If you are on a budget for your Christmas spending and still want a luscious, sexy ballgown, you should spend a little time on the With Love Hunt and search at Vogue – where this gorgeous black lace gown is hiding, waiting for you to find it. It’s a yummy formal gown good for any dressy occasion – well, except for a White Ball, and easy on the pocketbook.
Luscious, I say! Luscious!
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Gidge has had been having me help around the store, hauling stuff over from the old one, dusting, doing some touch up on the walls where movers scraped the paint and helping with the unpacking. It’s a messy job with lots of running in and out of the building over to where her merchandise was piled up in the snow. It made sense to dress for the occasion in this warm and snuggly fleece from Aitui. I tossed on some old jeans from Zaara that I know are a few years old and all, but hey, when you are bending down and hauling crap around, you need comfortable jeans with some give, the kind of give that only comes from wearing them for a few years, right?
But then she traipses off to ride a pink turtle or pig or elephant or some such thing leaving me to manhandle the last few items into place. Seriously, did she think I could move that globe by myself? It’s Too Big!!! So, I got on the phone, so to speak, and called up Hybie who, good friend that she is, came over to lend a hand no questions ask. She helped wrestle that globe from the crate into the store and didn’t even complain about how cold she must have been feeling in those sandals. She was wearing the new dress from Maitreya. It was the first I had seen it in-world. It so lives up to expectations. As you can see, my feet were far more cozy in these wonderfully warm and dry boots from FIR & MNA.
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If you even get a chance to attend a MiaMai show – whether a runway show or an exhibition – do whatever it takes to be free and online so you can go. She doesn’t just dress her models and have them walk down the runway to some techno and call it a day. Her shows are works of art in themselves. Today’s show, InMutatio, produced by Moravia Productions, was stunning – reminding people that the potential for great art in Second Life is limited only by our imagination. The show also featured the art of Del May and Marcopol Oh – artists whose work explores the same imaginative frontiers as Monica Outlander.
The show was produced in the old style of the Tableaux Vivant with model/actors in static poses with a short piece of poetry to read – each an act representing one of the cards of the Tarot, but also a meditation on metamorphosis. The show begins with the clear statement of intent:
This is the world where the human form is not fixed; it twists, teases and transforms.
Samara Barzane is a friend and fellow blogger (The 3 Fashionteers) who braved the dangers of volunteering to be a guest stylist. But you know, that’s one of the defining characteristics of Samara for me – she’s game to do anything. When there’s a roll call of people to volunteer, she steps forward. I tp’ed her up to my platform to see her outfit and knew immediately where I wanted to shoot.
I saw that fabulous combination of the form-fitting cashmere sweater with the floaty sheer tulle skirt and the magnificent tights and immediately thought of China – the black and white sim. Setting windlight to Strawberry Singh’s fabulous Silver setting, I started snapping away.
I wore this dress around for three days. I was mostly shoeless, but still, I figure that I liked it enough to wear for three days, I should surely blog it. Continue reading
Late at night
When the world is safe within their dreams
I walk the shadows
Late at night
An empty feeling creeps within my soul
I feel so lonely
So I go into the darkness of the night
All alone I walk the streets until I find
Someone who is just like me
Looking for some company
Children of the night
Late at night
Gidge and I did a bit of shopping yesterday morning with running stops at Fifty Linden Friday stores and ending at Collabor88 where we both felt like doofuses when we saw the second building full of items. I said, “How many times have I come here and never noticed there were two buildings? What a dork!” and Gidge, like me, said, “I never noticed it either.” While we both pondered what wonderful creations we may have missed in our neglectful visits in past months, we busily ran around picking stuff up. Of course, later we learned that it’s just this month that there’s the second build and we have not been missing out on half the collection every month! That makes me feel better. I saw a couch and Christmas tree there that I absolutely adored and wanted so much and for only 88 lindens I thought i could splurge – even though I don’t have a house to decorate. So I put it in my little photobox and slapped on a couple textures from Distressed Textures to make it look like i have a house and voila, there it is! There are five sits on the couch and three on the floor with a nice mix of feminine and masculine poses.
