Ghost, literally, in the machine.

Well, its a bit spookie when someone just stands around on your parcel and doesnt speak to you for two days.
Kinda weird..... so, anyway.... turns out she's not here.

A ghost.

So the ghost has an alt....and the owner of the ghost can't log on as LL says she's already online.....gets quite tricky. Anyway the alt had a friend... Cormac Jaxxon, the big guy, and he came over as a type of Ghostbuster to move the girl along.

Trouble with that plan is, that although she looks like she's there, she isn't.

Couldn't kill her, or ban her...

I tried planting flowers on her, just to sort of disguise her a bit, make her blend in...

Told you it was tricky.

Sent in a Jira... lol.....couldn't the Boys make it any MORE difficult to understand... my oh my....what a nonsense...
Hopefully a sim restart will shift the ghost....

:))

new headdress

New but not revolutionary, the Flopsy Headdress is for sale in the shop

in other news.... well, I'm working on a new tree, of course, but it will be a while and then I have to find somewhere to show it, prims are getting low at my place again.

Tomorrow is my rezz day, and I am quite pre-occupied with "where do I go from here" types of questions... probably carrying on carrying on, is the best answer, but a little introspection never hurt anyone.

Still attracting new visitors to the beach which is nice because some people have never seen anything like it before, anywhere in SL. They all think I'm mad or on drugs..:))

Oh well, their stereotypes do me no harm....

Better to be mad than boring in my book...

:)))

Two years ago.

Two years ago, give or take a couple of days, I posted these blogs. They were the first things, more or less, that I wrote....nearly 500 posts have gone by since then and 9000 pages turned. My frustration levels were high, I remember that, but I loved every minute, and still do, mostly..:)))

I am not quite so obsessed with how I look ....or am I?...:)) Obviously its the first bit of design work you do when you arrive...


"well its been a bit mad.firstly shopping takes forever so I still am not fully kitted out.
I went to Harajuku last night to check out my roots. I was born in Japan....but thats another story.
I think I have a sister...?
Anyway, I didn't find anyone. The place was deserted.
I came apon, (the way I walk) a beautiful cherry orchard in full bloom.
I was there with a friend.
And under the edge of the orchard there was a rocking chair which I sat in and thought. I looked so good that I thought I would come back with a photographer.
I couldn't use the camera yesterday (bit better today).
So.
today i went back.
couldn't find it.
So I walked into this little japanese tea room. There were four or five of them. So I saw this seat-light-thing and did me click. wellll
suddenly I'm on my SIDE doing a 50's hollywood film star pose. I'm not fully kitted out yet.
so I IM. Hi, can anyone speak english.
lots of funny squiggles
and
more
and
more
Well I reaconed, no one home; when i get an IM
soror can you put some more clothes on please.
I said sorry and flew up into the roof space."



"thing is I'm not very good at this changing clothes thing
well.....
at least I can open a box
wearing them is the pits.

At last I found a good mall, I'll give you the address sometime.
No time to shop
but plenty too much time being wasted on other things. research...ha!
Get back to work you Idle tart.
Very pleased with skin can recommend X2
great eyes, cant remember who.
love my toes.(X2?)
hair is mine, its real."




"The service is apppppppppppppppppalllllllllling.
If it wasn't for my guardian angel, cant remember name. will post later
who helped me out
I'd probably be in a box or series of boxes, sleeping rough
well.I AM>
sleeping in a field, dont they have hotels????"


"What a disaster. Well, good news as well.
Firstly, I'm learning soooooo much.
Good news first; I found a FREE modelling studio.
terrific
very impressed
Got one good shot.. which is all a girl needs to succeed.
But I lost it in here somewhere. Thing is; I never know where I put. Sometimes I'm quite well organised and stuff, but sometime when it asks you where you want to save it, I just press ok. Could be anywhere.
Its on my profile but how to get it to you good people is beyond me."




