sweet, who called me "honey", which I found very funny - actually she called everybody honey! One evening, she came with her teenage "niece" - actually her alter ego - and a tiresome child arrived who wanted Sweet to be her "mum" and the "niece" to be her friend... Sweet was very annoyed and we didn't know how to get rid of the little pest!......

....Mikey, with his funny English guitar.......

......Adrian, who spoke admiringly of Kos because she knew exactly what had to be done and told him "do this" "do that".......

... there was another guy whose name i don't remember who came almost every day - he only spoke Spanish and in spite of this, i was able to chat with him!.....

.....another regular visitor was Maxm, who created such beautiful rooms... i had the honour of being one of the very first people to see his wonderful "Seven Selves" room before it was published....

.....and so many others....

And if you would like to see Solum's video of "laura's place".... it's here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOGPuHE5N8g

laura

"MY" Lively - Part V

From Laura:

Starry Night

I think it was Humilis Lupus that discovered the room "Starry Night" and took me there.... where I met a very bright, nice, kind lady with a funny nickname - Beetlebomb - who loved Van Gogh!

The shell was, i think, the same as "Sno..w and Stars: a wintry landscape, where she had created a sort of lounge.

"Starry Night" is the title of a famous painting by Van Gogh:

And there is also a famous song, dedicated to Van Gogh, which you can find here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkvLq0TYiwI

So, as you have probably guessed, this room was a Van Gogh museum. Its walls were covered with Van Gogh paintings and the song "Starry Night" was playing. It was just so beautiful.

When i think of Beetle in Lively, i always remember her once i visited while she was building a new room, wearing a yellow helmet! That's what she is: a builder by vocation! She made many other rooms, and you should see the awesome house she decorated and furnished in Second Life!

But of all her rooms, this one was my favourite....

Keep reading Livelyzens!

laura

MY" Lively - Part IV

From Laura:

Kendo's Underwater Lounge

It was in HL's room, I believe, that i first met Kendo. He often came to the "Sno..W" room and we had great chats together, HL, Kendo, and I. He is the only Italian I ever made friends with on the Net. As I said, I generally avoid talking to Italians; most of them are really stupid - i don't know why - and as they can't speak English, they will start a conversation in Italian in spite of other people present - which is very rude I think. But Kendo was different - he was like me, he liked talking to the world. His English was "rusty" he said, meaning not very fluent, but he could make himself understood very well! He was a very cute grey-haired piggy (my first non-human online friend, now that i think of it! ), who could do a fantastic headspin if you asked him! As you can imagine from its name, the human behind Kendo is a lover of martial arts and Japanese culture, who can prepare perfect sushi for his family - and this was another very interesting topic of conversation.

His own room was born from his other love: diving. He loves going picture - hunting underwater, and in RL he has taken amazing pictures of underwater life, which I saw on his web page.

As you can see from the pictures, the room had a large screen on the floor showing a video of whales, if i remember correctly, and was a very nice place to relax at the end of the day!

I still chat with him sometimes on Windows Live. He, too, like many others, has left VR - he said it was too time consuming!

.....But the best is yet to come.... read on!

laura

From: robert naschitz

Make this night loveable,
Moon, and with eye single
Looking down from up there,
Bless me, One especial
And friends everywhere.
With a cloudless brightness
Surround our absences;
Innocent be our sleeps,
Watched by great still spaces,
White hills, glittering deeps.
Parted by circumstance,
Grant each your indulgence
That we may meet in dreams
For talk, for dance,
By warm hearths, by cool streams.
Shine lest tonight any,
In the dark suddenly,
Wake alone in a bed

I found the light on the net...

"MY" Lively - Part III

From Laura: SNO...w ...... and stars This room's name was as strange as its owner. When I first met him, and asked, as usual, where he was from, he answered "I'm a nigga from the Moon". This of course made me very curious! His avatar's name was very strange too, "Humilis Lupus", humble wolf in Latin. The av was funny looking, and not very attractive, as you can see here: One day, I told him, "you look like a Buddhist monk" and he replied, "i was" - but I never got him to explain this. From some of the things he said, I think he might have been. He was very mysterious... it was only after some time I learnt he was Hungarian and his RL name was Robert. He also explained the name of the room: there was a smart 12-year girl from Holland he had made friends with, who he considered a sort of adoptive online daughter, whose name was Sno - so the room had been planned on a word play including her name. One day, he told me where his avatar's name came from. There was a statue in his town showing St. Francis and the wolf. It's a legend, according to which St. Francis spoke to a wolf that was terrorising the town of Gubbio, and convinced him to go away. The room had a screen, which was sometimes on the ground, sometimes in the air, usually playing sad music. Even if he had a good sense of humour too, and chatting with him was very nice, I always had the impression HL was a sad person. One evening, an even stranger avy arrived. It had dark hair standing on its head like a madman. He was an Italian, so I pretended not to understand. I hate talking to Italians online. He started insulting us, so in the end I responded and he was very angry with me. He started stalking me, and i didn't know i could block people then, so i created a new avatar, Eric Red Cat: The unpleasant Italian disappeared and I went back to my usual human form. Weeks later, a new avatar appeared saying insulting things in Italian. It was, of course, the same person. He followed me to my room. This time, i didn't run away, but i told him: "look, if you wanna talk, let's talk. But if you are insulting, I'll just block you." We chatted for half an hour and, evidently satisfied with the attention I gave him, he never turned up again. Like Yaniv, HL emigrated to first life long before Lively closed down. We kept in touch for a bit on gmail and gchat, but then he disappeared. I was a bit disappointed but, after all, if they go... they are not real friends right? So I just let him go. With some people we have lasting friendships and with some others... we just walk a little bit on our path. Keep reading Livelyzens! laura

