Burnal Equinox Festival in Second Life - March 28-30, 2014

"At a time far into our future, the earth has been devastated by a multitude of plagues. Harsh climate change, pollution, famine and war.
One of the last inhabitable areas left on the earth is the playa. Toxic fumes cover the ground and rise to 100 meters. The only safe living
environment is above the toxic levels because the playa winds help purify the air at this altitude. Passing through this toxic zone is possible but long term exposure can be fatal.
One redeeming factor of the toxin is that when it is captured, placed into a balloon and mixed with the correct proportion of playa dust, it takes
on the form of a very powerful lighter than air gas. A single 5 meter balloon can lift 1000’s of pounds into the air. The gaseous concoction has been fondly named Fairy Dust.
Modern manufacturing no longer exists. Everyday items are scavenged from the remains of abandoned buildings. Humans have had to learn to survive by creating with their own hands. They build platforms supported by balloons filled with Fairy Dust. These floating platforms are the hosts for a new civilization above the ground. The citizens of this floating city commute by building lighter than air vehicles. They are powered by whatever means can be found and lifted into the air by balloons filled with the Fairy Dust.

Every Spring the residents of this community celebrate a renewal of life. Balloons have been the savior of this city. Residents design and decorate their lifting balloons as part of the Equinox celebration. This tradition has been carried down from their ancestors from when the earth was plentiful. They celebrate this event in hopes that the earth will renew itself. They celebrate the clean air that still exists high in the clouds. They celebrate their existence on earth, as different as it might be from their ancestors, They are ALIVE!"

Guerilla Burlesque is delighted to be performing at the Burnal Equinox Festival on Sunday March 30th, 2014. We will make two appearances:

• At 6pm - Come and see Mr Timeless and The Pale Hypnotic, a massively popular collaboration with sound by Deepsky Timeless and vision by Guerilla Burlesque. It's a post-apocalyptic medicine show featuring all the beauty and drama of your dystopian dreams
• At 10pm - Guerilla Burlesque's very popular revue lights up the Burnal Equinox festival, with a celebration of the triumph and tragedy of the human race

Travel to the Burn2 Burnal Equinox Festival in Second Life
and you can join the facebook group for information about the other installations and events in this festival. 

Retreat

Artje sets the whetstone and her axe carefully aside and gazes down over the valley at Ossencrest, a small smile tugging at her mouth. She is home again, or at the home of her heart. No-one could really call the austere fort a home. It's a base, only, a place for the Priory's researchers to sleep in a real bed and re-supply again before returning to their work tracing the history of the wild mountains. But she likes it here. She likes the Priory scribes and their introverted small talk. She likes the roaring fires and the soothing sounds of ink scratching paper. Most of all she loves the Sakura, marching resolutely up through the cleft.

  She remembers the first day she came to Scholar's Cleft with complete clarity. She'd been slugging it out with the Modniir, and in fear for her life, really, at the point in the fight where only running can save you. Funny, she'd never been afraid of the Centaurs, despite their fierce brows and fleet-footed battle. They were harsh though, and they often called for others to join them  in pursuit of a lone traveller. But Artje's bow was always a good match for their speed, and her first solo battles were in the Hirathi Hinterlands. 

Now that she has her beloved Jade Bow, no Modniir can hope to threaten her, which is just as well, as their raids on the Priory outpost are still a daily occurrence. But the first day she came to the Cleft she had fought her way into what seemed like a corner of the map. She had despaired of escaping them, when suddenly the glorious cherry trees appeared, then giving way to stairs, and a marvellously solid, squat fort, and she ran for her life up through the gate to safety.

Artje gathers up her weapon and tools and packs them carefully in her leather bags. The ceremonial axes gleam where she has just finished honing them, a task she is only just beginning to master. She will never be a great crafter. It's not a thing she aspires to, and she doesn't have the time anyway. But she is proud of the skill she's gaining with the stone. Sharpened axes make for faster dead enemies, and that's a valuable outcome these days.

She hauls her weapons and bags up to the spartan sleeping quarters. The nights close out early here, most of the scribes retiring not long after sundown and arising as soon as the light breaks over the Snowden Drifts. There will be stewed meat tonight, she can smell it clinging to the eaves. It's a good, rich, smell. Modniir raiders notwithstanding, they are safe here, free to go about the work of preserving Tyria's history. To Artje, it seems all the more important in these savage times. 