"Now, this crummy shot above was done by me.
But the good one on the profile was mine as well. Which all goes to prove that I NEED a photographer. Seems like you have to do EVERTHING yourself. Something wrong with earning money?
Get a grip.
Now, I'm sorry but I got started . Service, ha. I had to teleport all the way back to this so-called Advertising Genius who didn't even reply the first time and so I had to "drop a notecard in his postbox"
My God
Who does he think I am, Einstein? Anyway, whats wrong with his eyes? Blind? dumb? deaf? I shouted enough to wake the dead. Bit of a bad habit, I'm trying to quit actually. I walk into a shop and shout "any service around here or what"
Never get a reply
so rude
But I must stop. I am going to be classy. I've got more to tell you on the clothes front. A hairy guy in a leopard print suit who hangs out with us at the gallery field has kindly offered to make me a decent jacket. AT LAST. His name has got something to do with the Moon. Why dont people have short names in sl?
For a few posh bits I found someone in the search and IM ed them. Help. so we'll see. But really I need Gautier so badly you would not believe.
I look like a tramp.
honestly.

Anyway, I'm still sitting in the lounge at this ad agency, waiting, and the sofa is not very good, if they don't mind me saying so. I've been here over an hour. Are they in church or something.....

Well, anyway, I suppose I've got better things to do than sit here.
Lucky for me Burton told me how to write a notecard, so I told him, very politely, to put me at the TOP of his list.

Oh, and a really sweet girl showed me round a brothel!!!!!! and I found a GREAT swimming pool, didn't go in cos no swimwear as yet. Where is a personal shopper...is there a personal shopper in SL?
Got to dash now."


"I've just written a heart felt plea to Jean-Paul for help. I told him I am a maiden in distress which is obvious to anyone who has seen my underwear and I cannot think that he would brush me aside if he has one single compassionate bone in his body...
Well, I guess he's probably a bit busy, but when you're that famous you should have time, what with having 'staff' and stuff, to be able to do a good deed."

Jean_Paul Gautier didn't reply to my RL email...shame...could have been great. I gave up my modelling aspirations, luckily, and started building... the rest is better documented than these early days, and my spelling/grammar has improved somewhat.

:))

Island Life

Well, lots of small bits to report... I finished my waterfall, one of those "Things I Must Get Done"... and..well...this is a rather dodgy photo of what would have been better as a video...but you can see my first waterfall build here




Pixi came over....after we had a dance at her place (which is worth a visit) with the famous Mr Malroy. It is exactly two years ago to the day that I sat and had RL coffee with Malroy and Kaltusaran and they told me about Second Life. The first I had heard of it.......




Pixi told me how she had pointed out to her neighbour the error of his building ways. In the absence of any planning laws, what else is a girl to do???




I got a Steam Funk Tree planted on the other side of my island, I hope Izabella likes it...:))




and a new species has started to colonise wet parts of the beach....it's called the Giant Island Taro....

and fajitas are off the menu...

:))

AM Radio..,

Well, not much to say really about this.

AM's new build... here

His usual extremely detailed RL style things in large open areas..... well, you have to do that when you concentrate all your prims in a machine or house.....it works.

There's a sort of luxury which comes with having so much space...its nice.

:))

Daphne's Demise, my latest tree.

It was Aliz that suggested the name, the Daphne part anyway. Apparently Daphne turned herself into a tree to escape Apollo's advances. Bloody gods....always trying to shag someone or something.... :))

Anyway, the tree is on the beach, and this is not a very good photo because it looks like some strange orange smoke is coming out of the side, in fact there are particles in blue and green, which I didnt even attempt to photograph. You'll just have to go check it out if you are interested.



Kirstenlee Cinquetti has a new shadow Viewer, if you have a PC..... (come on Boys....sort it out).... and Vint Falken
has some good advice for those of you who wanna try it.


In other news.... well NPIRL has a more mature article on the Mature question....

My best friend in RL, a certain "Bill Ellis", painter and musician, now living in Paris, has this to say about censors and gallery owners... "fuck 'em"..... which sounds like a more immature take on the question.

Said, however, with a small shrug of the shoulders, it's really quite Adult.