MY lively - Part II

by Laura Peregrino's Bar One day, I met a cop from Orlando. He told me about his job and, as I'm a fan of CSI, Law and Order and the like, I was most interested. He could also speak Spanish very well (which i was trying to learn) and taught me a bit of "street Spanish" which was extremely interesting! One day I saw he was online at Peregrino's Bar and I went there to chat, so it was only by chance that I met one of the most extraordinary bar owners in Lively.... As you can see from the pictures, Peregrino's Bar was a simple, nice, comfy, classy place, with a big screen playing good music. I discovered Sarah Brightman there. What was really special about it, though, was its owner, El Peregrino (the Pilgrim). A traveller by vocation, El Peregrino was (is) a Dutchman, a very kind person, gentle and open-minded, understanding, curious, with a good sense of humour and a great sensibility. Peregrino left Lively very soon - after all, he had a few more lives to care about (one first life, and a few second lives!) but we kept in touch via Windows Live and now I meet him quite often on SL. He is one of my best online friends. And, as he is a traveller, i hope to meet him one day in RL too. Like all good literature, as it goes on it gets more interesting..... So look forward to next instalment...... laura

"MY" lively - part 1

To celebrate Lively's birthday, I'm going to post my memories of the rooms I used to hang out in... and their owners. Let me say, first of all, that before lively I hated online chats - which i found very stupid - and VR - I had tried SL and found it appalling, besides being extremely difficult. But this virtual world was different... so i started to hang out in it.

I'll be following a sort of chronological order...as much as i can remember at least!

So there you go...

Part I - EXAMBITIONS

One of the first rooms to attract my attention - perhaps because of its strange name - was Exambitions. Both floor and walls were entirely occupied by frames, each one running a slideshow showing images of things, places and, most of all, famous people from the past and the present. There i met a funny John Doe avatar wearing a camera, who told me that Exambitions had been born of his two interests - history and photography. I don't remember the av's nickname - real name Yaniv. It had taken him quite a long time to create this room, as you can imagine!

Yaniv was gifted with a wicked sense of humour, so it was fun chatting with him. He disappeared from Lively very soon, but we kept in touch on live messenger for a while. A few months later, when I told him Lively had been closed down and we had emigrated to SL and other 3D worlds, he said: "well, I emigrated to 1st life....MINE!"

The day after meeting Yaniv for the first time, I met a young Palestinian, Santana, whose family had lost their land and emigrated to Jordan, and i thought, "Wow, this VR can really bring people together..." I've always wondered... what would have happened if I had tried to bring Yaniv and Santana into the same room?

Look forward to next installment....

laura

A Glimpse of The World Brain?

From KosmiKGuru:

Isn't it wonderful to be able to look at a topic from various perspectives - Bela had a thought, Cherry and Kos highlighted certain portions that appealed to them, Cristal brought forth a new perspective, Laura brought forth the pros and cons of the various views and then brought forth a new question ... Bela dug into his memories and pulled out a memory that would act as an analogy for his point...and so on...

....To me, this is what Lively had the power to do. Connect people from varying backgrounds and be able to use each person's brain/perspective to realize the dimensions of a problem or topic. And then derive the most optimal conclusion.

I saw glimpses of it while on Lively (as Imajika and I and JMichael and I discussed at length while we worked on our little cafes or galleries). We saw the potential for a "world brain" (as I later found out that HG Wells had proposed in one of his books). A World Brain - that harnesses the powers of individual brains of humans like never before to shape the future of human life. This may sound a little preposterous - but think about it for a second. In the physical realm, we get distracted by various other details such as physical attributes/race/culture etc. In the virtual realm, we are nothing but our thoughts - our brains. The virtual realm distills us to our core form and allows us to interact without inhibitions, without distractions. Yes, sometimes we do carry our social molds to the virtual realm - reflect it on our behavior - but if we can get back to the core of our being then, we are in essence interacting as components or entities of something larger than ourselves. A new being emerges.

