Planet Mongo

I’ve actually poked my head out from the store recently to have some true recreation time, instead of churning out art prints. I even braved the crowds at Frank’s Place (article), and had a very pleasant time, as well as delivering a gift to Nanceee Sinatra.

I wish I could remember the name of the avatar I was dancing with, but I lost my chat log transcript (sigh). If you’re reading this, nice man, let the girl know who you were! But most of my time lately has been spent at a build taking shape in a very interesting region called Planet Mongo.

Yes, friends, those of you who are into the True Lore of science fiction (or are older than the dirt) know that this was the land of Ming the Merciless, self-styled Master of the Universe and arch foe of Flash Gordon! Well, after a series of wars to throw off his yoke, I am told, the patriots succeeded — but at the price of a shattered, devastated planet, a fragment of which broke dimensional barriers and landed on the Grid.

(Thumbs link to large photos, 1024×682)

But some survived, as ever; and they vowed to rebuild the world, under more enlightened rule. They eventually succeeded, and the results hover some 500 meters above the blasted surface.

You simply must dress for the job, of course. The well-dressed space explorer guards against both vacuum and radiation these days — which means gold.

Suit: Seinen Full Warrior’s Bodysuit (gold)
Hair: Junwave Pineapple Golden
Skin: Comet Corp female gold skin
Shoes: enkythings Pinson gold boots

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….

Contact Sheet — Jhuzen Ketsugo, Ludmilla Writer, Katerina Kirax, angie.vita

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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For this edition of Contact Sheet, I’m presenting some ultra-glamour couture from a regular hand and fellow blog publisher; art builds photographed by another Resident; a nice landscape; a bit of humor; and a case of the Eye has it.

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Blogger Jhuzen Ketsugo also goes by the Flickr handle of DJ Ket-su. Her blog, Virtual Fashion Addict, is known for its regular “Look of the Day” column, in which Jhu models an outfit in detail.

For this article, Jhu described being invited to a motel opening by a friend, who specified that the party was glam dress. She assembled a costume that fit the bill to a T, while being eclectic and ultra fierce, in her words. The two photos she used are also in the article; but it’s easier to work from her copies on Flickr (which is where I found them anyway). [Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3] The whole ensemble is great, except for (to my taste) the bracelet set; but note especially the earrings and the hairstyle.

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Zero Point, Kelham

I was shopping the other day for a facelight system that would stand up to the new client’s WindLight requirements, and was sent to the FaceFX store in Kelham region by good friend Ele Newell. (It works, by the way! Highly recommended.) After finishing up with my business there, I did my usual of checking out the neighborhood, and again a massive splash of color attracted my attention.

Zero Point, created by Sabine Stonebender, beggars any verbal description I can offer here. It’s a monumental art build, not too many meters away from the store, based in a pseudo-Greek colonnade. It seems to be made out of collimated energy, shaped into whorls and pyramids and streamers of flowing colors. The whole thing is constantly in motion, and has lots of surprises in store for a thorough explorer. Even the pictures I’m placing following the break don’t do this mobile build justice, for it’s constantly in motion like an electrified tornado.

The Magic Forest in Moldof

I’ve been playing around with my latest virtual toy — a jetski. It’s a lovely little baby; two seater, customizable colors — I set it to Harper blue, of course — five speeds, makes the spray fly when you cross region boundaries. (Your course also gets a little ragged at that point, until you stabilize in the new sim server, which leads to some occasionally interesting effects…:) Since I reside in a semi-coastal region, but without a marina, I figured this would be a good way to do some exploring in my “neighborhood” without having to worry about where to tie up the yacht.

It took a while to get the hang of the controls, and it’s still not plain sailing yet. But I did manage to work my way through a forest of coastal houses and developments, out to sea, and along the coast. Until a flash of vibrant color caught my attention, and I heaved to and turned to look at a forest you would not believe unless you’ve set foot there.

These photos are not retouched in any way, I assure you. The trees, lower plants, and even the rocks, are the creations of soror Nishi, the avatar in the first photograph of this gallery, and are located across two regions. What you’re seeing here is actually not at its best, as I think the Grid was having a grass frop yesteday morning. That would account for the flat grey ground in some of the images above. But the others are completely amazing — enough to blow your mind quite thoroughly. For a second, I thought someone had slipped me some acid, and I was on another kind of trip….

There is a teleporter near these coordinates, which will take you to a skybox filled with more sights. Make sure you hunt along the walls, or fly up farther with a jetpack so you can see where to come down, as one part of this skybox — the best, in my opinion — is off in a sort of alcove reached by a narrow little passage.

Frank’s Place Has a New Landmark

Why do I make noise about this? Because the old landmark is no longer good. The region’s name has changed, from Oasis Resort to — “Franks Place”!

The new SLurl is here.

Among other things, the Sinatras are running a large expansion of their mall, oriented toward the formally-dressed clientele of the club. Fine stores such as Virtual Impressions are there, and a look is much encouraged.