:))

Technique

I am very interested in matter, and have been for years; I have spent many hours thinking about it in fact.
My interest started with my fascination with Alchemy and has continued with my craft work (silversmithing and others) and other artistic productions.
The relationship of matter to prims has then, obviously, pre-occupied me a great deal since I started building in SL where there is no matter although prims are a visual symbol used for matter. [More of that in another post.]

So I was surprised when Selavy told me yesterday that no-one had blogged her recent piece at Primavera. I mistakenly said to Bryn that there were no pieces there (at the show) that I would remember in 10 years time (harsh maybe, but you know me). I hadn’t seen Selavy’s piece at that time, or had the chance to think about it.

For those of you who haven’t seen it... it is a series of three sets of three prims (the numbers are not so important) which have been subjected to “physical” for a second. The resultant movement has been fossilized, captured in time as a recorded event.
This for me is almost the definition of technique. It has the “air” of chicken entrails thrown by soothsayers to forecast the unknowable. It is recorded history as well.

Technique is vital in all production (and in art even more so), in that the technique used in the manufacturing of a product is normally visible and forms an integral part of the piece.
For example; when I fashion a piece of silver using my hands and basic hand tools the resulting piece is unique in that it differs from all machine made pieces, and from all pieces not made by my hands. It shares, however, a similar “look” to all ancient/”primitive” jewellery made using similar techniques. Similarly my prims are different to everyone else’s, because no-one makes prims like I do.

Selavy’s piece is a non material 3D fossil of an “unnecessary” event (random rather than biologically/socially/economically determined), it is "physicality" in a non physical world and, with true artistic integrity, it records SL History in a way that is only possible IN Second Life. That makes it a piece that I will not forget.

:))

sorry, you know what I'm like....

so.....well, of course, I had tooo..

I had to build a tree which demonstrated what I meant.... my new tree has 4 nipples...:))

not quite finished yet..

its a nice tree too..
is it Mature or Adult..???
it all depends on the fruit...


:)))))

too sexy for my sim

Well, I'm not actually....but I have always been of the opinion that classifying things I do as mature leaves me the possibility of doing anything I want, artistically.
However... things are changing... the Boys have issued their definition of what is and isn't mature, adult, PG here....hmmmm.....

It seems, like a lot of legislation, that is based on a "generally good idea". Its implications, however are far reaching.
As I wrote (about Nipplegate, photos in NPIRL blog, see below) earlier I have my reservations about this idea.

As Bettina wrote there is a question then about the accessibility of art.

Two main things come to mind....

1) Any one (or Alt.) who is not age verified will have limited access.
I have a good friend who left SL in protest over this Age Verification issue. He was (two years ago) convinced that this was just a disguised method of "data mining". Having seen Facebook now use its data base to increase its advertising income, it looks like my friends predictions are coming to be sound.

Well, now, I don't have any trouble myself with being age verified, but I do respect the views of those who do not want their details on a data base that can be accessed by any American law enforcement agency, or lost or misused... or SOLD.

2) The censors have the ability to define anything they want to as "Adult". Now, we know that the American puritans are less liberal than some European countries. We also know that books and photos, and other art work has been classified as Pornography in the past, only to be hailed as Great Art a decade or two later.

If it is cast in bronze, oil painted, flesh coloured, hidden by semi-transparent fabric (50%, 75%, 90% trans?) ....when is a nipple adult, when a mature nipple and when PG? I'm not nipple obsessed, just using this as an example, dear reader...:)))

It just seems a bit strange when so much explicit material is very easily available on the Interweb (and before it was magazines) that it is really worth it. I would have thought that in terms of priorities, the List of Things to Do, LL should have this way down near the bottom (mature) and just get on with sorting out the other bugs first. So much time and energy is going to be expended on this... seems a waste.

:))

Clothes and more

Bean popped over and we got to talking about clothes, cos I really hate his T-shirt and we've know each other long enough to be able to say that sort of thing.

But I still have that same question about men, why is it that they never change? Seems that being a man exempts you from needing to help Mother nature along with a little embellishment and a few nice pieces of cloth or jewellery.

