Eshi Otawara Dress Auctioned for L$460,000

In a bid that almost surely takes the second place as the highest auction bid for a virtual object, a pair of avatars pooled their money to win the last copy of a very limited-supply item.

According to New World Notes and  Kay Fairey and Clarabelle Cazalet, a pair of Second Life models, combined to purchase the last copy of Eshi Otawara’s famous “fishhook” gown.  The proceeds of the auction went to the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life, one of the Grid’s favorite charities.

More information available at Not Possible in Real Life — which this dress surely qualifies for!

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A side note:  Eshi is also known for her ongoing battle with U. S. Immigration, which is attempting to deport her on a charge of “green-card marriage.”  The fight is continuing; while I take no sides in the question here, being unfamiliar with the matter, I link to her current status, and ask you to judge for yourselves.   If you support Eshi, please consider contacting Immigrations and Custom Enforcement, and your congresscritter or senator, to bring this to their attention.

I Need Me a Fireplace….

…a chalkline about four meters out from it, and a large glass of Bushmills (preferably the Black Bush!).

While catching up on the news, I passed through the front page of Ham Au’s New World Notes.  One of the stories from this week was about him talking about his new book with an in-world psychologist who runs a podcast.

The title of the article:  “Shrink Rapped.”

Contact Sheet — Chrisy Jewell, Connie Sec, Ryou Yiyuan, Torley Linden, et al.

Contact Sheet is an irregular column of selected photographs and portraits from Residents of Second Life. Images used in this article are used under permission of the owners via their participation in the Creative Commons license; otherwise, all rights are reserved. Click on the links as necessary to go to the required blog, Flickr or Snapzilla page. Please go to these artists’ pages in any case to leave comments, if you have an account on the appropriate service.

Suggestions are appreciated; please send descriptions and links to me by in-world IM, notecard, or E-mail to harper.ganesvoort@gmail.com.

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Chrisy Jewell knows more about Greek myths than I do, I’ll admit readily. She has a good reason — she’s Greek. Here, she has given us a piece she calls Aphrodite Tymborychos, or “Aphrodite the Gravedigger.” It seems there may have been more to the goddess of love than causing mortals to go mad with desire…. The picture seems to have been retouched just slightly to my eye, a sort of transparent “texture” layer, that gives the composition a feel reminiscent of the illustrations of N. C. Wyeth at his best.

While this, Stairs to Heaven, is not Wyeth — any of the Wyeths, who are grounded firmly in Chadds Ford School realism for the most part — but more of a mild surrealism. The first thing beyond the merits of the work that comes to mind is that photo of Salvador Dalí (done for Life, I think) painting in the air, with the swirl of water and a pair of cats flying through the foreground. (Of course, I tend to think of Dalí whenever I think of surrealism.)

Or, for pure (virtual) realism, go to Killerious Professionalis. The story says it all.

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Connie Sec decided a while back to channel her inner Jedi, and came up with Constanza Jade:

There is a slew of comments at the Flickr page, including some funny ones; go take a look by clicking on the image.

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More after the break….

Still Looking for Help for Sinnocent

Sinnocent Mirabeau, whose real life medical problems with her dog I wrote about last week, has told me that the surgery has been scheduled for this week. However, she’s still some $300 short for the veterinary costs. And we’re talking real New-nited States Dollars here, folks, not linden dollars. Sinnocent is still running her BOGO sale at Sinsation (I finally got the acronym right), and I urge you to take advantage of it. Allow me to demonstrate some of my favorite “wigs” here for your temptation! (These photos won’t be pretty; more quick and dirty, as I want to complete it and help her; but if it helps get her that last $300, it’ll be worth the artistic sacrifice [grin].)

As a sweetener to the pot, send me a picture of you in some of your new Sinsation hair in front of the poster at the Sinsation store, and I’ll send you my current package of prints from Harper’s Fine Art. That’s 21 framed pieces of art, at least a L$2,000 value — for free. Can’t beat that, folks; you’ll be doing well, you’ll be doing good, and so will Sinnocent and myself! Come on, and give the lady a hand!!

New Linden Communications Manager Introduces Herself

Katt Linden has introduced herself to Residents at the Big Blog. Katt is the new Communications Manager for Linden Lab, and the comment section to her article is filling rapidly with “friendly greetings” (thank you, Torley!) and wishes for success, as well as hopes for improved communications between the Lab and its customers.

As I said in my own comment, I don’t envy Katt her new position at all. Reading many blogs and comments convinces me that Residents can be a cantankerous, demanding crew even at the best of times. And, any road, being the PR mouthpiece of any organization is a thankless task when the times go rough. But I hope that Katt will have success in her new position, as well as help mend the fences that have been rather strained over the many issues this past year has raised.

Call for Help for Sinnocent Mirabeau

Gentle readers, if you have some extra lindens in your pockets, I’ve heard of a fellow avatar in need.

Sinnocent Mirabeau, the owner of Sinsation Hair in Hairspray, sent out a notecard with good news and bad news. Since the note is public (she has a dispenser in her store), I reproduce it here to let her tell it in her own words:

Hi everyone.

It is with a heavy heart that I write this, but I figure my crisis and personal heartache can maybe have something good come out of it. Hopefully for myself and for all the people in SL who like my hair or skins and want to get 2 for the price of one.

