Fantasy Faire 2023 – Giggenwhirl – Thinking Outside the Plywood Box

A woman with long white hair in ponytails sits resting her head on her right hand while holding her curled knees with her left. She looks distractedly off to her left. She is sitting in a rough wooden bucket chair in dim light. The back of an empty chair can be seen on the right side of the image.

I’m behind. There are just too many ways to get distracted at Fantasy Faire. This is not a bad thing.

I’m assembling this post while sitting in the Stump Theater in Fungalmire, next door to Giggenwhirl. I caught notice in the FF group chat of a celebration of Rachel Pollack hosted by Aoife Lorefield and felt I just had to attend. I knew very little about Pollack before tonight but I learned so much at Aoife’s presentation. This is the kind of serendipitous happening that makes Fantasy Faire, and Second Life in general, so wonderful. You can never tell when some gem like this will drop into your lap.

Anyway, back to this post’s subject, the Fantasy Faire region of Giggenwhirl. I presume the world’s name is derived from ‘whirligig’. Living in an area where there’s a long tradition of such things, I’m looking forward to what I shall see here!

SLURL: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Giggenwhirl/90/126/89
Sponsor: Old World Fantasy ~ Kitty Creations
Designers: Allie Munro, Krystali Rabeni, Peter Locke & Lunar Tripsa

The designers’ notes imply that this world was realized from the imagination of a bedridden child. The child has quite an imagination!

A sequence of four images of whirligigs: A bicycle tire, a squirrel eating a nut, a flying blue jay, and a wasp or bee with four rotating wings.

To the right of the main shops path (having entered from Sipala), a smaller path branches off. And indeed, there are many whirligigs in amongst the trees. And wooden teepees to relax in while you enjoy watching them.

Between two lush trees, a totem pole like construct stands at least 2m high. It is composed of abstract shapes such as spheres, disks, and crescent moon or maybe more banana like forms. In the background can be seen a rotunda in the midst of a pond. The surface of the pond is dotted with may different kinds of objects.

Really, don’t miss the side paths. There are all kinds of whimsy to be found along them. There’s this totem like construct for one. Or you can rez a flamingo floatie and drift peacefully along the shore for a time.

Nearing the bottom of a long water slide by a pink and turquoise clocktower can be seen a figure sliding down on a giant leaf. To the left, a rough rock wall borders the pond at the bottom of the slide. Huge, brightly coloured crystals stick out of the wall.

If you look off to the side as you near the top of the shops path, you’ll see a water slide you can take all the way down to the lagoon filled with a fantastic flotilla of eclectic objects; more whirligigs, giant rubber ducks, crystals, lily pads dot the waters.

A wide view of Giggenwhirl shows a grassy ring around a large clockwork sculpture seated on an enormous orbital gear. Several gears and sprockets appear to have sprung out of the scuplture. To either side and below the grassy ring, clock towers sit. In the distance, a large building surmounted by another clocktower stands with a rainbow behind it. I beaming smiley face composed of smoke floats in the sky to the left of the rainbow.

More than just whimsy, there’s lots of beauty to be found in Giggenwhirl. The power of the child’s imagination has created a realm of brightness, colour, balance, beauty, and peace. This is yet another place I could stay and relax in for days.

My descriptive text for this region is sparser even than usual. The unique vision that Giggenwhirl presents is honestly hard to describe. You really should see it if you can.

A columnar fountain with four spigots poring water into a round basin, in the center of which stands the column. The column and basin are made of pink stone. On top of the column is a set of nested spheres made from sweeping S shapes. At least three such spheres, of varying colour, can be seen one inside another. In the background, a pastel hued palm tree leans to the right and a flamingo whirligig stands. A barren tree to the right has a small cyan bird house on it.

And all around are little gems like this sculpture of nested spheres, which rotate providing an ever shifting view of the inset pieces. There is so much to see just in this one region!

Shops

Yes, this is a shopping region (and yes, I did get myself a whirligig, the hummingbird. And there’s a ladybird group gift).

Pete’s Peculiar Pieces (this looks like one of the region builder’s shops)
Love
Emmi’s Attic
Cygnet’s Dreams
Dreamland Designs
Evolving Images
Grumble
Unstable
Ever Green
Old World Fantasy
Kitty Creations
Kannor
Birth
Eclectic Stars
Jury Pop
The Little Bat
Schelm
The Crosstime Garage
Omise
Tardfish

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Shops

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