Do the genes excuse the jeans?

Now, bean is not that bad looking, he's had girlfriends and stuff, but there are those where things have gone too far, by FAR...and for those individuals we have the fashion police

This is a blog which is well worth a visit, being quite a cringe-making laugh.

On the total, total, total opposite end of the spectrum is a man who makes me kinda lost for words

This is what I missed, and maybe you too....
Not Possible IRL: Here's what you missed... Kazuhiro Aridian's avatars

Wow ... I tend to say that a lot...sorry


:))

Avatar Nest

Now, I have often talked about avatar architecture in these pages and have not yet got round to demonstrating exactly what I mean.

Any good piece of art or architecture has to pay more than just lip-service to its context.
Context is the frame, cultural and site specific, and it should be fairly obvious that building a house on the moon should/would/could be a different design task than designing on earth.
Unfortunately, most builders and architects in SL build exactly the same sort of rubbish in SL that they do in FL.

So I would like to demonstrate the types of structures which I think it would be more appropriate to consider, given an avatars abilities, in the context of SL.




This is the structural start of an Avatar Nest. 13 prims for the basic structure.




Any flying being would tend to make its abode above the level of the ground.
The obvious reasons for this are:
Security
Views
Ease of take-off
Construction
The local habitat is not disturbed.




I will post more as I start to embellish this project with some decoration, and will always be happy to show anyone around.
Currently there are 3 spaces, formed out of a consideration of what avatars need;

1) Sedate socialising in the smaller of the three areas, room for sofas, probably a shade tree and various cultural bits...
2) The deep nest houses a very private area (like a white egg) for intimate social activities, changing clothes, or introvert contemplation.
3) A large flat area brightly decorated for dancing or other extrovert social interaction, an overtly "public" space. Alternatively this area could be used for building, being an open, uncluttered area.




This second structure is basically the first building I ever made in SL, it is a 10 prim small house.




The white globe houses the "bedroom" or changing room.
The seating area by the pool.... nice with some 'float' anims.....




... below I used as a gallery for displaying my FL art.

Now, obviously this is just the start. I would like to encourage discussion of the basic idea that a new type of architecture is needed. I am, as I said, very happy to show anyone around who is interested and hope to be able to continue working with others towards some improvement in the dismal situation of Sl architecture today.

:)))

PiRats Art Network

Moya Janus was showing simultaneously in FL and SL this afternoon at the PiRats Gallery and in Roanne, France. Its interesting the way these simultaneous events are starting to become popular. This one seemed very good and well organised, it obviously requires some good organisation, and is good for SL as a whole I think. It would be very nice if the art itself originated in SL, but, hey, you can't have everything all the time.

I, myself, have very mixed opinions about Brooklyn is Watching, but thats partly due to the art commentators themselves, and partly due to the fact that if you don't live in SL, how are you going to be able to understand the culture. Certainly the chaps at BiW have no idea about the difference between a two prim tree and a thirty prim tree, or the difference between a photo and a digital drawing.

I am most wary of the zoo-type situation, and the attitude of the beer swilling viewers, but I may be wrong, I often am.




I missed the conducted tour with Kazuhiro Aridian, but had been there previously, Aletheia, to buy my wings, on the recommendation of ColeMarie. If you haven't been then you have missed one of the best bits of SL, I think. This is stunning building, and his avatars are near perfection.

:)))

Welsh Bay

Alexandar Vargas very kindly bought a Steam Funk Tree to plant at Welsh bay, and I popped over to see it. There is an amazing collection of art works he has assembled over the years, well worth a browse.

The above piece is by a good friend, Charlot Dickins, a lady who's FL has kept her too busy. She is sorely missed, not only for her classical sculptural talents.

One of my favs.....it's called the Three fates at Work and is on the roof of Alexandars jewellery shop here.



The Steam Funk Tree looks perfectly planted here with its dark background bringing out the colour so well.

The LALALALA Gallery is closed temporarily and so theres no point going there to see the tree there...it is on show here and at Welsh Bay.