Anyways, here’s the deal. I normally hold sales like this every few months just for kicks and as a fun way to get people even more hair than they’d normally be able to purchase on their own. However, this sale is of great importance to me for other reasons.

A week ago my 9 month old baby puppy, Eris, (even tho she’s not so little anymore) started to have a mass growing in her ear. I thought she had just gotten bitten by something outside and it would clear up in a few days. Well that didn’t happen. In fact, the mass got about 8x bigger. So I took her to the vet yesterday and got the worst possible news.

She didn’t get bitten; she has a tumor and a hematoma forming in her ear and she needs surgery to remove it. Otherwise it will just get bigger and bigger and will either.. rupture… get badly infected…. and most likely both will happen.. and the infection the doc said will eventually kill her.. sooner rather than later.

The even worse news is exactly how much it’s going to cost to save her… Which is $1447.00 US. I was in shock when given that figure because it is just not a price I can even close to afford. I’m getting married in RL in September to my sl hubby and I’ve had to put most of my money towards that for deposits and all the other wedding junk that I need.

The irony is that she was my engagement present, and now… my wedding is the thing that has taken up all my money and put me in this spot. Blah…

So at any rate I’ll get right to the point.. I have a very little window of time in order to raise the money to save her.. so I decided I would do a buy one get one free sale in order to try and help to get some of the money for her surgery.

Everything in my shop is eligible for the sale, nothing at all is excluded. The basic idea is whatever you buy.. you get something of equal or lesser value.. free.

So if you buy a skin you can get a skin free or a couple hairs, doesnt matter. Anything goes.

All you have to do is purchase what you want, then send me a notecard with what you purchased and which items you would like to receive free. I will send them on out to you after that.

I suspect anyone who likes outrageous hair knows of Sinsation. If you’ve seen some of my Flickr photos, you’ve seen me sporting Sinnocent’s work. It’s good, and I want to throw my support behind her. I’ve already done so materially; I purchased a fatpack for £5,000, and I’ve requested a £3,500 fatpack as my freebie. Drop yourself into Hairspray region, step over to the pink palace you’ll see when you materialize, and let’s help out a fellow traveler and good designer.

Raising the Red Flag

In my last article, I linked to Rheta Shawn’s ongoing article listing known participants in the bloggers’ protest strike to encourage Linden Lab to clarify its new trademark/brand policy.  The comments to her post show that the bloggers are approaching their concern with a sense of humor as well as seriousness — and not a little grasp of the classics, as well.  A painting by Delacroix, invocation of Victor Hugo and the musical Les Misérables that derives from Hugo’s masterpiece; it’s all there.

One writer, Laetizia Coronet of Virtual Village Voice, took it to the next level.  Revolutionaries have used the red flag as a symbol of revolt for years, and that includes, of course, revolutionaries of a more recent vintage.  In her comment, Laetizia did a bit of light filk — to the Internationale!  In the same vein, I responded that if we were going to be subjected to Marxian polemics next, I’d be putting in a phone call — to the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover.  (The modern FBI doesn’t worry too much about Commie plots….)

All that reminds me of my college days.  I have a Bachelor of Arts in humanities (hail the Seven Liberal Arts!), and was, of course, required to take several core classes.  In the one dealing with the 1800s, we were required to either write one major paper on a topic of our choice, or several smaller papers from a list of suggestions.  One classmate chose the mini-papers, and one of the suggestions was Karl Marx.  She purchased copies of Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto, and was reading them at work during lunch time.  They were laying on her desk, out in plain view, as the boss walked by.  According to my classmate, he took one look and winced, and begged her (jokingly, I’m sure) to put those things away in a drawer!  I think he was afraid she was planning to set off the revolution there in his company….

Temporary Build by AM Radio — The Refuge and The Prospect

While rummaging through Hitomi Mokusei’s photos on Flickr — she is one of my contacts, since I’ve enjoyed her photographic work so much — I came across a set which she put up just a few days ago.

The set details some of the latest build created by Hitomi’s friend, AM Radio, the avatar also responsible for the tremendously popular Far Away build, a sort of rural Andrew Wyeth landscape. There is truly something about AM’s work that needs to be seen in person and experienced — and then imaged in detail. I haven’t been there yet myself, but I’m going no later than tomorrow, I think. You should, too, for this build is temporary, and it’s going down after March 6! I’m sorry I discovered it so late, especially to spread the word, but better late than never. Enjoy!

RL and SL merging?

Charlot Dickens at Charlot’s Web points out that it’s getting harder and harder to tell whether you’re in Second Life or the Real World at times, depending on where you are.

Her evidence?  Read the article and see the pictures….

Ewing Fashion Agency Design Awards

The Ewing Fashion Agency held its 2008 Design Awards on January 20th. While I was unable to attend, I had some interest in this season; 1, it was my first season in Second Life; and 2, I had purchased nominated items from two of the designers in the competition.

And I’m very glad to say that both of my nominees won! Personal congratulations go out to Ann Otoole for her Andromeda gown, which I wrote up and modeled as one of the holiday trio between Christmas and New Year’s Day; and to Digit Darkes for her wild Cher-like mohawk hair called Defiance, which I just couldn’t resist! And a batch of general congratulations and best wishes to all of the winners.

Andromeda, by Ann Otoole

Defiant, by Digit Darkes (gold catsuit by Nicky Ree)