In less than four hours, Fashion For Life will be closing until next year. The vendors will be picked up and the sims will be dismantled and it will all go away, these beautiful builds such as this one that are all part of a monumental annual effort to raise funds in the hope of finding cures for cancer. Cancer is such a tricky bastard; it needs more than one cure. But the cures are possible; they can be found and it will take our concerted effort to find them.
While The Great SL Photo Hunt hurtles along, there happens to be another photo challenge that should be fun and interesting as well. Harlow Heslop has challenged folks to post raw, unedited shots. Since most of the time, all I do is crop photos, it was a relatively easy challenge. I had to refresh a few times to line shots up correctly within the frame I set the window, but other than that, it was mainly choosing a good windlight setting (Strawberry Singh’s Diamond) and policing my prims to make sure they looked good in the poses. Since I can upload directly from within SL into Flickr, it really was easy.
I am a little late to the party of celebrating the Fashion For Life Event but my ardor is no less because this is truly one of my favorite things to support in both lives. Everyone’s life has been touched by cancer, some more than others and for all of us it’s a journey.
I thought since lots of people have shared I would tell you the story of my Uncle George, who cancer took away.
He was a confirmed old bachelor (nudge nudge wink wink) who lived his life pretty full as a young man. He went to Cuba to gamble, he worked at 20th Century Fox as a hair dresser during World War 2. When I was very little he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and told to say his farewells. Continue reading
Today is the day many of the faithful of Minnesota celebrate by wearing purple in honor of St. Urho who famously saved the grape harvest of Finland by uttering the phrase “Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen” (roughly translated: “Grasshopper, grasshopper, go to Hell!”) My family has made the pilgrimage to Menagha to see the famous statue of Saint Urho.
There’s a quote from Charles Dickens’ Bleak House that came to mind when I put this dress on. “I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!” This Crazy Butterflies for Life dress from Orage Creations got me thinking about freedom – and what it means. FDR talked about the Four Freedoms; freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear. He wasn’t thinking of cancer when he talking about those freedoms, but wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing to finally come to a time when the word cancer does not evoke fear, but instead a confidence that it can be treated and overcome? To that end and working for that day, the designers for Fashion For Life, such as Orage Creations Elettra Gausman, are supporting the American Cancer Society’s efforts to combat cancer and create a future where cancer is no longer causes fear.
When most people think of MiaMai, they think of Monica Outlander’s high fashion avant garde creations that flirt with androgyny. Produced with grand spectacle and presented with artistry and poetic insight, they are her hallmark. However, a truer hallmark, I think, is her great flixibility and range in design. She is not content to issue endless iterations of the same shapes and ideas, and truly does go back to the drawing board for new inspiration. Take this ultra-feminine and soft-edged flowing dress that she recently released at Fashion For Life. It is the antithesis of the sharply defined, hard-edged androgynous designs and yet, there are distinct MiaMai details such as the lush peacock feather collar that make it a cohesive element in her body of work.
Cancer touches us all. We all have friends and family who have confronted cancer and struggled to overcome. It is perhaps the reason that there is such universal support for Relay for Life and for Fashion For Life, the shopping fashion expo that raises scads of money for the American Cancer Society and their global programs for research and support in the struggle against cancer. It will be two years in July since I lost my oldest brother to cancer and I went to the ACS memorial garden to spend some time thinking about my brother and cousins who have died because while we are winning battles, the war on cancer is far from over.
Angelwing produced three Timeless Angel costumes for Fashion For Life and I loved how they work together. The Light one is all white, the Fallen shows the marks of struggle and the Dark is all black. What I particularly liked is that the white and black were not counter-poised as good and evil since they both wear the same religious symbols, even the Fallen Angel wears the same symbols and is dressed in a stained white dress. Normally I do not wear any religious icons or symbols out of respect for their meaning to the people who believe in those religions, but I liked that the designer did not fall into the white-black/good-evil trap so common in design and language. I thought it worth making an exception in order to highlight this great trio of dresses.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote in “Where do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” that even language conspires with racism, noting that the synonyms for black were overwhelmingly negative and those for white were nearly all positive. So, too, are the expressions using those words. One of the ways, I work to undo the conditioning of a lifetime is to avoid using the words black and white as descriptors of anything except color in so far as is possible and reasonable. I don’t object when other people use black and dark in negative expressions or white and light in positive ones. That is our language, after all. This is just a personal challenge to consciously avoid that language trap – a way to resist cultural conditioning and struggle against my learned biases. It’s surprisingly difficult. I have been consciously using black and white purely as color descriptors and finding other ways to express phrases like blacklist (ban list or exclusion list) and white knight (rescuer) for over a decade and still catch myself falling into the language trap.
So I am in a foul mood, not a black mood. Bad guys use extortion, not blackmail. People tell harmless lies, not white lies. Of course, black holes remain black holes and white hot stars are white hot stars and the night sky is still black. Those are phrases using black and white as colors, not synonyms for good and bad. Just as an experiment, you could challenge yourself and try to go a week without using black/dark or white/light to express anything other than color. You might be surprised how difficult it is and how much our language is filled with subtext.
If you go to Squinternet Larnia’s Flickr photostream, she has a set of photos that show what sort of blogger she might be if she ever decides to blog. Pretty amazing, aren’t they? I thought it might be fun to share her pictures with her response to the Donna Flora A to Z project. She sent this to me in Second Life to share with all of you.
Today I have good news. Part of my treatment was wrong and was corrected by doctors more careful that have given a better future prognosis for healing. I want to share with the sweet Cajsa tonight with whom I vented my discouragement and with all of you who are participating at Donna Flora A to Z.
Every post I cry a little or much, without modesty, without shame, when you say … “Squinternet is badly in need of help” but the help can be money, drugs, but the commitment that I see you all in creating something nice for me, something that is more beautiful and shows my works make me feel the urge to get back with you soon.
I’ve seen in your posts beautiful images, words and unexpectedly for me so comforting and full of sincere concern and affection for me. You say,” you gave me something nice, and I will restore it as best I can do” … this is worth more anything in the world. It enters deeply in my heart … and supports me, It is …Love. And it is certain, no one is afraid … I will heal!
I met a new world in this adventure in RL, a guardian angel who is working on my health in a way that I hoped never to deserve, friends who support me as sisters … and the security of having you here, far away in space but always by my side these days.
Meanwhile, at Fashion For Life, the Donna Flora A to Z pictures have been put up in her store for people to see and Tania Tebaldi, her website writer, added this note from Squinternet on the Donna Flora blog. If you would like to see the collected photos from the Donna Flora A to Z project, you can see them in one place on Issuu. Of course, if anyone wants to continue to add to the project, I will add their blogs to the main post, though of course, not to the publication which is finished.
Want you to take me,
Like a thief in the night
hold me like a pillow, make me feel alright Continue reading