:)))

Make yourself a skin

To make a new skin, which I would recommend everyone have a go at....

1) Download free templates from Sezmra....

Sezmra Svarog has this to say about her work:

"Thank you for your interest in my work!

This is a skin resource kit for females, called "Splendor".

**You are free to use these files to create your own skins for your Second Life avatar, no matter what Grid you are using it on.
**You are free to alter these files to create your own skins in order to resell them.
**You are NOT encouraged to redistribute these files, commercially, as is. Please don't take advantage of others - it may return to haunt you.

More tips, tricks, and tutorials will be featured at sezmra.com

Thanks,
Sezmra Svarog"

2) using just the background colour to start with, cos its easiest.... muck about...either replace with a pattern of your choosing or cut and paste bits into this layer...

3) flatten the images (3) and upload as 512 x512 to SL.

Tips..... don't make them too dark.... and don't go too detailed, especially at the joins, neck and waist, its difficult to get a good seam.
the neck join you can cover with a collar or some other neck jewellery....
the waist you can hide with clothes, if you choose the right ones...

Have fun

:))

Lem Skall

Many thanks to Lem Skall for this image, I hadn't seen my place this clearly before.

It was my intention to make shop and land more integrated, in design terms, and i am pleased to see that i am on the way to doing this, they look like they are made by the same hand.

For those who don't remember, it used to look like this..



and, although it was Ok in a sort of junk shop style, I am pleased with the more integrated look.


The Steam Punk Tree is also on show here... no need for double TP ing. Which makes popping over a bit easier....thanks again to Lala.

:))

Spiral Walcher

Now, heres a man who knows what your computer screen is for.....

COLOUR




you tp to here and then tp again

very much worth a visit

:))

eggs, and other rants..

I have a great idea for a game, children, lets paint some plywood eggs and hide them.
Then your parents and grandparents can go out looking for them. True they won't be able to eat, smell or feel them, but they can have them transferred to their pockets directly.

What? You don't think they would be interested...Hmm....well...we'll get them chomping at the bit by offering them the possibility of winning 20 dollars...that'll have 'em queueing up at the sim doors.

well, Boys, 120 Million US$ in the first Quarter of this year, in user to user transactions ...so offering a 20 dollar prize is ....what? stupid, mean, laughable, pathetic, mind-numbingly uninteresting.... yawn... bored with this rant already.

and my money interests continue..... I got offered the job of building the best Club in SL last week..... cooool.... I was offered 20 dollars as wages. Now....is it me?? Why is there an expectation that people will work for peanuts in SL?
I lost the job cos I was not prepared to get paid 5000L, but, presumably, someone will do it for that little...
There's no minimum wage here.

And....working it out, along with the Eggs-crap-search thingy, I figured it costs me about 2000L$ a day (OR PART THEREOF) to log on to SL as thats (mainly) what I use my computer for, but, I'm no mathematician.
I took into account the ISP charges, software and hardware, membership and....... of course, the tier is variable...so while it might cost me 2000L, there are plenty of people who pay more than me.
5000L in prize money or as fees for building a club, look very thin indeed.

But these things pale into insignificance compared with the most hated of all words I have ever seen on my screen.... BUNNYJAM...
Words don't often fail me, but my loathing for fluffy mindless sentimentality in anyone over the age of 11 or 12 is beyond my abililty to communicate.
My Little Pony is cool......if you are 11... so BUNNYJAM, who exactly is this aimed at? 14 year olds are all at World of Warcrap, so why is this noxiously named event being repeatedly advertised on my screen at login??? I wonder about people being introduced to SL for the first time....like this.:

soror: I would like to show you the infinite possibilities available in SL, its learning and creative capabilities....
noob: Ok, soror, I am v interested...please show me..
soror logs on...
LL: come to BUNNYJAM...win 5000L$
soror: eeek
noob thinks.....bunch of morons with a mental capability of an 11 year old...
noob: very nice soror......I don't think it's for me....
soror wants ground to open up and swallow her....

