JUMO just released Arthuriana – a skirt and top combo in chocolate, oil, marsala, navy and violet The dress comes with a luxe wreath of gold and pearls, earrings, bracelets and a headpiece. However, I was inspired by the print to take the outfit in a different direction.
As you can see, Arthuriana has Wow! factor aplenty with its design details such as the dramatic sweep of the skirt and drama of the cutout back.
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When Sarah McLachlan wrote Angel, she was not thinking of the sort you might see in a Sunday school lesson, but one more like this perhaps. The song is about seeking comfort and escape from life’s pain through a needle, through heroin addiction to be precise. Inspired in specific by Jonathan Melvoin of Smashing Pumpkins who died of an overdose about 20 years ago, the more general inspiration came from McLachlan’s own experience of seeking comfort and reassurance from other drugs. McLachlan, when speaking about the song, seems to think the feelings of inadequacy, of insecurity, of alienation are part of the music industry. Personally, I think they are part of life.
there’s always some reason
to feel not good enough
and it’s hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
oh beautiful release
memories seep from my veins
let me be empty
and weightless and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight
in the arms of the angel
fly away from here
from this dark cold hotel room
and the endlessness that you fear
I thoughy this blood-tipped “angelic” gown paired with the needle-sharp Say wings from Glam Affair would be a great representation of McLachlan’s “angel” whose comfort is only temporary unless, of course, it is the final comfort of death. Incidentally, Maylee Oh of The Secret Store who made this gown also made a video of her weight painting and texturing it and while I have no idea what she is doing it is strangely hypnotic to watch.
The gown is a gorgeous brocade with a delicate blood tip. You see more red in this picture than the other because of the red projector I was using to light the scene. The wings are white and plum and the projector lights them as well. I actually selected the plum textures in the wings and tinted them bright red to go with the dress and the jacket.
My shoes are from Hucci and are incredibly elegant. I love how the leather comes to a point and echoes the feathers and the wings.
I always wear lingerie under my clothes. After all, sometimes when you TP in, your clothes seem to arrive a few seconds after you do. Luxuria is my go to brand.
A chose Truth’s Anouk hair style with the color-change bands and Donna Flora’s Julia set with rubies.
My makeup comes from Glam Affair’s newest release Mavi, a Lelutka mesh head applicator. I opted for the brightest, reddest lipstick.
Store info at Blogging Second Life
****SHOPPING LIST******
Poses: Di’s Opera
HUDS: AnyPose Expression HUD v1.0 – Wear Me
Slink Ankle Lock
Skin: Glam Affair Mavi Asia
Mesh Attachments: .LeLutka.Mesh Head-STELLA v1.1
Slink Avatar Enhancement Feet High & Handas
Slink Physique Mesh Body V2.4 (ADD ME)
Appliers: Flair Mani-Pedi 13
Glam Affair Mavi Asia
Luxuria Serpentine Red
Eyes: pc eyes by LL – shallow water – medium
Hair: TRUTH HAIR Anouk
Clothing: [Slink]The Secret Store – Avianna Dress – Blood Dip @ Collabor88
[Slink]The Secret Store – Harpy Mantle – Blood Dip @ Collabor88
Glam Affair – Sya Wings Plum @ Collabor88
Shoes: ::HH:: Hucci Minerva Sandal – Collection (Slink) @ Collabor88
Jewelry: Donna Flora Julia
(Yummy) True Fate Ring – Gold – Rainbow @ Collabor88
Location: Kalopsia Broken Floor, anc Bubbles
First things first, Strawberry Singh wrote an important post about an ongoing fraud happening in SL right now. You should read it to best protect your own account. Of course, a good rule of thumb is not to execute or agree to anything from objects given to you by strangers. While it’s not true that you can never cheat an honest person, it is true that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
So autumn is here. Here in Oregon, it’s raining, bringing sweet relief from the heat and let us hope, from the fires that are destroying so much habitat in the Pacific Northwest and California. Here in SL, though, there are no fires and the rain is holding off for another day. However, the state fairs are all over and all the 4Hers have their ribbons and are back in school. Fruits are being harvested and canneries are running around the clock. For me, though, lounging by the barn is a pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Schadenfreude’s black squirrel is much more industrious, picking up a small pumpkin to store away.