Lively provided a medium that magically facilitated this sort of interaction. We were evolving (unknowingly) into a World Brain. And when the Lively No More announcement came, the evolution came to a screeching halt, but we Livelyzens managed to preserve it in that state - when we evolved into this community that we are. What we have now as a community is but a fragment of what we could have been- a small fragment preserved in formaldehyde - being dissected sometimes, being viewed and cherished at other times.

A fragment of what we could have been. But also a fragment of what we COULD BE. If we choose to move out of this stagnant state and re-emerge to realize our full potential, then that beginning that Lively facilitated can continue to evolve.

When the medium is gone, the evolution becomes difficult, the communication between the parts becomes sparse or disjoint. And hence we struggle to move forward. Remember how quickly ideas turned into successful projects on Lively? Remember how quick and brisk we were? Remember how quickly RandomHuman and freecoconuts came up with new integration ideas to demonstrate Lively's benefits? Can we imagine a quick collaboration such as that now?

Yet, we must find ways to continue this evolution. Evolution of human existence from individuality to singularity. With or without us, this evolution is inevitable as humans continue to find ways to connect with each other. Will we Livelyzens participate in accelerating this evolution? Will we find a new medium that will rekindle our spirit? Only time will tell.

VR versus "RL"??

From Belavar:
I'm going to put this right here:
everything around us, and all the people and things....are the visible
result of an
invisible movement of some heart, a gleaming idea in a mind,a dream
made tangible:
we do it every day, planning, scheduling,hoping.....
 It takes a lot of Material Time to bring these things into our (so-
called)
"Reality". But it is the invisible, intangible impulse which makes
things "BE".
We found a magic way to extend our Dreams into a medium where they
could be shared....
almost instantly!
VR is just as "REAL" as our heavy slow unpredictable "RL".
Yet, as actors all, we are aware of this:

    PROSPERO:
   " Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
    Are melted into air, into thin air:
    And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
    The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
    And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
    Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
    As dreams are made on; and our little life
    Is rounded with a sleep".
   ( The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158 .Shakespeare)

Like children of a happy family, we are now all scattered
as if by war, or some unforeseen "Twist of Fate".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKqmg0k9jbo

Many are wandering from place to place, one is sad about this.
One longs to find that this 'diaspora' has, itself, been just a BAD
dream!

OF LOVE:
Of Love:
Size, shape, weight, scent or colour -
Can you tell me?
Age it has perhaps?
Of notes - how many in that song?
In what Language spoken ....
Heard it, have you?
Weight of gold -
How much costs Love?
  (Bel wrote this.)

Because..."a bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a Song".

"Friends are Quiet Angels"

From Bela:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X7d7Ul6PmI

© 2007 G. Sklerov & B. Rothstein All rights reserved

"Friends are Quiet Angels"

"Friends are quiet angels
Who lift us to our feet
When our wings have trouble remembering how to fly
They stand by us and give us
the strength to try

Friends are quiet angels
Who somehow make you see
The light that's in the darkness
before the dawn
All at once the journey's not so long

But it's the laughter and the fun
Sometimes the feeling that we're one
All the tears we cry together you and I
That will keep us heart to heart
as time goes by

Friends are quiet angels
Who fill your life with grace
Thrilled to share your joy
when a dream comes true
And on this special day
I'm blessed 'cause I can say
I've found a quiet angel
You're a special angel
I found a quiet angel in you"

Thought some Livelyzens might like this song?

Bela's Thoughts:

AWW...long live lively!..it's beautiful skies, it's free open spaces,
it's ability to bring us together with kindred souls around the globe!
That was/is the MAGIC of Lively.....
and we ever remain so..
Steadfast in Friendship and happiness, fun, love and adventure.

http://animoto.com/play/1R03yKYoHvNi31o58TTk4w
--
Cherry

Saya's Video for Lively first birthday

Dear livelyzens,

Sending a vid, my best friend Janey at dome of light, for google lively 1st birthday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt7gvE-oLck

Saya Lee

Lively 1st Birthday Celebrations

Announcing a month long commemoration of Lively! 

 

As you all know, Lively turns 1 year old on July 8th 2009. 

Let's come together and make a tradition of celebrating our beloved Lively's birthday. 

  

When: 

June 8th 2009 to July 8th 2009

 

What:

30-day Blogathon - Theme "My Lively Life"

All Livelyzens send an email with your poems/stories/artpad/photos/videos to: livelyzens@gmail.com

Please post a blog atleast twice a week (every day if possible!)

 

The blog posts will be displayed automatically at

http://livelyzens.com/blog.aspx  and www.twitter.com/livelyzens

 

On July 8th:

Birthday Celebrations

@ 

NewLively (thanks Liu!!) and other locations (IMVU, SL)

 

 

Go on Livelyzens...let the celebrations begin!!

Livelyzens Blog is Twitter Enabled!

Dear Livelyzens

 

Blog posts will be automatically displayed at www.twitter.com/livelyzens  using twitterfeed

 

For details on how you can post on this blog, , please contact livelyzens@gmail.com

 

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