Fluffy, cutsie-wootsie, syrupy, sloppy, pre-adolescent sentimental bullshit.

Nice one Boys. You really know how to advertise the best bits, don't you....

:))

Transgression and Addiction

As you may know if you have read some of my previous posts I am very interested in the psychology of virtual existence and so my ears always prick up when someone says something about SL which I have heard said before, and like Jacob and the angel, I try not to let it go before I have extracted a “blessing” (insight) from the thought process.

Well I have heard, several times now, people leaving SL saying they have to break this “addiction” and get on with their lives. It is a statement that always has a hollow ring to it, and these sort of things I like to get my teeth into.

Good job for example that Beethoven or Mozart didn’t “get over” their addictions to music and scribbling, or the world would be a poorer place.
[But then we know that in our culture Art Is Not A Proper Job, and we are all artists and designers, whether we realise it or not. From Day One decisions have to be taken on what type of Ruth you will start your Second Life with...and so on and so on. Every decision is a partially conscious, partially unconscious decision...and that is Design. (Here is not the time or place to discuss design theory, but my conviction is that it is this process of decision-making towards a final aim that is at the core of all design work.)]

Anyway... Avalon said to me something to the tune of.. addiction is used as a way of excusing behaviour you don’t want to claim as your own. Like when people get drunk and allow themselves to do things they wouldn’t permit when sober....
and bells in my head went off...

Talking of the conflict between conscious and unconscious elements of the Self, (like yin and yang, human and avatar)... Dr Jung says....
“When this confrontation is confined to partial aspects of the unconscious the confrontation is limited and the solution simple: the patient, with insight and some resignation or a feeling of resentment, places himself on the side of reason and convention.”
He means that if you can’t stand the heat, you get out of the kitchen. Addiction is then the excuse you have for being in the kitchen in the first place. The unwanted sides of your psyche that have manifested get repressed again, and you go back to “normality”.

I wrote before about fear and shame, and how these two Guardians stand between us and true self-knowledge. I mean here by ‘self-knowledge’, a deep co-existence of conscious and unconscious sides of our nature rather than a superficial appraisal of the ego.
In my opinion, nothing, absolutely nothing, is as important as the integration of conscious and unconscious parts of our psyche. This process Dr Jung calls Individuation. There is little difference between the monks of old who, locked in small rooms, examined their inner natures and those of us exploring our natures in SL.

Why and how I believe SL to be a truly healing environment is an ongoing project that my thoughts and words try and chip away at like a marble sculpture. More will no doubt follow....


:))

The Steam Funk Tree

In her full glory, can be seen here




This is me firing up the ingenious generator




and this is Lala, in her full glory...

:))

more new stuff

I put up some of my textures on show at my place, really just because people who missed my last texture show might be interested.




and.... this is my latest flower, the Blue Spotted Orchid. Its for sale up in the walled garden, and its worth having a good look inside the flower head if you do pass that way. The colours inside have worked out nicely.

Most of you will have got an invite to see the Steam Funk Tree at Lalalala Gallery, I will post details next time I blog.

Lala very kindly offered me space and it looks pretty good there beside the canal. Very different style to all my previous trees...

:))

New Eyes from soror Nishi.....or make em yourself...

Well.....making eyes is easy... download one of these images...you have my full perm... muck about with it in PS or Gimp....save it as a TGA... then upload it to SL









..once you have it in SL, go into Appearance and, assuming you are wearing Mod. eyes.....just slip the new texture in. Yes, it is the right way up, DONT rotate this tex 90 degrees.
If Appearance says " you cannot modify these eyes" then wear a pair from your Library, they should be Mod.

Both eyes are the same tex...so new eyes will cost you 10L$ unless you share of course...:))

How about...... eyes with barcodes? eyes with words written...like whatever you want to say...
or... paste photos and patterns onto a white (512x512) or coloured background...

enjoy...its the easiest thing to make unless you want FL eyes.. then you are best buying em for 50L$...

