Classical Brunch in the Gallery

In the Gallery starting at 9:30 SLT.

Voice Live for those who are interested.

Hello

Hello Oona, welcome to Second Life.

No, I refused to use the word "slogosphere," that I heard during the week. Refuse. Blog is a word that is ugly enough.

And his name

When in hell, he gazed on her corruption and fled,
it set the course for their eternity.
She the first goddess from which all things were born,
He the first god, who invited her, and then turned to scorn,
were now divided, divided by that figure cold who calls on us.

They did see his face, and his name was death.

When so he fled, the first god, and tossed behind him life and bitter fruit,
when he fleed from deep world, at mountains root,
She, flesh peeled from her bone, and eaten from sinew,
raged and demanded, the ransom of ages.
He, laughed, scoffing, his seed would be spilled,
he would raise up at least two, for each that she killed.

The fuel of her fury did have place, and his name was death.

The bodies that wash up from ravenous seas,
the corpses that languish among forgotten trees,
the bones that bake in Euphrates sun,
have bleached there millenia, since our world was begun.

With each mausoleum, with each new high tower,
with each great cathedral, with its gloom and its glower,
with each mighty mosque, or spiralling stair,
with each spire raised, as if hands clasped in prayer,
with each monument, with each book that's written,
it is life that we chase, though it is with him we are smitten.

We cannot stop, we cannot rest,
driven by deep biology's behest.

Our real seed my spill, and die on the ground,
our eggs may they shrivel, and scatter around.
But in future perhaps our legacy found,
by the light that we sent, as a probe to that plane
where all that once was, will be once again.

But there he will stand over, and mock all your pains,
shatter your dreams, and squander you gains.

Walk to the edge of sanity's breadth
and you will find him there smiling,
and his name is death.

The person you come to SL to meet is yourself

In chatroom, it is an abbreviation: ASL, or "Age/Sex/Location."

That's because in chatroom, the most important thing is zeroing in on who you can have sex tonight with, or at least sex this weeked with with a long drive. Chatroom names carry this in them: "NYCSexyCock79" answers the ASL question, and a bit more, right away.

SL is a lousy place to meet Ms. Sex Tonight, or even Ms. Sex This Weekend. I believe one of the reasons that the boyz are underrepresented in SL, is that they know this, and the ones that want sex tonight are elsewhere, well, getting sex tonight. It is a slightly less lousy place to go after striking out in a chatroom or sex site, or facebook haunt to get some release of tension. Even throwing voice into the mix, it will remain a lousy place to meet Ms. Sex Tonight. The ratio of women here looking for sex tonight is low, and many of the women looking for sex on SL are married. This may not bother you in your location, but trust me, it is not a long term proposition.

Sl is better for making long term relationships however than the chat space, precisely because you are meeting people based on their dreams, desires and hopes. An I swear on a stack of "How to get married" self-help books, that common goals are the most important thing for long term happiness. I hope that is true. I want it to be true.

The person you should be coming to SL to meet, is yourself. Because while SL is only middling at making an introduction to rl communities, it is very good at introducing you to a place where you can be out about whatever it is you think you might want to try out. Witness how there are special groups that are devoted to "rl lesbians only," to weed out "manbians," men playing lesbians on sl, and "slesbians," women who are heterosexual or bi rl and playing lesbians here, they are much, much smaller than the general population of avatars of the same kind.

But SL is a wonderful place to meet yourself. Meet her, or him, or them. Meet them in shape and form, in voice and activity. In her home, at his job, in her favorite haunts, at his favorite dance club, in the throes of orgasm, in the depths of despair. Whatever you want to be, what ever you are, you can be here.

I was told once "you don't know what you think, until you read what you wrote." It is very true. You don't know who you are, until you see what you did.

There are many people who have rls attached to one gender, but pursue the other gender here intentionally. I know people who have one political bent out there, and another here. The number of people who are dominant out there and submissive here, or submissive out there and dominant here, is legion. Pick your favorite line, sl is where you can smuggle yourself across it. Gender, orientation, outlook, vanilla if it is in you, it is in sl.


Many people, myself included, have had revelations here, have grown comfortable with aspects of their sexuality which recurred constantly, and only when confronted with seeing them in action, do they seem part of the whole. Impulses towards the same sex, attachment to particular sex acts. But deeper, identity, that these proclivities, desires, fantasies, are part of who you are. Or not part of who you are. Nothing cures you of a fantasy faster than doing it, and realizing that no matter how much you thought about it before, you don't like the person you are when you are doing it.

