Geometry Was Never This Fun

I remember my geometry class. Despite being longer ago than I will admit, some memories are crystal clear. My friend Sharon and I spent hours on the phone (a rotary phone, only one phone line in the house that we all – oh the indignity – shared) as she tried to explain sine, cosine, secant. I’d been alright up to that point – squares, rhomboids, triangles. Nice friendly shapes. I have 2 other vivid memories of Geometry class. They both come with warning labels: Read no further ye of faint heart. It was in geometry class that I “met” my first computer. It was hidden in this tiny room behind the stage (no, I have no idea why) and it ran on – brace yourself – paper tape. Leroy and Larry and other nerds (because back then they did not have the cachet of being “geeks”) LOVED that computer and lived in that room. I hated it passionately. Syntax Error Line 30. Repeatedly. I HATED it and swore I’d NEVER deal with computers. *grin* Truly, I did. The third memory is also embarrassing in a completely different direction. To protect the not-so-innocent, I will not name names. BUT Geometry class is where I read “that scene” in Rosemary’s Baby as well as parts of …. No, actually, I cannot bring myself to print the title of that particular book here. Suffice it to say it was extremely intense misogynistic pornography. Yeah, maybe that’s why by the time we got to trigonometry I was having difficulty concentrating.

But Wizard Gynoid makes geometry beautiful, interesting, captivating. Many folk blogged about Wizard’s exhibit at UWA in the month of May, Honour McMillan, Lalo Telling and Soror Nishi having some of the best posts. The centerpiece of the display is the 7200 prim Fractalized Tensegrity Icosahedron, described on The University of Western Australia in Second Life’s blog. (For those of you who might not know, UWA is a major supporter of machinima and art in virtual worlds.) Unfortunately, the exhibit and the Icosahedron are gone now but you can still find articles and pictures if you missed the experience. There are some amazing photos out there, taken by people who understand camera angles and lighting. Juanita Deharo interviewed Wizzy in May. Wizard was a 3rd Prize winner, along with Miso Susanowa‘s TIME AS A HELIX OF SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES. Miso is another fantastic virtual world builder.

I made it to Wizard’s exhibit with a day to spare. I’m delighted I did. I suspect that my memories of geometry CLASS have now been supplanted by geometry WITH class. The exhibit was intriguing and fun. One thing I’d like to point out are the FISH!!!! In all the posts I read, I don’t remember anyone mentioning the fish. *grin* I like the fish. A lot. It was such a wonderful irregularity among the lines and angles. Most people looked up. I did too. I even took a trick from my friend Dale and attempted to sit everywhere I could. Getting into and out of some of those sits is trickier than you might think. But I also looked down to the fish and the water. It was a hazy hot humid day in my organic life so my companion and I jumped into one of the pools. It’s only taken me 3 years, but now that I have finally learned some camera controls, I had to look up from underneath. 🙂 The icosahedron was beautiful even seen through the ripples of the water.