Bad, Bad Avatar

I have been a bad avatar and blown off some very important projects in SL of late. To any and all impacted... I'm sorry... The dream state that haunts me so often, this RL, as people call it, has consumed so much of my world of late. It's addictive and probably detrimental to society as a whole.

I got my Burning Life build almost finished by the time BL was over. :( And there were so many things to explore and marvel over. In a transitory world, a transitional event can act like and alpha over alpha texture.

In any case I'm going to try to catch you all up on the projects with which I am involved and in the process I hope to catch up with the projects themselves.

CODEPINK. We didn't do as much for the debates as I would have liked. I'm just not a good people coordinator... too much of a lone wolfess for that (LOL. I must be getting in touch with my inner Furry.) But my personal hijacking of the "I Miss America" CODEPINK Campaign for Burning Life was fun. CODEPINK on Commonwealth has been neglected for far too long. Same with CODEPINK and its involvement with the Babel Project. CODEPINK is currently sponsoring the Cafe on Womens Center.

Womens Center. The name is good. The name alone is getting dozens of avatar visits a day. I just need to have the time to finish the unpretentious thematic build and get some more content scattered about. And I have to get some speakers lined up, and get my Women's Freebie Center created. I got rid of the Volcano on Womens Center. I'm recreating my first real home in SL - the beachfront comfy but palatial house I designed and built in Scandium when I had a hillside there before Hippie Pay ruined the neighborhood. I am looking for a Sponsor for the Women's Building Place, the Sandbox, if you will.

Anyway I want to get my Freebie Area set up so newcomers have a safer place to search.

I'm also interested in establishing a Poetry Group that meets there that is positively focused, not critique based... where work is discussed but not evaluated.

I still have my shops in Barcelona de Oeste. I'm just not sure how to handle this. Liam Serf has been a great friend and an early mentor in my SL life. I will keep a store there. I just don't have what I need there in terms of location and space, though. I am trying a set up in another store, but.... just haven't quite found the right combination.

SL Exchange became X Street and that is still going well for me although I have not run it as much like a business as I should have for many, many months. That is changing though. I'm getting serious about getting everything set up consisently and in an easy to manage fashion. Will let you know if I accomplish that. :p

I do have a couple new texture packs out. Shades of Black, White, Gray -- perfect for decorating a club. Currently it is only available on X Street. And the Iconic Signs have been updated, corrected and properly packaged.

Okay... the next posts will be focused and full of pics and links.

Ana Overextended

.... as usual. What's a girl to do? There are so many wonderful opportunities in this world of SL and not enough time to do them all. I was one of the 50 or so SLers who the Burning Life Lindens decided to give an early plot to in a visible spot near the entrance in the PG sims to this year's spin off from Burning Man. So I've been building away on Network on my theme camp. It is a solo venture, but I'm always surprised when I run into folks I know -- I've run across both errcheck Hicks and Cheen Pitney in the burning man sims. This is very exciting. I'm in one of the central PG sims, Network, that is supposed to be safe for media coverage. LOL. We must censor ourselves for the media.

Anyway, I'm trying to stay focused but have too many things going on. They are all wonderful and worthy projects, but I can't keep them all afloat. Womens Center. CODEPINK. My stores in Barcelona. My main store that I'm building in what used to be a fairy glade. And there is always stuff to do on the spur of the moment. Take September 11th. I was moping around not wanting to participate in anything that glorified the unjust war that has, against all logic, sprung from the attacks of that fateful day. I got an IM from any1 Gynoid about a poetry event at Cetus Gallery as part of a day of rememberance. It sounded like something that would help me remember all the lives lost that day without buying into the propaganda machine that uses the horrific and tremendously sad deaths of 3000 Americans for political purposes. So off I went.