I want to be confessional here, but I think London Spengler and Jazon Beck are better at confession than I am. Confession may be the heart of a memoir, but it is also the death of a prostitute.

Instead, let me be real. SL is scattered over the world, over time zones, locations, ages. The clues are eradicated. Yes, by observation you can tell much more about someone than they admit, but less than you think, because any clue can be mimicked, more on this later.

But the one thing that can't be eradicated, the person who cannot hide their real rl, not the fake rl they live in front of other people, is you. Because here, that real rl comes out. Clearly. So many times I've been in a session, and the other person has said "I feel strange, I've never cum this hard before." Or some variation. He knows he knows, because the evidence is spattered over the keyboard in front of him, and in a trailing backwash of orgasm.

You can have sex in a closet, but not a life. Here is where the door to your closet swings open, and a cool breeze of freedom blows in.

User Continents

I am in the process of making a world map that is fine enough to show user continents, and making maps of user continents. I have done Plush, and am finishing up the Azure Islands. What other user continents should I map?

Basilica almost finished

Already nicknamed "The Basilica," we are rushing to complete the dance floor at Yedo in time for this Saturday's opening.

Will You Be With Me

Will you be with me? Will you be, with me?
Will you let me gaze upon your fair face,
and into your oceanic eyes, for this day,
then that day, and then the next and next.

Will you be with me, when I am alone,
and need to sleep?

Will you let me drink in your fine etched muscles,
which are acid burned with peculiar clarity
within my mind, as if metal made your flesh
and ink stained shadow clings to your human form.
It must be my tears which are the acid,
for in them our history is written.

Will you be with me, when i am alone,
and need to sleep?

Will you come when I call?
Will you care what I ask?
Will you kill what creeps and crawls,
and sends shivers in my spine?

Will you be with me, when i am, alone,
and need to sleep.

Will you find me flowers in winter,
cool dew in summer, and bright stars
on clouded nights.

Will you hold me when I cry out
the jagged burning edges that cut me.
Will you apologize when I need it,
because I have been wrong.

Will you listen to the negative shapes,
that my words make when I speak.
Will you wait for my anger,
Wash away my fears.

Will you warm me with words,
waft me with dreams,
share me with passion,
shear me from reason.

Will you comfort my coldness,
and embrae my soft heat,
that grows amber and golden,
like new summer wheat.

Will you be, with me, when, I am alone,
and need to sleep.

Will you listen to me,
when I tell you the truths,
that your ears can barely strain to hear.
Which fall upon your ego like lashes of a whip,
Searing and scraping at your endurance,
but in whose fire will make you more a man,
my man, and no others.

Will, you be with me, when I, am alone
and need to sleep.

Will you force me when i have forgotten,
forgotten, in some pique, the passion.
Will you push me when I dole out,
the erotic droplets of union too faintly,
or withold out of anger, at my need for you?

Can you ravish me, knowing when no isn't no,
but not now, or not yet, or not so.
But not not at all.

Will you be with me, when I am alone,
and need, to sleep.

The Venice of Second Life: Day 2

(As usual, click on the image for full size)


A region is known by the company it keeps. The need for retailers of exquisite taste and ability is what makes or breaks any project. On SL, a club is, in essence, a loss leader to draw the right kind of traffic. No matter how you look at it, one of the crown jewels of any shopping district must be its best clothier, and one does not get any better than Vindi Vindaloo on second life. Vindi is the reigning deity of fabric on sl. More over, she is always efficient and pleasant to deal with, and in a world where "the customer is served" often means braised, basted or boiled, she is the soul of etiquette.

I have heard many people complain about Vindi's prices. I would like to put these prices in perspective. It is rather standard to charge 350L for a flexi dress. These never come with shoes at that price. Unscripted prim shoes retail for 150L. Vindi packages a dress better than the 350L dress, with shoes better than almost any 150L shoes you will find, and designed to go with the dress. She charges approximately 600L for this in various mid priced incarnations. In short, she is charging exactly what you would pay at competing retailers for similar goods. The benefit is that they are designed by her house to work as an ensemble. While there is a joy in putting together an outfit, and Vindi's clothes lend themselves to this well, there is no reason to look at the package that she sells as being in any way above the ordinary prices for much more ordinary goods.

