Festival Finale ala Hurricane Hans

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Nana Lou

This just in…..

The Bovine County Fairy Tale Festival final two weeks have been canceled due to a severe weather event expected to hit Bovine County full force in a week or two. [Can you say global climate change boys and girls?]

The festival organizers and I have been carefully monitoring Tropical Depression Hans as it continues to build steam. It has been reclassified as a Class 4 hurricane and is expected to reach the Texas coast next week. Climatologist are predicting floods not seen in this area since the great floods of 1957.

In order to protect festival goers we made the only decision we could – to cancel the final two weeks of fairy tale workshops, Middle Earth and Music Mania, to allow everyone to find safety and shelter out-of-the-way of the destructive storm’s path. There are a few hardy souls in the Burgeron Family who have been granted permission to stay through the end of August to prepare the Burgeron place for Hurricane Hans, as there is concern that the Trailer will up and float off.

But all work and no play isn’t good for anyone, and I’m not going to miss/forget my birthday again this year! So we’ve been working with Rockylou Radio Productions to host a #burgeron106/#prisoner106 radio show that will bring down the final curtain for Summer 2015. Resident artists are encouraged to create and submit solo and/or collaborative audio from the safety of their homes. Dr. M has already been recruiting Burgeron Family members and Prisoner106 Village residents to create a new fairy tale. A radio show for all artists in residence is scheduled to air on Monday, August 31st.

Audio/ Music Projects (Aug 17-30) – Listening & Creating Audio:

Music Week

Audio Assignments

Opening Doors You Thought Might be Closed

Posted on August 5, 2015 by websterwrite2

I made this gif with http://makeagif.com/youtube-to-gif Who knew that creating a gif from a downloaded You Tube video could be so easy? I have been working much too hard at this for the past 3 weeks! Sure, the name of the video editor is on my gif, but the video sequence belongs to The Prisoner series, anyway.

Sappho has been planning an escape route out of the Village. and she thinks she has found one! In the “Once Upon a Time” episode, Number 6 is introduced to the idea of a waste disposal unit! Here he is contemplating the words of Number 2.

Time is running out! The long summer evenings end soon, and Sappho needs to break away from the internet before fall courses begin.

She has bought some Village deck shoes to help her retreat, but after watching the final Prisoner episode, “Fallout”, she is wondering whether life can ever be normal again!

At the recommendation of the Village Philosopher, she has taken out Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot” and plans to read it in the next 3 weeks. After all, Nureyev had read all of Dostoyevsky!!

Prisoners, ‘idiots’, Village residents, fairy tales, Burgeron Trailer Blues-all have opened doors to the digital arts for Sappho. It has taken a lot of courageous experimentation on her part and a supportive online community which has tweeted and re-tweeted her work, +1 with comments on G+, a few backchannel emails, and WordPress posts w. comments-all bolstering her to find her own voice, and I think now, she has!

Thanking the DS106 community for opening doors and windows!

Gender Not An Issue in Bovine

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Nana Lou

There have been some quizzical faces around Bovine County lately. It’s well known here that the #Burgeron106 family and community are open, tolerant and inviting as a way of life. Things like gender, socio-economic status, political ideology, age, nationality, education, profession, marital status, and even species and state of aliveness (Mama & Little Boo) just aren’t issues with us. This openness to alternative ways of being in the world can cause confusion and misunderstanding for others outside the family who don’t live here, but have just dropped by for an event or an occasional visit.

SuperMoo & Anna Cow

Take for example last week when it was reported that SuperMoo was smitten with Anna Cow. To those of us who know that SuperMoo is a transgender bovine, there is no issue. She was seen running in the woods last summer and most recently he was head-over-hooves in love with Anna Cow. While not a big issue for us, it can still be confusing. What pronoun should be used with a transgender being? Even the human transgender community has yet to come to complete consensus on the matter.

The AP Stylebook, the most widely used by journalists and editors, encourages writers to “use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.

“If that preference is not expressed,” the Stylebook continues, “Use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.”

That’s all well and good if gender identities are clearly visible & identifiable. But in the case of our SuperMoo, whose superhero alter-ego conventions only add to the confusion, we do not see clearly definable gender characteristics. SuperMoo is on most occasions sporting an androgynous style.