Ginny Talamasca is My Designer

Or at least it seems that way.  Like half of the avatars of Second Life, when the Last Sale of the late couturière’s designs started up at Last Call, I loaded up at the bargain-basement prices.  But I was buying before that as well, and a good Talamasca is well worth the original price.  If there was a vintage couture market for designs on the Grid — impossible because of most perm settings — Ginny’s styles would rank up at or near the top.

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I wanted a new gown for a fashion portrait I was shooting for my new page on the Second Life Bloggers site at ning.com, and so I broke into the Inventory and chose an item I’ve been wearing a lot of lately in various forms:  Ginny’s Milena gown.  This is a gorgeous creation in leather and black satin; the bustier hugs you in just the right spots (grin), while the bustle gives that romantic luxury we ball-dancers crave.  I chose the chessboard in Versailles to pose at for the portrait, and the result was:

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!

A Few Handy Tips

I’ve been learning a few things this weekend about Second Life, and I’m putting them up here for wider distribution.  Along with this is one trick I’ve discovered myself — though someone else may have developed it already.  But Information Should Be Free (not textures, but factual information — more on this in future), and it deserves spreading around.

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This may be a little weird, but one Resident I asked for help said that it’s happened to her as well, or something similar.  Yesterday, I was relaxing at my loft in my favorite Dark Silver skin from chroma, when I remembered I had to get a closeup photo of Nyla Cheeky’s tinyprim-based cloche cap for my piece on her gown.  I quickly threw myself back into the dress and hat and hair, and my normal skin — but then, when I mounted the posing stand I keep in my loft, I discovered that my face was still silver!  Some canny camera work gave me the shot I wanted, but you can still see the tip of my nose is rather dark (grin).

It was still the same way today, and so it was obvious that something was up, either with SL, my client, or with a corruption of the file.  Once I had struggled off of my land — Frank’s Place in Oasis Resort is number 16 on the Popular Places list, and the loft is on the corner of the land — I put up a message on Fashion Emergency asking for help.  Back came the suggestions to (a) clear my cache by going to Preferences, Network, and click the correct button; and then (b) “rebake” my skin texture by Control-Alt-R.  That did the trick, and you should remember this if you ever run into the same situation yourself.

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I love most aspects of the current Google-style Search function in Linden Lab’s client.  But how many know that the results are displayed in, essentially, a Chat window?  This lends itself to a handy idea for finding specific items from a merchant’s wares.

This can be done in two ways, either of which require an outside application.  The first calls for you to select all the text of the product list from below the teleport button, by highlighting it with your mouse cursor.  (Or you can highlight a few letters, then press Control-A to select all.)  Control-C to copy it, then you paste the text into an editor such as Notepad or EditPad.  The second way is to copy only the URL you will find at the bottom of the merchant’s page, and paste this into the address bar of your browser, e.g. Firefox, etc.  This will bring up that page from the Second Life community portal, which appears to be what the new Search polls for results.

Any road, now search the text with the Find function to locate what you’re looking for.  You’ll get the price that merchant is asking — which is nice in itself.  But you’ll also get a set of Grid coordinates where the item’s billboard is located in the store.

Back to Second Life; teleport to the store.  Once there, open the Main Map, and click inside the region you’re in currently to get a red teleport target.  Then punch in the coordinates you found from the search.  Do not teleport; this could place you inside a wall, which would be embarrassing, not to say prone to knock you out of the Grid (grin).  Rather, just close the Map after doing this, then home in on your target by following the red beacon and arrow.  Voila; you’ve found what you want, and with a minimum of hunting through the whole store.  Very useful if the merchant has something as big as ETD Designs or other places.

The Anglican/Episcopalian (Second) Life

The other afternoon, as I was rezzing in, I received one of the ever-present group notices, from one that I had just joined the previous day. Bible study was scheduled for the next morning, and I would be very welcome to attend at the Parish House.

Yes, religion is present in Second Life as well. Just about any societal-based activity is available on the Grid, and it’s not surprising that the Immanent is there as well. It’s not incredibly thick on the ground, but RL people, if nothing else, will bring their RL beliefs with them into SL — or create religions. Cory Linden was well known as wandering around in the guise of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the First Second Life Church of Elvis still operates. For myself, though I have a bit of a mystical bent as well, I prefer relatively mainline Christianity, and participate in my area Episcopalian church. So, when I read this article from Episcopal Life online, I had to investigate it.

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The island is named Epiphany, logically enough. And the owner has built for the glory of God an impressive complex of structures indeed. Here’s the most impressive, the Anglican Cathedral. This pile of prims is an excellent emulation of other well-known piles of RL stonework, scattered about the length of England, and even in the United States, and is sizeable. Whoever built it worked carefully and well to get the appearance, inside and out, just right. When I stepped inside, it felt rather like a real cathedral. Here’s a few shots:

Five services a week (usually Evening Prayer or Compline, according to my reading) are held, and all are invited. Bible study is part of the program as well. There are also sermons that you can listen to, offered by the “rector,” Rev. Mark Brown of New Zealand. For more information, see the cathedral blog.