Now there are some creations in her output that go for far more than this. But they are extraordinary creations of far above the quality that most designers even aspire to, let alone are capable of. Part of what you are paying for is precisely that no one else will be wearing the same thing. It is worth the 2000L for her best creations, and worth still more than many people will not feel capable of paying that modest cost for a dress. You will waste more in the next few months on bad fast food, almost without question. Why not skip a few pastries at Starbucks, which are bad for you, and invest in some Vindi instead? Pounds that look bad, or pixels that look marvelous, it is up to you.



And marvelous is indeed the word, above is her monarch butterfly dress called "Azazello." It goes anywhere, and does almost anything. From formal ball in its full incarnation, to trampy night on the town with boa and miniskirt, to business casual. It's another important part of real value: the versatility of it. I must admit to making two changes here. One is adding Arsheba's lovely and cleverly made monarch wings, and the other is tilting the boa from square, to give it that extra push of attractiveness.

But one retailer, even one who is as fastidiously polished in all of her aspects as Vindi, look at the quality of construction of the store, does not a shopping district make. Which is why it does not take long to find out that Plush not only has the names you know, but the names you might not know. Consider "slave wear by violet," whose store shows a "Lost Garden's of Apollo" look that creates a stunning richness. (The dress is Vindi's simple in design but complex in execution Isis.)

However, SL does not live by shopping alone, even though I could run away for half a dozen posts on the shopping district. Day three will touch upon that broader need for life itself.

The Venice of Second Life: Day 1

I am going to take some pictures in the Venice of Second Life, Anshe Chung's continent of Plush. There are places with higher standards of building, there are posher avenues, there are more fantastic visions. But for sheer ambition, drive, scope and scale, Chung's Plush is the one that says "this is what SL could be like." And I might add, should be like. I don't blame Anshe, more power to her. She didn't call up LL one day and say "you should make SL's base experience terrible, that way I can sell a somewhat better one at a big mark up." She merely exploited what was there, and has held in mind what I think is the most important principle of commerce: don't pursue your dreams, charge other people for pursuing theirs. The road to other people's dreams, is paved with money.

Second Life's Anshe Chung realized, perhaps better than anyone, that "dreams" in the sense of visualized desires, is the bright day lit half of the world of SL. She spent time in the other half, and if she has anything to say about it, she hasn't said it publicly.

Her rise has provoked a great deal of jealousy, many people know that, if only they had been in SL earlier, they could have done what she has done. Many of them think this despite being squeamish about many of the things which Anshe did with abandon. She didn't just scoop up money from escorting, she was one of the guys about it according to people who knew her at that time. She didn't just do it, she clearly seemed to be having fun, and no one will ever know if she was faking it. So the answer to the critics out of jealousy is: you weren't here, and you don't know what she had to do, with a smile, to get where she is now. It is certain that if not Anshe, someone. But then that is true of many things.




The first picture is, naturally, centered on the Anshe Chung Studios tower, which sits in the middle of an artificial lake on the Western side of Plush, from here is visible a cathedral, and the beginning of the vast shopping district which is at the center of Plush.

This picture, taken at local dusk, captures the audacity and simplicity of what Chung is doing. It is, shall I say, the highest common denominator. As good as it can be, and leave almost no one out who wants to play. If LL allows the Lowest Common Denominator in the form of orgy rooms and camping to pump up statistics, it is Anshe's Plush which offers a view as to what SL could look like, if only it had a mass audience. The failure of LL to realize this is costing it dear, other virtual worlds are racing ahead by offering content that is "good enough" as opposed to content that is atrocious for free.

These features of Anshe Chung's output as a sim auteur are not to be triffled with. Here is a smoothness, and ease of entry. It is like good journalistic prose, almost invisible as a medium between author and reader, without stumble. Well almost, in my time here there were numerous building twitches that detracted from the polished image, gamma among them. However, the were in places and in ways that only a refined eye could see. One of the things about the world of commerce, as opposed to art or leisure, is that it is important to know when something worth doing, is not worth doing well.

Simplicity, democracy, audacity, scale. These are the pillars on which Chung has built an empire. Good enough, but good enough for everyone with the money to play.

Oh no, not again!

