A Variety of Virtual Communities..

Eric Whitacre was inspired to create a virtual choir it took him five days to complete, this is an amazing virtual choir.
100 people all recorded their respective parts (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass) to create a virtual choir. Everyone was asked to buy the same recording of Sleep from iTunes, a performance by a British choir. Singers from around the world posted their individual parts on Utube, simply singing along to the recorded piece. Eric pulled this together to make a virtual masterpiece.

Here is an example of how our internet community can collaborate and make something quite beautiful. The following link is Eric Whitacre's website on how he managed to pull this off within 5 days. http://ericwhitacre.wordpress.com/

Eric Whitacre: A choir as big as the Internet | Video on TED.com

Another community I have found for myself is on Face book, Jo Frank a well know story teller from LA, a friend of mine and many others, has been broadcasting his stories on Pacifica radio, locally on KPFA 94.1 and KPFK in LA for years as well as nationally on public radio stations. Some of his shows are called Tales from the Urban Jungle or the Radio Chronicles. His stories are always out there, relevant and at the same time obscure. Here is an example of how he begins a story on Facebook:

The treatment consisted of encouraging patients to wear costumes of the animals that suited their personalities and reflected their deepest needs.

Whenever I visited the sanitarium, I was always taken aback by all the badgers, moles, raccoons, beavers, warthogs, porcupines, weasels, kangaroos, antelope and wolverines I saw roaming the halls.

It was bizarre. But the underlying idea seemed sound. By wearing an animal costume and making manifest their own unconscious animal urges, patients ... , were able to step back from their schizophrenia and express what was unacceptable in human behavior but normal for the animal natures they embraced. It objectified the stigma so that rather than be riddled with shame and guilt and the feeling they had failed as humans, they could become their own totemic animal and discharge their feelings in a safe environment without frightening or depressing them.

After about six months, they were released from the hospital to re-enter society still wearing their animal costumes, and many were killed in the first few days-- shot by hunters, devoured by other animals, and run over by cars. In fact, no one survived more than two or three weeks except those who were captured and sold to small zoos around the country.

Now what happens after this is where the fun starts for his friends, everyone who wants to, can add their part to the story or whatever, in the comment section of this Face book wall, at times he will get an amazing number of comments each one more funny or more peculiar than the one before, and Joe will make comments back to the readers, to me this is creative, spontaneous and cheap fun, my kind of creative community.