This tree made me laugh. It reminded me so much of this fabulous dried tree branch I used to have that I painted white and potted in a vase with some cement. It arched over my couch at a nice safe height, just high enough to not snag your hair even in an updo. I left it mostly plain except for a few epiphytes, but at Christmas would string it with white lights. I loved it, unfortunately, so did the dog my former roommate babysat for her boyfriend. In the epic battle of dead tree versus 185 pound rottweiler, the tree lost.
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I let my music-loving cat choose the song this morning. After all, he woke me up at 5:40 AM when he turned on James Brown's "Don't Tell A Lie" which is a great song, though not a great 5:40 AM song. I usually turn the Ipod's speaker off now after a 4:30 Flogging Molly wake-up song, but I forgot last night. While I was getting ready to post this, he was pushing fast forward through the playlists looking for something he liked. I decided to let him decide and go with whatever song he finally let play for more than two bars. I actually love his choice - a cover of Elton John's great song by Bettye LaVette who completely made it her own.
I can’t light up no more of your darkness.
All of my pictures seem to fade to black and white.
Oh, I’ve grown so tired and time is standing still before me.
It froze up right here on the ladder of my life.
1971 was a big mix of influences. It was the year the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie came out. The French Connection was the big movie that year, winning the Oscar. In September, the first of the presidential crimes that became known as Watergate happened when burglars broke into Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrists office to look for dirt to discredit him. The Vietnam War continued to expand although 60% of Americans opposed it. Inflation was 4% and rising in the US and nearly 9% in Britain. Gas was 40 cents a gallon and that movie ticket to see Willy Wonka cost $1.50. The average monthly rent was $150. Walt Disney opened a new theme park in Florida. Jim Morrison died. NPR made its first broadcast and the Pentagon Papers were published, proving to all of America that the Pentagon and the government lies. We might not be able to find you 1971 gas or movie prices, but if you come to the Velvet tonight you can enjoy the tunes of 1971 – including, quite probably, the iconic cover of Kris Kristofferson’s Me and Bobbie McGee by Janis Joplin and Rolling Stones Brown Sugar.
Poster art, such as this 1971 poster by Ernest Trova, had always been a big part of political movements and continued to be. I thought it might be fun to posterize my photo as an homage to the posters that are so much a part of political messaging. However, I didn't want to mess up that gorgeous mesh dress from AnE, so I am showing the pic twice.
In December, 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency opened its doors and in 1971 President Nixon gave an important environmental speech proposing the Clean Water Act and other substantive measures to improve the environment. In the late 60s, the Cuyahoga River had caught on fire. There was movement afoot and in 1971, Greenpeace was founded to wage a nonstop, global campaign for stronger environmental protections. In 1971, my sister (who was married and had children before I was even born) was living with her young family in a little suburb of Niagara Falls called Love Canal. They only lived there 3 or 4 years, but when my niece’s son was born with birth defects a few years ago, I wondered whether living the first years of her life on a toxic dump played a role. It’s something we will never know. However it is discouraging that 41 years after the first Earth Day in 1970 and 40 years after the national commitment to clean up our planet, we have people conflating local weather with global climate in order to allow industry to continue to degrade the planet and to avoid the changes in our energy use that are urgent and necessary.
This is the fourth annual Peace on Earth hunt. Blogging about the Hunt makes me remember my first year in Second Life and the POE1 was the first gridwide hunt that I had participated in. I remember reading about it beforehand and wondering how they would do a gridwide hunt – did that mean I had to look everywhere? Yup, I was that doofus! It was fresh and exciting and so much fun to hunt with Gidge, running all over the place, cracking wise and having good times. I remember how we would go to lucky chairs to wait and actually talk in chat. We even had lucky chair parties! This made me remember Digit Darkes and how much Gidge and I looked for her every new release, racing to be there to see what was new! She’s left the grid and I have packed up almost everything, but not everything. For this post, I pulled out a couple favorites to mash up with a dress from 1 Hundred for the 4th Annual Peace on Earth Hunt. The dress is adorable, but it’s chilly and I have been battling a head cold and for some very bizarre reason, I want my avatar to be nice, warm and comfy, so I didn’t want to wear a sleeveless mini – no matter how adorable. I decided to take off the skirt and add some pants and a jacket.
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