One thing that is very annoying is a debunker who goes on about bad statistics, and then uses bad statistics.

Specifically tehehehe 18% of total land mass comment.

New York City is what fraction of New York State's land mass. What fraction of New York State's population is it? What fraction of its GDP. Roll's eyes. More over the direct sex industry, to which I belong, is a fraction of the size of the indirect sex industry. Yes Stoker sells a lot of beds to escorts. He sells even more to couples.

More over, and this is something I am at pains to point out repeatedly, more important than the sex acts on second life, is the ability to be part of a society that accepts the signs of your sexual culture. In RL, gay men being able to be visibly gay is "coming out," you can have sex in a closet, but not a life.

The reality is the reverse, rl is filled with people having sex, and much more of that is weird sex, or involves fantasies of weird sex than more, I won't say puritanical minds, but hypocritical ones, would like to think about. Here's a simple thought, it takes, for couples trying conceive, many acts of sex to get a child. So look around you on the bus, realize that there are the results of hundreds of acts of sex staring you in the face. Stare out on to the street, thousands of them. Look at a concert or sporting event.

Millions
of
acts
of
sex.

We are primates, and for the time being, that means the vast majority of people will engage in sex, think about sex, and much of the economy consists of what people have to do to get enough food, space and accoutrements to be able to find someone to have sex with.

Will people please stop underestimating what lengths people go through for sex? And will people start quoting dollar volume if they want to talk about the importance of sex to sl's economy, and include money spent on content for the purposes of offering direct sex as part of this figure. I know economists do this when they talk about the importance of this or that to the American economy, so it can't be impossible, since the American economy doesn't live on one searchable grid of computers.

Hamlet you know better than this....

Maproom at Yedo

Click for larger view. Surl is here in Yedo. The new ballroom should be open too. I will be putting these on 20x20 prims at some point.

I have sixty seconds only sixty second to write this little minute post,
with 30 typos at the most,
I will not give up the ghost.

But what can one blog in 60 seconds with just a conceit, however indiscrette.

I have 30 seconds only 30 second to finish this little minute post,
not time to stop or coast,
neot even time to describe
the things I'd diatribe
if I had the time.

There are only 5 second, ontly 5 seconds to finish this little minute post
and I'm running out of tiems
while I run out of rhy

Why I am here.

I am here because of exquisitely sensitive hearts like London Spengler's.

I am here because of souls on a deep journey like Jazon Beck.

I am here because of bright curious and openly warm people like Hamlet Au.

I am here because of generous and fabulously talented people like June.

I am here because of visionary people like Lou Tones.

I am here because of acidicly observant people like Vint Falken.

I am here because of the good listeners like Veyron Supercharge.

I am here because of the people who I have had a chance to help, which has, in turn, helped me grow as a person.

I am here because of wonderous craftsmanship and keen eye of of Vindi Vindaloo.

I am here because of the Botanical Gardens and Paris 1900.

I am here because of welcoming people like Mitzy of Alady.

I am here because Le Club at Herald Square and Twisted Orchid gave me my first breaks in a difficult business.

I am here because of people with boundless potential like Susan Usher.

I am here because of good time and good spirited Sunta Bing.

I am here because of the kindness of Rebecca Beaumont.

I am here because of all around good guys like bryan Burns.

I am here because of tireless organizers and community builders like Gwyneth Llewelyn and Zoe Connolly and 57 Miles.

I am here because of dozens of other people, some who I know, some who I've just chatted once or twice, others I've never met, and some who don't want their names dropped here, but are very precious to me in every day and every minute. Over the course of today as I have time I will put in links everyone I've mentioned here.

I hope you will make your list and share it with us, if you send me a link, I will link it in this post.

Dancers in the Mist

At the new Yedo ballroom. Click for full size.

James Woolcott on target.

James Woolcott takes on the "it isn't what you do, it is who you do" culture of journalism.

It is an old warning, but in my time in SL, I've come to realize more and more the delicate balance between personal loyalty, which is very important to me, and public loyalty. Public loyalty, that due you have for being part of a world, sometimes takes pride of place over personal loyalty. Nowhere more so than in writing about that world. Closed doors mean closed worlds and closed minds. Closed worlds are what the 20th century sturggled with from without, and from within, and which our own will struggle with from within and without.