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There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields –
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come! …Emily Dickinson
I love the sweater and skirt from ur favorite one (u.f.o.) for Collabor88. They come in a wide range of colors and have a hint of fall, but are still lightweight and open for summer. Perfect transition clothing for September. That big knit bow is perfection.
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I went to Misfit Ghetto last night and saw this sign. It comes from Robert Lowell who said “The light at the end of the tunnel is just the light of an oncoming train.” Robert Lowell has been a favorite since I first discovered him in 7th grade. I was shy, a mumbler, constantly admonished to speak louder and my mother made me join the speech team. She believed in meeting challenges head on. I chose Extemporaneous Poetry as my specialty since I loved poetry and my mom made me memorize a poem a week. I figured I could get two for one out of the way.
For my first competition I drew “For the Union Dead” by Robert Lowell. The imagery bowled me over and I fell in love with his way of writing, though the poem was not without its problems for my 7th grade self. It used the n-word once, in quotes to indicate that was not a word Lowell would have used. It was a word I had never used and was certainly not acceptable. I had thirty minutes to prepare an introduction and decide how to address this dilemma. I punted and inserted the word soldiers instead. You know, as an adult, I think the person who picked the poems that day probably had not read them.
But also, from hindsight, I don’t mind, because that poem was thrilling to me. If you have seen the film Glory, you know the story memorialized in the statue he describes. But it was not the story, it was the images from phrases like his nose crawling like a snail on the aquarium glass and the yellow dinosaur steamshovels grunting as they work. Most of the poetry I had read (or my mom had chosen for me) had been prettier. She was a big Longfellow, Shelley and Shakespeare fan. Lowell was my introduction to a more robust kind of poetry. He felt rebellious and fierce and I gobbled him up. And yes, he was also bleak and grim and depressive – perfect for adolescence.
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Allen Ginsberg was asked to share some advice for writers. His advice was simple, to write what you want to say. Don’t stifle your instincts by trying to write for an audience that does not include you. “It’s more important to concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness…You say what you want to say when you don’t care who’s listening.” I love that line, “follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” Perhaps The Cat was right, “We are all mad here.”
A good place to follow your inner moonlight and enjoy your madness is Strings by Cica Ghost. You can dance in the plaza while musicians play lovely instrumentals, explore the oversized homes of the musicians or wander the heath surrounding the homes. I wandered out to the cliffs where weather-whipped trees made stark silhouettes against the sky. I was wearing a projector which is why you can see me.
NYU has released fabulous button front shirts that tuck in and by tuck in, I mean there really is a tail that tucks in, they don’t just seem to tuck. The top also has a gorgeous yoked back with a single center pleat adding volume to the body of the shirt. There are coordinating skies in several plaids. The color palette is subdued and autumnal, appropriate now that the northern hemisphere heads back to school and the freshness of fall is in the air. If you look, you can see the skirt has a couple design details to elevate it from the ordinary, including a thoroughly modern peplum that is very different from the usual in that is drapes close to the body and is longer than usual. Unlike most peplums, it is not adding a lot of volume at the hips.
I stopped off at Cape Juniper which is an interesting sim. It has a wedding venue along the shore and a small town with a retro vibe. There is also this derelict and crumbling old church (I am assuming a church) that caught my eye and drew me in.
It didn’t really seem like part of the town, but it was still a lovely spot to visit and take pictures.
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“I am the shore and the ocean,
awaiting myself on both sides.
I travel
always arriving in the same place.” ― Dejan Stojanovic, The Shape
Yesterday was a hard day for me. My mind was occupied with thoughts of friends in extremis, whose difficulties and hardships I cannot lighten. It was also the second anniversary of Squinternet’s death and I still miss her open-hearted friendship and humor. I guess in Second Life, as in my my first, when feeling sad and ineffective, I head for the water for new energy. Whether I find myself lakeside or on the shore of the sea or an ocean, there is something about the inexorable sound of the waves that comforts me. No matter what, the waves will continue, an infinite sound loop that I find comforting.
I may have felt sad on the inside, but I looked anything but on the outside. I was wearing this indecently sexy new swimsuit from Liziaah. It comes in five colors. I chose the Aqua, as you can see. The folder comes with all the standard sizes plus one made to fit Slink Physique, which I am wearing. I love the marine inspired embellishments that make me think this is the sort of swimsuit that Diane de Poitiers might have worn if Henry II had been the king of Atlantis instead of France.