She worries about travelling away from it all, from Lion's Arch and from the Borderlands. There is great need out there. But there is great need within Artje, too, and the safe haven of Scholar's Cleft called her from across the battlefields. She is glad to be here, warm, dry, and amongst peaceable friends. She is glad of the rest, the short forays for good meat, the skirmishes with the uncomplicated Centaurs. The good dependable work of protecting and providing for the Priors and scribes. She cannot stay for long, but she can stay a little. She is grateful for the succour.

Meanwhile, in Tyria ...

Artje runs alone now. The will of a self-imposed exile ebbs and flows through her soul, fierce as any tide, shifting and changing pieces of her, gathering detritus and dumping it in secluded corners. Bitter sands scour her through and through, borne along by anger and pain.

It's said the ranger is the loneliest profession. Separated from the mob by the need for distance, the ranger is fast and light on her feet. She strikes from an unseen vantage point, and for it, is never quite trusted.

Artje has been learning to use her dual axes, though her beloved bow is always at her back. The jewelled and embossed Krytan axes, with their wicked curved blades, are satisfyingly lethal, especially in the madness of Lion's Arch. She has learned to fear close combat less, and to move through awkward spaces a little easier. It's not her mountains, but the urgency there, assisting Lion's Arch in the fight for it's life, is sufficiently distracting.

It suits her to travel light. She knows it's the Tyrian way to join a guild, and she is often invited, but she rebels against their rules and requirements. She thinks sadly of her old guild, the easy companionship of friends discovering their strengths together. But even there she ran alone, darting into the mists whenever possible, consumed by the urgent ferocity of battle.

She goes rarely into the mists lately. Her lassitude is enormous. Some days, it's bigger than she is. On those days she does not fight.

She tries to return to her old home, from the time before Tyria, but it's a despondent experience. All the betrayal is there, all the trouble she can't fix. Artje looks carefully where she enters, these days.

Sometimes she catches a familiar melody, and remembers the days of old Ascalon; the breezes through the red and green and golden trees, the crystal rivers and sunny villages. The swift run to the wall, the brutal process of fighting the Charr on their turf, the excitement of learning to draw them out, to meet their fierceness and to beat them at it. The time before time, when the world was an adventure she could not lose. The joy of conquering mountains, the shocking tragedy of Ascalon burning.

Artje watches, warily, the inexorable turning of the Wheel. The old life is razed but breath and pulse and thought still, somehow, go on. So it was and so it ever will be.

il est fini

... and so it came to pass that the epic movie, the love story that was chry and Shippy, ground to a halt, rusted out by her insecurity, eaten away by a communication malaise.

Il est fini.

2013 Retrospective

Merry Christmas everyone, my very best wishes to you, that you will find time for play and for love and especially for creativity (however you enjoy it) in these busy days. Spend time with people you adore, and please adore yourself, for without you, you have nothing. It's hard to do, believe me, no-one knows like I do, but if you think about what being loved should feel like, and do it for yourself, you cannot really lose, right?

2013 opened with the flurry of the Dance Queens awards. I wanted us to win. I wanted me to win. I wanted that recognition, from our peers and for the entire grid. I wanted to say "winner of the 2013 Dance Queens Award for ..." in our promo. I wanted my dancers to see what they have become.

It seems a little hollow, now, and not just because it got white-anted by bitterness. Guerilla Burlesque is a phenomenon, it fills the house at every show. It pleases audiences who see it, and it draws the best talent on the grid to be part of it. It inspires great loyalty in it's fans. There really aren't any awards that match that feeling of watching a dancer take a concept through to completion, or watching a team combine together like fine machinery. I am ever-lastingly proud of Guerilla Burlesque. I know I am not universally admired, and this troupe lost many dancers it would have been nice to keep; nevertheless, those who have stayed all display characteristics I find to be the best of human nature. They are diligent, warm-hearted, sensitive, open, smart, giving and immensely creative. It is an honour, truly, to breathe the air they breathe.