SuperMoo in her #Prisoner106 Village cape (Cape & doll image remixed with permission from Liana Kerr.)

SuperMoo in his #Prisoner106 jacket (Doll image remixed with permission from Liana Kerr)

We acknowledge, understand and empathize with the confusion some are experiencing. Below are a few tips and resources if you’d like to learn more, or simply become more supportive of transgender beings.

Tips & Resources for Allies of Transgender Beings

The following are tips that can be used as you move toward becoming a better ally to transgender beings.

You can’t tell if someone is transgender just by looking.
Don’t make assumptions about a transgender being’s sexual orientation.
If you don’t know what pronouns to use, listen first.
Don’t ask a transgender being what their “real name” is.
Respect the terminology a transgender being uses to describe their identity.

Well, that was close!

Posted on July 26, 2015 by @mdvfunes

What is hiding in those underground tunnels under the village?

I found this door in the basement of my tree house today and decided to open it. It has been there forever, I notice it each time I go down to get a nice bottle of wine from the cellar to drink with NanaLou or Reg when they visit.

Today I decided to investigate. i went down some stairs followed a corridor and found myself here

I followed the instructions on the terminal room. Andrew is right.

I have uncovered a vast underground labyrinth of tunnels and corridors. While I have encountered a large number of locked doors along my explorations, I have in one instance found a room within which I have discovered a piece of functioning network hardware.

I spent hours looking before I came across this room. I then spent as long trying to find a way to add to the digital message in a bottle but I think I succeeded. As started to find my way back to my tree house at the Burgeron’s, I got lost again.

Luckily I had my phone with me. The memo recorder and torch apps worked well.

I need to rest now, it was a close call this time. I should have just used the transporter. I hope Andrew gets my message.

Behind the scenes

I discovered there are underground tunnels in Cardiff (UK) and found some amateur footage of these. I used the Tiny Planet app to create the movie at the start from a still image. Sound effects from iMovie and discovered Window < record voiceover on iMovie. Then used audio effects to create Dr M’s voice. The plan was not for a monster to attack me but Gifadog will insist on taking the limelight whenever I record. Just a bit of fun for a rainy sunday.

Puffin Fairies Invade The Village

Posted on July 18, 2015 by Rockylou22

Talk about “Jammers”… The #Burgeron106 Puffin Fairy Flock discovered Dr. M’s teleporting treehouse this week.

They invaded the #Prisoner106 Village

and

declared war on The General.

I hear with the help of the #burgeron106 Special Forces they stole the General’s design secrets for Speed Learn before blowing up that old mainframe computer. NanaLou will be announcing soon her own plans using this technology for the good of all – as it was meant to be.

Image Resources

Retro TV (png): http://drydenart.weebly.com/uploads/8/9/6/1/8961653/old_tv_empty_screen.png
Images from TV Show & locations: https://www.flickr.com/photos/retroweb/sets/72157623276677846
Puffin Images: https://pixabay.com/en/photos/penguin/
Other modern day Village (Portmeirion) photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/coastermadmatt/sets/72157626173293297/

Sappho Visits Bungalow #6

Posted on July 15, 2015 by websterwrite2

Sappho took a side trip today to visit #6 at his bungalow in the Village. She found the atmosphere electric as he told her about having discovered the secret fallout shelter under the hotel in the Village. He recounted how on one of his attempts to escape the Village, he had accidentally discovered a hatch along the abandoned hedges at the beach. When he investigated further and opened the hatch, he found a network of tunnels under the Village, culminating in a heavily fortified bomb shelter. He described the comforts of the shelter to Sappho, but the one photo he managed to take gave Sappho a good idea of the modern decor afforded to those who would be privileged enough to occupy the shelter in dire times.

Sappho was overwhelmed at this recent revelation, and returned to her more modest bungalow to watch re-runs of ‘The Prisoner’ series on her old black and white TV which she had bought in the 1960’s. Patrick McGoohan was one of her favorite TV stars.

Sappho had read about how Patrick McGoohan had created the series, written 7 of its episodes, had created a 40 page draft of Village life as a backgrounder to the story and had serendipitously discovered that a plastic weather balloon could take the place of a menacing ‘Rover’ which the film crew had originally built out of wood but which sank to the bottom of a lake on its first ‘menacing’ mission.