Tag Archives: LeLutKa

Surfing the Map

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How do you explore Second Life®? Do you use the Destination Guide? Perhaps you follow some of the travel blogs such as Hybrid Ansar’s Avatars in Motion or Ysé SLiffeuse et Gloodeuse, a French blog that is mostly pictures so anyone can enjoy it and find places to go. Maybe you go to Flickr and follow groups such as the SL Tourist Board. I do all of the above, but then sometimes I just open up the map, click on a spot and go there. Sometimes that is embarrassing, but sometimes it’s serendipity. That’s how I found this lovely harbor at Permutate.

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Charity Never Looked So Good

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The Second Life® community never stands still and it never stands by either. There’s always someone with the energy and courage to step up and do something when something needs to be done. So, now we have more than one charitable event going on at the same time. What to do? Why, shop of course. And why not put together an outfit highlighting items from both events just for fun. That’s what I have done here with items from Vanitas Vesture and Kouse’s Sanctum for Fashion For Life and from Peqe for the Pacific Crisis Fundraiser.

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Now, while you are admiring the front view of this gorgeous jacket and texturing details in the skirt and top, I want to take a moment to remind you that the donations are from the creators. If you are getting clothing at the market value at a charitable event, you are not donating, you are shopping. I just think it’s useful to remind ourselves of that when we get ideas about how events should do this or that differently. The donation is coming from the participants who have the energy, talent and courage to put themselves out there on behalf of charities. The rest of us, including me, can support their donations by buying stuff, but we are getting our money’s worth.

Since CNN pulled one sentence out of the paragraph above, some people who did not read the post have gotten the impression that I think our participation in charity events does not count.  As you can see from what is bolded, that is not true. However,  the key ingredient to conflict is isolating an opinion from context to make it more polarizing, which is what happened, unintentionally as it probably is.  No fundraising event can happen without the synergy between the people who contribute items to sell and those who buy. Much of the shopping is motivated by the desire to support the effort and to raise funds and people often buy more than they planned.  I know I sure do.

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Fashion For Life – Shiki Designs

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Shinichi Mathy of Shiki Designs always makes interesting clothes with a singular element that takes them in an unpredictable direction. For example, the addition of fur at the shoulders adds quirky interest to this lovely alencon lace dress. Shinichi is just one of the many Japanese designers who have generously participated in the Fashion For Life show.

I find myself often thinking about those Second Life friends and acquaintances in Japan and wondering how they are doing. Shinichi’s associate reports that he is fine, which is great news. So far, everyone seems to be doing okay. I find myself thinking about “Everything In Its Path” a book about the aftermath of the Buffalo Creek flood. The author explains with great compassion about the ways natural disaster traumatizes in ways that are not first seen – and most especially through loss of community. The evacuation, the loss of neighbors, habits, of the everyday. It is an incredible book and you can even read the author’s findings in a document downloadable from FEMA. While the ongoing crisis captures our attention now, especially since the damage keeps escalating with nuclear plants and more aftershocks, we should all know that it will take a long, long time to recover a sense of normality again.

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I took the photos at the Fashion For Life event. I cannot encourage you enough to go and see these builds. They are just so amazing. I love seeing how the builders translate the different photographers’ aesthetics to architecture and landscaping. It really is a tour de force and you should not deprive yourself of the experience.
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Things My Brother Taught Me

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All my siblings were married by the time I was four years old and for some of them I was a sort of “practice child” that they spoiled with attention. My elder brother and his wife often had me spend weekends with them where I learned to play horseshoes, shoot pool and throw darts. I also learned how to shoot a rifle, hand load bullets and even aim and fire a cannon. He and his wife taught me ballroom dancing, poker and craps.When I was older, he taught me how to drive his stock car. He took me deer hunting, fishing and taught me to swim. He introduced me to dozens of books and encouraged my love of reading. So much of who I am comes from my siblings, not just him, but all of them. But my other siblings will be around to teach their grandchildren and great-grandchildren and my brother won’t. He died of cancer a year ago last July. Too may children lose the gifts of grandparents and family elders to teach them. The work of the American Cancer Society to find cures for cancers is invaluable. And it’s working, Four times as many people survive cancer as did forty years ago. So, let’s keep supporting this good work with events like Fashion For Life – and if support means wearing a rocking hot outfit like this one, how can you resist?
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Fashion For Life & Why We Give