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Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
Most of us have an atavistic fear of the dark. It makes sense, many animals hunt at night. While we may hunt by day, at night we are the prey. I have always loved the dark, though. During the day, the lake I grew up on would be busy with people fishing and waterskiing. I have had more than one daytime close call with a speed boat driven by reckless people who never think to look for swimmers. I loved to swim in lake at night when the boats were silenced and sleeping, put to bed for fear of being run aground in the narrow lanes between the islands. While there might be a few hundred people on the lake during the day, at night I was often the only one. Of course, it was never quiet. There were the frogs, crickets, owls, timber wolves and best of all, the loons, all competing for lead vocals in the nightly concert.
We were in the country so the moon and stars reflected and refracted in the waves. I would swim toward the ribbon of moonlight even knowing I could never catch it. I suppose it was my own brand of recklessness, swimming alone for hours among the stars, but it was magical, too. Sometimes I pulled out my canoe and paddled so i was lined up with the moon’s reflection and then jumped in, diving down to the touch the bottom of the lake which never got much deeper than forty feet. I liked the deep water where the lake bottom was made of marl rather than muck or clay. Something about swimming in utter blackness captivated me and I never felt afraid.
I miss living by the lake and going swimming. Lakes in Oregon are glacier fed and not really suitable for swimming. That has not stopped me, but in water that cold, you can’t laze about in the water and drift. You can’t lay back and let yourself sink into the inky water and pretend you are floating among the stars.
Of course, standing on Kalopsia’s broken floor is not exactly sinking into inky depths either, and I am standing, now swimming, but I am eagerly waiting for sun to set and for the evening chorus to begin. I am with cranes instead of loons and they are paper (from DDD for Collabor88), so they will be unaccountably quiet. If they could speak, however, they would rave about my adorable dress from ur.favorite.one (u.f.o.) that is at Collabor88 this month.
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Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Lea8 is home to the stunning Love, Henry, an installation that celebrates one of the most consequential love affairs of history, that between Henry VII and Anne Boleyn. But Henry was not the first man to fall in love with Anne. Before him was Harry Percy and Sir Thomas Wyatt who wrote that poem about her after he had been warned off. He went off to Italy for a while, though he came back in time to be caught up in the contrived ruse to eliminate Anne to make way for the third wife who finally gave Henry the son he so desperately needed. 
Henry and Anne are a popular subject because love matches are rare in royal history and their story is so very rich with passion and drama. However, their story is also important because the world would be very different if Henry had not fallen so desperately in love with Anne. This led to his rupture with the Catholic Church and with Spain. It’s possible without passion urging him forward, he would have waited for Catherine, who was not well, to die before seeking a new, young and fertile wife. Spain did not have Salic law and he may have looked to their example and pushed for a change in English law so Mary could inherit. He definitely would have married her off before menopause so she would have been able to have children. Henry would never have raided the wealth of the church and England would never have had the funds to build its great navy.
While it is possible Mary could have married her cousin James V and united Scotland and England, I doubt Henry would want a son-in-law in waiting on his northern border. It is too bad, we could have been spared Mary Queen of Scots and the countless books making a heroine of a relentlessly stupid woman. It is more likely Mary would have married her Spanish cousin Charles V (father of her eventual husband) and, if Henry had no son, he would have ruled when Mary took the throne. Without the war with Spain, the British would not have defeated the Spanish at sea and both North and South America would have been Spanish colonies. England would have remained a Catholic country and there would never have been a Glorious Revolution to rid her of a Catholic king which means John Locke may have never written his treatises on government that were the foundation for the American, French, Vietnamese and many other revolutions
The Arborea gown from The Annex is a stunning ecru silk taffeta gown worthy of a queen. It has lovely leaf print panniers.
Protestantism might have still spread throughout Europe, though, and brought with it The Enlightenment and democracy, but it would have been slower and later and it is possible it would have been suppressed far, far longer. Religious wars and persecutions probably would have continued even beyond the 40 Years War because Spain, and with it, the Holy Roman Empire, would have not lost so much power and money to England and would have had more resources to wage war against Protestantism. The British might never have become a worldwide Empire without its great navy, the direct result of its war with Spain when the Spanish King tried to overthrown Anne and Henry’s daughter Elizabeth. Since Spain’s method of colonization was very different from England’s model, the entire world would be vastly different. Continue reading