:)))

NPISL

I hope you will bear with me....I will be going all round the houses in order to try and clarify a few things for myself and hopefully this public musing will be a stepping stone to further thoughts.

Two questions have been on my mind these last few days... and a good question is worth a hundred glib answers..
1) Bettina asked in her blog... why do we have such trouble explaining SL to non users?
and
2) Why do some of the First Life imports into SL annoy me so much?...

Starting with the last question first, let me explain. If someone wants to put a toilet in their SL house, and if they find that amusing for more than 0.5 seconds...well, thats their business. Toilet humour is appealing to all sorts of people in all worlds. It doesn’t annoy me. If people want to waste good prims putting pitched roofs, and windows into houses when theres no rain, or kitchens...well....LL likes us to use prims, it’s how they get paid. It’s stupid but it doesn’t annoy me.
We know there are people who use SL as a 3D facebook, thats their business, again, it doesn’t annoy me.

Spiral staircases annoy me, if I have to use them, and narrow doorways do, too. Its an affront to all of us who have mobility “issues”, especially when places get lagged so easily.Floor to ceiling glass walls annoy me when I’ve walked into them several times trying to find an entrance to a building.

and just to prove its not only my humans architectural background causing this irritation ......stupid fashion blogs annoy me....for example.... this person suggests you dress like you got out of bed and put on your boyfriends clothes..... duh! They are in his invent, probably no trans.....and I hate everything in this blog too...
In First Life I can run up a spiral staircase, see a glass wall 10 meters or more before I get to it, and, if I want to, dress in whatever is lying by the bed...

Well, having mused on this for a while, I think there is something deeper at work here, than “soror being stroppy”.

My favourite definition of art, until I find a better one is... “a long, immense and deliberate derangement of the senses” (Rimaud)... well inline with the current trendy usage of the word ‘immersive”.

There are basically things which are NPISL, Not Possible In Second Life,
and when these things get built, imported, they break something which we are trying to create. I think the Real Weirdos are attempting with every build and import to make sure that the senses are as LITTLE deranged as possible.
The worse promoters of this cultural imperialism are LL.

And, so I come back to Bettina’s question..... why do we have trouble conveying to people what SL has to offer?
Well, most of what SL has to offer is a pale imitation of First Life, I can sit by the sea side, I don’t hear the waves or smell the salt. etc.etc.
All the time we attempt to minimalise the “derangement of the senses” we lessen the potential impact of Second Life, and lessen its appeal.

Soooooo..... what can we do?
I know I am preaching to the converted as most of my readers are avid supporters of NPIRL. I also know that theres an element of hypocrisy here as soror still has two arms and two legs and a head, unlike Betty and Selavy for example who have already moved beyond that.
It would be going too far to throw out all LMs and FL-like items from my invent... or making a new grid with only NPIRL ers.....

but...... we can make a start.

1) voice your displeasure at all public buildings (especially art galleries) which are not built and designed with avatars in mind.
2) make yourself a new pair of eyes (workshop will appear here tomorrow) and skin....
3) join Impossible IRL
4)....to be continued...... any suggestions welcome.

:))))

Jedda Zenovka

Well, I really like these photos, maybe because they aren't photos..... Jedda Zenovka is showing some of her work here and I loved more or less everything there. Why? Well, I think its cos she uses photos as a starting point and plays with them until they are no longer photos but good digital art in their own right. I will have to go back and revisit....




Well, we know Wizzy likes to sit on things, (shes working on a great new piece, by the way, at the Ghetto) and this may look like I have taken a leaf out of her book, but its actually me trying to inter-act with Selavy's piece at AngelGate. As I never read instructions unless I have to, it never crossed my mind that Selavy could/would do a static piece...:))) keep us guessing Selavy....




Bryns atmosphere of romantic melancholia seeps into you slowly in her piece while you wait for the poems to rezz (it was very laggy, as predicted) and takes you to a different head-space as usual.

I haven't seen round the whole thing yet, it got too much like hard work, so will probably return a few times over the next few days...

but even tho White claims it was not a difficult thing to get together, I would say that is down to her great organisation, it could have been a mess, it looks like a well spaced out, well ordered, and well thought-through exhibition. Not many shows I go to are this well done.

