I always like to bust up sets and mix and match because it shows that the clothing people make in Second Life is more versatile than we think. For that reason, even though the Irina cropped sweater I am wearing from The Secret Store comes with a beautiful skirt that coordinates with it, I chose to wear a different skirt to show it can be done. Of course, you know and I know it can be done, but a reminder is useful. Continue reading
The theme for Collabor88 this month is StoryTime and the creations showcased are a rich display of folkloric traditions and influences. There is a lot of embroidery, a lot of beautiful colors and rich traditional fabrics. Sissy Pessoa ran with the idea into a more modern direction with this gown and capelet. It has all the traditional flower forms, but the dress itself is quite modern and made even more so in the sheer version.
This sign, a riff on the Borg’s mantra,made me laugh. I always just point out the Borg dies in the end. But I laugh because where I grew up, we competed against Fertile in sports and other competitions. More amusingly, Fertile happens to be just about 25 miles from Climax, another town we competed against. When you’re in high school, such things are hilarious and even to this day, pranksters add distance to Fertile signs to the “You are Entering Climax” sign and vice versa. By the way, whoever ordered “You are entering Climax” is my hero. That sign is gone now, replaced by the much less amusing “Climax Pop. 300” sign. Not that we weren’t without our own embarrassing names. A few miles out of town, there used to be a glorious road sign, “Bullshit Valley, Next Left” That was the name of the valley. That was the sign. When I was home this summer, I saw it has been “cleaned up” and now reads, BS Valley. I was disappointed. I did not live in Bullshit Valley, alas, and my dad only took that left hand turn every few years just because it was a pretty route, though it was gravel not tar. The road to Bullshit Valley is paved now. I am sure there’s a metaphor there somewhere.
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Our web site was down. Somehow there was a virus in the database. Is that not the strangest thing? I don’t know if that would affect readers or not, but thankfully it’s been fixed.
I shot these pictures last week. I was still shocked by the Orwellian phrase “alternate facts” that in a healthy society would completely discredit the people who promote them. But, since people no longer distinguish between fact and opinion, alternate facts seem to be growing. Aldous Huxley, though, had the right idea. “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always”
Mahatma Gandhi
Yesterday, three million women and men marched in every state and on every continent in the world. Every continent, even Antarctica. In 51° below Kotzebue, Alaska, people marched. In sunshine and rain storms, desert heat and arctic cold, people gathered to resist. Of course, the naysayers mocked and dismissed. “Resistance is futile,” they quote The Borg, an implicit confession of corruption. They forget, the Borg is destroyed in the end.
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Resistance requires strength.
Sari-Sari released a set of ballet poses with their exercise equipment for Collabor88
Epictetus wrote in the Enchiridion, “The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered.” We control our own actions, words, opinions, what we like, what we don’t like, and what we want. If we stick to what we control, he suggests, we are free of restraint. It is when we try to influence the things outside our control that we are trapped. It’s good advice. The difficulty is figuring out what we can control.
That’s been on my mind a lot. There’s a lot I don’t like happening, but what can I control? I can choose despair or resistance, that’s up to me. I need to focus on what I can do, not what I wish would happen. So even though I feel like kicking more than an exercise bag, I will instead focus my mind and my heart on resisting despair.
My computer has been on sabbatical since December 18th. It took a trip to Cupertino to soak in the warmer weather and pick up a new logic board. Luckily, it returned last night just in time for me to show off this gorgeous dress from ISON before Collabor88 shimmies itself into a new monthly showcase on the 8th. Is this not lovely and it comes in five colors and I posed on that pose stand clicking the HUD through those colors over and over and over and over again trying to decide. It was impossible, they are all wonderful. So, I eenie-meenied my way to this lovely rose shade. I am decisive like that sometimes.
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Rilke was right to note that the new year would be full of things that have never been. Every new year brings us innovation, discovery and change. In that, every new year brings us something to hope for despite looming dangers. Despite the many losses that have made 2016 a bitter and sorrowful year, I fear we may look back on it with longing as the Grand Panjandrum takes the oath he will break that very day and every day that follows.
Tomorrow will follow tomorrow and time goes forward inexorably. All we can do, then, as we teeter on the edge of the abyss, is resist despair, resist defeat and find sanctuary in community, in beauty, and in certain knowledge that the arc of the moral universe may have gotten a kink in it, but it still bends toward justice.
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