I wonder how many of you, who thought you would struggle to find a place as the team shifted and changed, think back through the year and see just how close we've all become. Guerilla Burlesque is a force of nature, baby, and I thank you if you are someone who's hung on for the full ride.

Losing the luxurious privilege of owning a whole sim was very hard, and I miss the unlimited potential. But Idle Rogue will always survive, in some form, and I am still, always, so grateful to Cait for giving me the playground of my dreams.

My inter-personal skills remain a bit of a worry, but I am working on it, and I know I have made some major progress this year. That said, there are times when the malice I draw baffles me. One person, and one person only, gets the unedited version of chry, and I will admit he finds it very hard going. The rest, including those malcontents who think I have or had something they deserve, are making shit up. It's more annoying than anything. I did a great job in difficult circumstances, and it won't be done as well now that I am not doing it any more. Other than that I am at ease. I try to give my best, in everything I do. But I am not everyone's cuppa tea, as we say in the antipodes.

It's no secret I spent way too much time in Guild Wars 2 this year. I love it, though Burn2 broke it's grip on me a little; it's also true to say that I once felt I was becoming part of the community there, and I no longer feel this way, which made playing the game more optional than it had been. I really only like World vs World, and my partner likes many other aspects of the game. That means, in a practical sense, that I just don't go there as much.

Let's not forget, after four very long and humbling years, I finally got a real job, and there's no doubt in my mind that just that fact has made a huge difference to my attitude to everything around me right now.

As the year draws to a close, I am busy, in both lives, and I don't have the time to dwell on things that are re-shaping right now. I am very very excited about Le Cirque de Nuit, a project that will take the next several weeks to pull together, but which I hope to turn into one of the most successful, cutting edge collaborations of 2014. I am also delighted and honoured by the calibre of the people who have lately expressed interested in projects we are working on. I am stimulated by the possibilities ahead of us all.

Chill the champers, babies, let's ring it in, I'm keen to get going on it :-)

Burned for life

I'd always wanted to have a camp at the virtual Burning Man Festival, certainly after I learned of the Metaharpers and their camp, but all the way along. The festival idea is not a new one for me, most people know Idle Rogue's live music stages are designed to emulate outdoor festival stages. I have a long history of outdoor concerts and bike runs in my real life, to me it's the Australian Way.

In real life there's a good chance I'd avoid the Burning Man Festival. I don't actually care much for the heat, and it sure looks hot out there. Interestingly, the virtual festival coincided with local heatwaves and fires, so I didn't really escape by going virtual; but I enjoy that juxtaposition of the two environments, it makes the immersion more savoury.

Make no mistake, it is expensive to go to Burn 2. The parcel we procured through the generous donations of Idle Rogue supporters cost 12000 linden dollars - $48USD. For that we got a 1024m² parcel with 468 prims for roughly six weeks. The event itself runs for a week, and it runs on the same principles as the rl festival. There are no tips or other income. So that $48 bucks is spent for love.

But oh, Burn! How I loved you!

chry goes feral

The Idle Rogue community has been in a kind of recess, for one reason and another. The downsize meant we had to fore go the housing and the new resident program. The community has been languishing anyway while I licked my wounds by falling in love with another game. It's my belief that successful venues consist of a nucleus around which a wider community are loosely gathered. Those things are still very much part of Idle Rogue, and we wouldn't be who we are without Chewie, Jess, Di and Shippy. But some faces are gone, the flavour has changed, and we are in a form of stasis.

For me, the Burn2 project was a return, of sorts, to Second Life. I have spent more time there over the past month than I have for a long time, indeed, since The Big Ruckus of 2012. And it was good! It was fun!

Shippy's glorious Observation Tower, our home away from home on the playa

I talked to strangers, and watched them fashion beautiful things purely for the enjoyment of passersby. I learned their stories, I listened to them wax about their Burn experiences, their philosophical ideals, the ethics they have developed and how those are shaped by the Burn and by Second Life. I saw passion, I saw real joy, I saw kindness and spiritual generosity. I watched people transformed by their engagement with this virtual environment. I heard people cry at the Temple Burn, I saw them entranced as the man burned.