:))

DUNE... another cock-up...

Well, the DUNE saga continues, and it seems that The Boys have, once again, created a PR cock-up. Strange that they repeatedly (I'm remembering the Openspace PR disaster) fail to treat their users with the same sort of care that a normal business has to use with its clients.

For those of you who can't be bothered to read the whole thing.....basically, LL has behaved very heavy-handedly, (no surprise there, then) and sided (over zealously) with the corporate lawyers rather than with the "community".

There are so many ways of getting things done in life, and we all know that HOW you ask/tell someone to modify their behaviour is VERY important. LL have not quite got the hang of it. This worries me slightly, and, in previous posts I have said the same. A leadership that we all depend on should, ideally, have some idea of how the world functions, e.g. PR, client base, etiquette, etc..

There is a business book I read once that pointed out that every customer you lose is worth thousands, possibly tens of thousands of pounds/dollars because you don't just lose a sale, you lose their LIFETIME consumption of your product. Now I would have hoped that LL had an idea of that and done what they could to diplomatically achieve their aims...... hmmmm.

:)))

New Species discovered....

Growing in the waterfall, presumably cos it likes the moisture..... here (well, near here)..

:))

Angelgate, and other things

Bettina has, apart from several very good blog posts, found time to do a bit of planting underwater. Now while I have been just thinking about it, Bettina has got it done. You can see it at Chakryn, (227,46,1) and it is worth popping into, tho its very busy.

Now, the big show this weekend is at AngelGate, as I have mentioned before, White Lebed has done a great job putting together work from 38 artists in a (previously missplellet)" Primavera" show. This takes place this weekend, and, with 38 artists showing and using their mailers, its gonna be busy.
The address is AngelGate, (89,116,651).

I got stuck on the Yellow floor, and I'm not sure why these things annoy me so much. Strawberry Holiday has a maze, fair enough, but, because you tp into the centre you have no choice but to participate. I wasn't really in the mood for mazes, the attraction is low to non-existant for me. I finally got to see her trees but couldn't be bothered to find my way back to the tp centre so I just went home.

It seems to me that mazes are dependant on a level of skill with camera and footwork which I do not have or, rather, am not prepared to spend my SL time mastering. For me its like the RL equivalent of going to the Tate to practice hopping on one leg while patting your head. Pointless, I could build a spiral staircase on my own land and run up and down it if I wanted that level of "amusement".

But it has amused me to see the Linden Boys moving into Philosophy, as in "welcome to the first day of the rest of your Second life".....etc....on logging on.
Well, I have a few for them...."A stitch in time saves nine....." "There's no time like the present".....I have been waiting for two years for them to sort out a few bugs...e.g. alphas hopping about...
"Never put off til tomorrow what you can do today".... if Kirsten can give us shadows on our SL, why can't LL get it together????
and a new one..."I think therefore I spam"... stop giving us stupid messages when we log on...:))

Remember, dear reader, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

:))

Always look on the bright side of life

Well, its that sort of a day, and the tune is haunting me.

Easter, the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, I love all that stuff. Its a throw-back to times when the calendar was regulated by the heavenly bodies, the Nature gods and our agricultural heritage..... great. Things are less related now, to anything, which helps strengthen our "alienation".
Standing alone and homeless (I use the phrase metaphorically) is a trial and a test, lol.

Eggs. Hmmm. well, .... what does my life REALLY need? not eggs.

So.....all thanks and praises to..... the Monty Python team and that great song. Life of Brian was banned in Norway when it first came out, and I had to wait til I got to Holland to see it, and that song has helped me a few times when life just gets so bizarre its almost macabre.




Its just about as finished as its ever going to be and, although I have a few hundred prims left, there won't be enough prims in the kitty to do much more with it at this point..... don't worry, its an egg-free zone.

SLURL (teleport from here)

Thanks for the nice comments....xxxxxxxxx

:))