Larkworthy Antfarm was reading her lyric reflections of that brutal day. Beautiful. I was impressed. Too often I just stay on my land and build. There is such a great community of amazingly creative and productive souls here. Any1, who was coordinating at least part of this event announced an open mic for those people who wanted to share their own refelctions memories and grief centered on the losses of that day. I found the poems of a very close (and I mean remarkable close) friend wrote poetry in response to the violence and the violence that came from that violence, who had it accepted as part of the Poets Against War web project that continued out of the book by the same name and offered to read them. Explorer Dastardly and I read our offered items, and then Larksworthy closed with a Sara Teasdale poem. I have been a bit surprised by people who were there who were moved enough to really listen to what we all said and report on it on CNN iReports as well by The Secondlife Newspaper, I'm humbled.

I need to do more for things I believe in but I also like to have fun. I can't do it all though. I'd like to have time to write poetry. Something has to be cut... and it may end up being Womens Center. I wonder if someone else wants to run an island with a great name. The opening was supposed to be this weekend. Not going to happen. This makes me very sad. I think I will have to let a shop in Barcelona go too.... can't decide which one though...

I Miss America!

I have the perfect accessory! Well at least for someone like me -- I will wear it next week during the DNC and then during the RNC and then during Burning Life after that -- is a pink tiara that declares. "I Miss America."

You can get a copy of it at Women's Center -- it is in the freebie area near the landing point. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Womens%20Center/147/119/23c
You can take a copy and distribute other copies to all your friends!

Space Junky & Tibet

Attended a Space Junky concert on Friday night. Found out about it through an SL volunteer mentor who showed up at my Olympic Boycott Info Event. I wasn't sure I wanted to spend Friday night dancing by myself at a concert to the music of a group to whom I had not previously listened. I watched a suggested video of Space Junky's called Temple of Love and read about the possibly mystical and certainly marvelous experience in a Tibetan Temple associated with the song and video's evolution. Very neat.

So I decided to go to the Space Junky concert for Tibet linked to the Candle for Tibet light event on August 23rd. Dropped a notecard on their PR person, Bella Dutton. I wanted to make sure I would be one of the sims in their count of the SL venues burning Tibetan Olympic torches during these games. This is Bella at the concert.

I then TPed to the Inspire Center on Shangria that is in the shape of a star.

Everyone looked up for a minute before the start of the concert.
The set, lighting, arena -- in other words, atmosphere -- were all very much like a RL concert.
Here is another shot of the stage so you can maybe see what I mean about the quality in the attention to detail. The lead singer with Space Junky is the person from whose perspective the text on the Temple of Love page on the Current site, linked above, is written. Need I even mention her devoted following.


The band and production credits from the Space Junky in Second Life blog:

• Shakti Cianci - Lead Singer/Keyboards
• Valentis LeSabre - Producer/Manager
• Zaphod Rahja - Guitarist
• Zavier Corleone - Drums
• Bella Dutton - Publicist
• Tommy Parrott - Staging/Lighting Director
• Izzy Cole - Tour Photography
• Nemesis Greatrex - PQE Specialist
• Wizard Gynoid - Calendar Queen
• Tegg Bode - SJ Mascot

The drummer, Zavier Corleone, has an impressive set of percussive recreations, no?

Here you can see Shakti Cianci and Zaphod Rahja and a view from the stage.

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August 23rd - the night before the close of the Olympics -- please participate in the Protest of Light.

Find more photos like this on Candle4Tibet

Summer Olympics 2008 Boycott

Held a sort of impromptu information event about the Olympic Boycott at my island on Friday night. 5-7 p.m. I initially had the information and images that I got from avatar Scarabeus Kurka. Then I put up linked copies of an email from Change.org about the impact of the Olympics on the people of China. Then I found out about the concert in support of the Tibetan people by Space Junky and put a copy of their Tibetan Olympic Torch on my land. They have over a hundred sims participating.

Overall a very good day for both the giving and taking of info.

All the info is still there and you can take copies of most of it.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Womens%20Center/113/32/21