Internet Radio

Shorter Sound Exchange (the company that sets broadcasting royalties):

The operation would have been a success, even though it would kill the patient.

These seem people to have gone to the same school of business management as the ones running the "surge" in Iraq.

Escort Discrimination

One of the pervasive facts of life is on sl is escort discrimination. Like bigotry against gay men and anti-newbie sentiment, it is one of the few forms of discrimination people are allowed. Escorts spend a great deal of money on fashion and skins, we live on it as our trade, and we reward ourselves by buying content. The fashion industry on sl, to no small extent is part of the sex industry. This is why it is particularly unhappy when a fashion house proves to be discriminatory in how they allow coverage. Una Ewing is such a person. She wanted coverage for her show, I've modelled and done SL photography. She refused because I am not the right sort of person.

On one hand, banning freelancing from areas is reasonable, people have built a sim or developed a parcel, and they don't want other people selling on that parcel. Whether hair or companionship, fair is definitely fair. Girls who freelance where they are not wanted can, and should, be banned for it. But many places take it a step further and pre-emptively ban all escorts. That crosses the line.

I will never spend one Linden on anything she does, and I will tell other girls not to spend money on what she does. We have enough places we can't go, we have enough barriers without giving money to them. Nor will I have a good word to say for her. SL is a place where discrimination should not exist. No one's life choices, so long as they are consenual life choices, should be open to attack. No one's state of being should be, and frankly, no one should be stuck as a newbie one minute longer than is necessary.

No escort or former escort should cover her show, spend money on her, or push her work, because that money will go into slamming doors in our faces later.

Shame on you Una. Shame on you. Without the sex industry, there would be no SL for you to sell things to.

Major Voice Chat Bug

This afternoon there was a blogger party, and things were going along well. Too well, because my client crashed, and I was told the sim crashed as well. When I crashed I was using the voice client, not the normal one. I logged back in on the normal client. Much, much, much later, after I had gone back to Yedo to help shadow with some shapes, and had been chattering away on the phone, I heard voices coming from my earphones on the floor. It was the two hosts of the blogger event, on their private channel. Logging in and out of the regular client didn't change things. Logging in and out of the voice client didn't change things. They could not hear me, even though I could hear everyone on the voice chat on their sim. However, where I was, back home at Yedo, I could not connect to the voice chat stream there.

This went on for some time. Listening to iTunes, even listening to a radio stream, didn't change things. Quitting out of Nicecast, a mac audio program for streaming out, didn't change things. However, starting a reboot had an interesting result. iTunes stopped the reboot, I disappeared off the list of active speakers and the stream stopped.

Speaking of being a fly on the wall...

Some days

Some days I feel like going to a major press outlet, and writing an op-ed which essentially says "don't go to SL, you would be an idiot to do so." The simple reason is that it is clear that they are completely intent on orphaning their current content producing base of customers. Simple things get worse with every release. One of my parcels now sits on a voice enabled sim. It is also much, much, much, much laggier in the current release. Simple things get worse with every release: once upon a time my AO caught hte splat on the ground animation every time, so I landed and it looked graceful. Now it almost never does.

Paying more and more and more, and getting less and less and less, that seems to be the SL way.

Simple things get worse with every release: script time has now doubled forr the sims that I have parcels on. Everything is slower.

Simpke things get worse with every release: spammers can now send things without knowing who sent it. You can't stop it, you can't report it, and you just have to wade throught the garbage. Thanks again, another quality feature for spammers from Linden Laboratories.

Simple things get worse with every release: more and more of my teleports end up with all my attached objects, shoes, hair, AO, in my nether regions.

Simple things get worse with every release: pose balls take longer and longer to sync, and so more and more couples dancing is spent with the man hither and the woman yon.

Simple things get worse with every release, a friend of mine has only been able to put on clothes occassionally for four days now. My textures are more and more often broken.

Now how can I be a great evangelist for a platform which takes a great deal of money from people, including the group I am part of, and does not provide good service, better software, or a stream of users to buy and use my wares. If I am supposed to get my own customers, why don't I just set up my own web site and give out phone sex? I mean, it is a proven job, and the ability to do it without my real voice is absolutely not related to second life.

What I am supposed to say to people? Come to SL they will take your money and dump it into a system designed to let horny obnoxious stupid people shout lewd come ons at you?

Kumoniwanalaiu:The Case For Email in SL

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