Creativity: Curious Expeditions.org Digital Universe

Thursday, 11th of December, 2008:

It’s a rare Internet moment when one feels that s(he) has stumbled into an entirely new digital universe. How fitting that the experience should happen in the library! We’re experiencing an everyday moment of “shock and awe”, tracking these gorgeous photos of Beautiful Libraries on Ffffound.

Like explorers setting said for an unknown exotic location, we arrive at Curious Expeditions, a website devoted to “travelling and exhuming the extraordinary past”. We are speechless, surprised beyond every expectation in cyberland.

We knock on the front door of Curious Expeditions, our eyes wide, adrenalin pumping through our veins. Where are we going? To meet The Curious Playboy?

Opening the door one inch at a time, we peer into webpage darkness. These folks can write a “bon mot”.

If life at its grandest is your oyster, then Willie K. Vanderbilt II was born a pearl. For the grandson of railroad magnate, William Henry Vanderbilt, building mansions was second nature, yachting trips and horse racing his casual hobbies, and living the high life; de rigueur. Adorned with the golden name Vanderbilt, Willie K. spent his youth traveling the world, eating the finest treats and playing with the fanciest toys. At age 10, he rode a steam-powered tricycle in France, launching a life-long love of speed and an obsession with racing cars.

Meanwhile, overhead, we see a Flickr slideshow of mounted insects and dead butterflies. Our curiosity mounts and we risk discovery as intruders in this private place that welcomes us. Like the people and places featured, Curious Expeditions is a site created not only by loving hands, but unusual (perhaps extraordinary) taste and mental excellence.

At an age when we have “seen it all”, we are spellbound and aware that in this magical place called Curious Expeditions, we know nothing.

Love, Anne