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There are probably as many reasons for why we give as there are designers at Fashion For Life. Many give because it gives them a sense of worth and satisfaction to help others. Some give specifically to efforts that help fulfill their lives goals and passions. Others want to make a difference in the world, to know their life had meaning in the broader world outside their friends and family. Many give to advance their cultural and political values. Others give to be part of a community and to join with others who share their interests. Others because they feel a sense of responsibility to their community. Some give because they wish to lead. Others give to say thank you. Many give to memorialize and honor loved ones. Whatever their motivation, I am grateful that so many are motivated to spend hours creating beautiful designs to offer as gifts to support cancer research. When you go to the Fashion For Life event, look for the Fashion For Life vendors. 100% of the purchase price goes to the American Cancer Society. At Fashion For Life, you could be motivated to give for a multitude of reasons, but looking at dresses like this one from Nicky Ree, I think we need to add “looking good” to the list of motivations.

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Celebrating Talent

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Fashion For Life brings together the best talents in Second Life to raise money for cancer research – something that benefits us all since it’s a rare person whose life is untouched by this cruel disease. LeeZu Baxter of the eponymous LeeZu! is known for her fashion forward designs that combine innovative sculpts and rich textures into fashion fabulosity. Something about her that is less well-known is that she shares her incredible talent through a series of tutorials which are all gathered in one site with the easy-to-remember name LeeZu! Tutorials. As you can see from this dress, that’s learning from the best.

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I shot the photos at the Monastery of St. Michael the Archangel. This is a place I found thanks to the amazing photography of Domitalia Jinx whose photosteam is dangerous. If you go there, you will be trapped there for however long it takes you to look through her amazing images.
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Forward To Fashion For Life

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Fashion For Life is starting in just a few days and this year looks to be bigger and better than ever. Not only will there be wonderful designs such as this dress from Clio, but the organizers seem to have taken everything learned from every event and incorporated it into their planning to make your experience as wonderful as possible. I read the article at the Fashion For Life website on what they are doing to combat lag and was so impressed by the thought and planning. Bookmark that article because it has useful tips for steps you can take to improve your experience as well. Now, back to the fashion.

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Clio Cardiff is fond of color, bright and bold saturated color. So, when I was thinking about where to shoot her Berry dress, I immediately thought of Two Moon Island. I headed back for the shoot and fell in love with it all over again. There’s several landscape photos of Two Moon Island on my Flickr.
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Old Italy

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Corduroy usually looks so casual, but Mimikri has sure dressed up corduroy with this Fritzi skirt. The wonderful floral embroidery is gorgeous and the coordinating top dresses it up as well by adding full sleeves and a bow.

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Looking for a place to shoot, I stumbled upon Old Italy where I had a blast wandering the narrow streets.
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Obscenity

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Gidge shared a list of censor bait from her workplace IT staff yesterday. It’s a long, long, long list of words that will alert the censor sharks to eat emails and make them disappear. There’s a number I have never heard of. In fact, Google® has never heard of “blue vein nose flute” either. Oddly, the word “girls” made the list. Even in naughty e-mails, it’s not the word “girls” that’s naughty, but the surrounding words. The list made me think of my mother who was a fierce and hyper-competitive Scrabble® player. She kept a notebook with the game score of every game she played with people and calculated handicaps so whether the player was a novice or an expert, the game should be a close one. She played to win, which meant that no one should have been shocked to see her use the word “fuck” while playing with the pastor of the Baptist Church. But we were.

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No obscenities were harmed in the creation of these photos, though I wonder if any of the designers swore a bit. Whenever I admire the fine detail work in jewelry such as this lovely set from Kunglers, I imagine manipulating those teeny tiny prims and recall how sometimes my cursor slips and prims start flying off into the wide, wide world and feel certain that some words from Gidge’s list might get taken out for a walk. Incidentally, I used no poses in this shoot – because the Baiastice skirt comes with its own AO and thought you might like to see what it does. I am not fond of skirts with AO’s myself – and it’s a simple thing to remove the AO if you’re like me and prefer your own AO, even if you do put your hands in your skirt once in awhile. However, if you want to be sure that your hands are where they should be, the AO will keep your hands where they belong.
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Post No. 2261

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It’s too early, I guess, to come up with a clever post title, so I settled for naming the number. There’s no settling, however, when it comes to the gorgeously foxy Kit skin from Lelutka or the detailed swimsuit from Vogel. Both are exemplars of the best of Second Life® craftsmanship and creativity.
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