And then there was my team, Guerilla Burlesque, who grabbed hold of my vision and ran like bandits with it. They made beautiful, thought-provoking performance art and gave it to everyone who was interested to come and watch. They, also, met and engaged strangers, made people welcome and gave them memories. They were generous with their time and thoughtful with their energy. They were endearing, curious and made me full with love and pride.

Dance like everyone is watching

All of it, every bit of it, was the enchanting human at humanity's best. My humble thanks go, in no particular order (well except for first and last, who are first and first), to Thea Dee, GMetal, Meegan Danitz, GarGraVarr Rau, February Jinx, Cool Plasma, Jess Cauld, Gloriana Maertens, Azabella Alamar, Zahra Ethaniel, Huntress Cattaneo, Jordan Reyne, Maeve Branner, BabyPea von Phoenix, Knowledge Tomorrow, Biebi, Aubreya Joszpe, Deb Heron, Chewie Quixote, Tukso Okey, Padula Bing, Pol Arida, Jenna Dirvall, Darkshore, Mulder Watts, Leroy Horton, Mercutio Evanier, Diawa Bellic, Buttermilk Panacek, Eifachfilm Vacirca, Trinity Hunghi, and most especially, forever and always, Shippy.

Building Artje Orestes

Tarnished Coast server has a new forum site, which triggered a round of "introduce yourself" posts. I really love my character, Artje Orestes,  and I think that's largely because I built her myself. This is one of the very cool features about Guild Wars 2, and one that Second Lifers will "get" immediately: you can start customising your character before you even get into the game, and from the very first level, you can shape your "build".

Choices for my first character, Myf, were very much shaped by forum and blog information sourced by Shippy. I'd started Guild Wars as a warrior, but found, when I took on Monk as my secondary profession, that I really enjoyed healing and support play. I thought a Guardian character in GW2 would suit me very well, and I enjoy playing Myf, but it's Artje who has stolen my heart.

At For The Toast, I introduced her thus:

I've since tried to look up the name online, but without much luck. Cute Baby Names think it means "he who reigns as an eagle", though they don't say who told them that. I like it though, it works.

Hunting for the meaning of the name Artje, I found this:

What's in a name? Plenty, if you ask at the Kabalarian site,
though it must be noted they will tell me even more if I buy their report

Way too many ticks on that list >.<

Artje is a Ranger, she fights with a longbow, a pair of matching axes and a pet (currently a raven, because they can fly up to the top of ramparts and attack enemy there). As she levelled, I bought her armour, often transmuting it to get a certain combination of looks and stats. She currently wears a combination of the Magitech armour skins (for the looks) with exotic armour stats (for the 

kickassery).

Her armour is upgraded with a full set of the Superior Runes of Mercy, to increase healing capabilities, and her trinkets are chosen to maximise toughness, because she gets splattered a lot - although I am finding as my movement gets a little more dextrous, I get killed a little less. Some days are diamonds, some days are Artje-shaped smears on the ground. 

I am happy with her armour, but am still upgrading to ascended trinkets, which are mostly chosen to maximise healing and toughness and power when I can get it.

Her traits and skills were chosen to help her move fast across The Mists, revive allies when she can, and hit hard when she has to, and are calculated by Guildhead in the graphic to the right. Her trait lines focus on Marksmanship, Skirmishing, Wilderness Survival and Beast Mastery, because that was the combination I came up with to play the way I like to play. For example, I wanted my pet to be able to revive me (take some of the load off Ship :-D), so I took a little from the offensive traits to have that.

Artje primarily uses Entangle and Barrage to finish an argument, which means she can get on top of keep and tower hassles fast, and often (though not always) assist in the field. The trick is to get her where she can do damage fast, because it's very easy for her to get killed on the way.

 One Of Us Is The Killer - The Dillinger Escape Plan

she moves abstract just like a shadow dancing on the edge
like a storm cloud passing overhead
effortless and free
as the hours rush by
through her I can sense the end of time
there's no way this can forever shine
make the sun not rise
in the air we tried to be
but you shot your arrow through me
now one of us must die
but the killer won't survive
she moves abstract just like a shadow dancing on the edge
like a storm cloud passing overhead
hypnotizing me
as the hours rush by
through her I can sense the end of time
stretch into eternity divine
and the sun won't rise
in the air we tried to be
but you shot your arrow through me
now one of us must die
and the killer won't survive