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.
Folks have started hunting and adding their pictures to the Flickr Group, but there’s plenty of time to catch up. To find out more, check out the rules and list of challenges at The Great SL Photo Hunt tab in the masthead. The hunt is sponsored by It’s Only Fashion and Lazy Sunday.
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.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back 🙂
After the big migration I’m back to blogging and I thought I’d start by showing you something absolutely gorgeous:
Angel from Ladies who Lunch is one of the most fabulous dresses I have ever worn in this Second Life of mine. It’s made of feathers but it might be rather reductive to call it a feather dress, in my humble opinion. It’s a mix of avant-garde, fantasy, romanticism, beauty. It puts a smile on my face, it makes me dream. I really enjoy wearing it. I think the name Angel fits this dress perfectly and not because it’s white, don’t you agree, Cajsa? 😉 It comes in various awesome colours and I chose it in white just because I was in a “white look” mood.
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.
It’s Only Fashion announces the Great Second Life® Photo Hunt. The hunt is sponsored by It’s Only Fashion and Lazy Sunday.
We have created a list of 100 photo scenarios for you to hunt and shoot. You can blog them, post them on Flickr or at KoinUP. We have set up a Flickr Group for you to submit your photos as you work to finish the hunt. Please comment on this page up in our menu bar with your updates to help us track your progress.
There are prizes, but the real prize will be the fun of exploring Second Life, working on it with friends and meeting new people as you try to get them to pose with you.
The prizes are fantastic! There are cash prizes from Lazy Sunday as well as gifts. The first person who captures and posts all 100 scavenger photos wins 5000 L and a 1500 L gift certificate for a photo shoot from Strawberry Singh, the second wins 3000 L and the third wins 2000 L. There are additional prizes from Hucci, Banana Banshee, Balderdash, Izzie’s, Tranquility Way Station, 22769, Undefined Lilies, Frooti, Gallery Barzane, Somnia, Clutter and Sn@tch. Everyone who completes the hunt will get a special “I finished the Great SL Photo Hunt” t-shirt from Miao.
You will be required to explore Second Life, to talk to strangers and enlist them in your hunt, to get your friends to hunt with you. You can form teams and collect photos together, but each of must take your own shot of the experience. While there is nothing to prevent you from buying costumes and props to complete some of the tasks, the goal is for you to find them and collect these experiences and photos without spending money, though searching marketplace for freebies may be helpful. Continue reading
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.
There’s been an absence in my Second Life® and in the lives of many others for the past two months. A dear friend, Squinternet Larnia of Donna Flora, has been struggling with illness. She is now out of hospital and working hard to recover and find the strength to keep fighting for her health.
I remember when I was sick last year how she would IM me all the time to ask after my health and share her hope and concern for me. There were times when I felt really low and the love and friendship I found in Second Life lifted my spirit and gave me strength. I hope those of us whose Second Lives have been touched by her art, her imagination and her work as well as those who have come to know her kind and gentle spirit can do the same for her.
Let us send her messages of love, encouragement and support to lift her spirit and give her strength so that she comes back to us soon with renewed strength and good health.
And to that end, many of us have joined together in a project to highlight the fabulous Donna Flora (Marketplace) designs that have beautified our world from A to Z. Over the next week, there will be many more posts added to this abecedarian list highlighting her amazing work. The original plan was to post them all on one day, but so many people wanted to participate, it became clear that it made more sense to spread them out over a week and I am sure more will want to join. This post will stay sticky for the next week so you can find it easily until the project is completed.