TeleOctoscopy: a Birthday Build

'Is there much more of it still to come?'
'Two hours of it. Why do you sigh?'
'Because I should like to see it all.'
'And why can't you?'
'I have to go - presently.'

Mark Twain, From the "London Times" of 1904 

It all started with hat envy.
Yesterday afternoon, Maya Paris and the ubiquitous otter Scottius Polke were sporting headgear that rather effectively burst the bubbles in Pop-n-Glo part of Oberon Onmura's new install at Fruit Islands Art on sim Mango. Maya responded to my hint about hat-sharing by cryptically asking if I had received the invite to the TeleOctoscope  her SL7B build, a joint project with the brilliant L1Aura Loire.
Then the otter passed out. (BTW if you click on the pictures, they get bigger.) Maya's build is here on sim SL7B Phenomenal.

It's inspired by a 19th-century long-distance communication device called a "telectroscope," a perfect metaphor for friendship and the close, long-distance connections possible in the metaverse, particularly celebrating the one between two women, one in Massachusetts, the other in far-away Kent, or vice versa, depending on your point of view.

Interactive, like so many of Maya's builds, you get to wear a uniform, including non-stick gloves and yay! the big hat! and join the ranks of mermechanics, powered by 'steam, chocolate and tea'. Not sure about the mustache; it makes me look like a goodnight-hating gun-toting guitarist.

We Mermechanics are sworn to keep the machine in perfect working order. Not sure what that involves; as you know, I never read notecards. Or write syllabi, until I absolutely have to, but that's off topic.

At the bottom of the structure, which gets slightly lost in the busy sky of the birthday build, I was absolutely enchanted by the 4 viewing pods showing films, including one about mermaids, and a nostalgia piece about the blowing up of Maya and L1Aura's eggy Burning Life build.

The very best one, though,  is 'Toggle' a short film in which L1Aura tells the story of her Lives, a "mixed-reality work-in-progress" as she puts it. She stands in her RL office with, on the screen behind her,  images of SL (hey, that's Filthy Fluno in the photo! - Side note, I think his wife makes him wear that hair, don't you? as a sort of contraceptive device).  L1Aura/Lori is a RL university professor in Boston, and this film tells of her investigation into the virtual world, and what her friendship with Maya Paris means to her, and what it led to... you have to see this one, it's just great, and is available for viewing here if you can't get inworld.

Oh and I have incriminating pictures of Kolor Fall drinking beer at a Japanese Rain Festival, if anyone would like to see them.