Tag Archives: umeboshi

In the Desert

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I could never live in the desert. It is not just that I do not like heat, but also that my psyche needs green. I discovered this after I moved to Montana for a time to help my sister. I was unaccountably depressed while I was there, sleeping much more than usual, lethargic, weepy and not at all my usual self.

Then I decided to take my nephew on a college tour back to Minnesota. When we got toward the eastern side of South Dakota and the brilliant greens of a well-watered landscape came into view, my heart lifted. I felt a euphoria that was so intense it felt as though I were floating. In that moment, I realized that my misery was more to do with the colors of the landscape than any other factor. I moved within two months, back to where the land was green.

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That does not keep me from appreciating and loving the stark beauty of the desert. The subtle striations of color, the cracked and blistered earth, the desiccated silver of the tree trunks and the hazy dustiness of the succulents are beautiful. I love the plane geometry of the landscape that we cannot see when covered with an abundance of flowers, bushes, grasses and trees. There is something magnificent and courageous about the flora and the fauna eking out a life in these marginal landscapes. There is a profundity in this life of scarcity – this life on the margins.

But it is not for me. I want a green land. Give me the entire green rainbow from the palest milk green of an Easter Rose to the deepest darkest greens of a Doug Fir. I need green to live. It’s that fundamental. But, one of the nice things about Second Life® is that I can visit the beauty of the desert without the heat or the misery. And the desert at ISON is particularly beautiful – a living desert, not an ocean of sand. Continue reading →

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

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Snapshot

The sweater is from Gizza. Please note that the hands are tucked into pockets. The alpha for this dress alphas out your arms and hands, leaving them in this position no matter what pose you use. I did not at first realize this and fiddled around trying to figure out why the sleeves weren’t rigged to my arms. I had the Slink mesh hands on and they were just flying around unattached. When I finally figured it out, i felt so silly. So now you know.

When my brother was in the Air Force, he served in Germany where he bought this marvelous Grundig stereo that he sent home as a gift to my parents. My father was a musician and singer in an area band and both of them loved music. I grew up listening to everything from opera to bluegrass and gospel to jazz. One of my favorite albums was a collection of duets with jazz trumpeter Al Hirt and Ann Margret called Beauty and the Beard. His voice had such gruff humor and hers was so flirty and arch that there was this amazing vocal chemistry. One of the songs was Baby, It’s Cold Outside and I just loved it.

This cozy sweater from Gizza made me think of that song. Especially with the snow, I have lived in Oregon long enough to think of cold weather when I see snow, unlike in Minnesota where I grew up. There, in winter, it is so cold all the moisture is drawn from the air. It has to warm up to snow.

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Snow Falls Softly

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For whatever reason, the chronic pain that I am usually habituated to has decided to make itself front and center this week. I swear it’s using bullhorns and neon signs to make sure I can’t ignore it. Even my fingers ache, so I won’t write about the outfit other than to tell you that what you see is what you get. There is not even the tiniest bit of editing since I cannot save pictures to disk now and have to upload them directly to Flickr.
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A Valediction for Parenthood

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I watched the penultimate episode of Parenthood last night. It was emotionally exhausting and I cried far harder than I probably should over fictional characters in a television series. When I watched the first episode of Parenthood six years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. It was such a quiet show that seemed to have such humble ambitions – merely telling the story of an American family. I think there was a clue right from the start, though, that this was going to be more than a post-milennial Eight is Enough. After all, their last name is Braverman.

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Braverman! That name must be something to live up to. I actually looked up the name’s origin because I was pretty sure it did not originate with some courageous Saxon stalwart holding off a Viking horde and being called a “braver man” than most and then passing that name on for generations. It turns out to be Jewish surname from the Ukraine, a form of the Yiddish word braver which means good or honest. At least that is what most of the sources say, though one source says it means distiller. Well, the Braverman family does like their spirits. The name is perfect, though, there is something good and honest about this family and their quotidian dramas.

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All that is solid melts into air

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Art has many purposes; one is to make us think. If the greatness of art is measured by how much we think about it, Whiskey Monday is a great artist. It is difficult for a virtual artist like Whiskey Monday to get first life recognition for Second Life® art, but it is not impossible. I certainly think her work merits exposure in the broader world beyond our pixel borders.

Meanwhile, it is good to know that the powers that be in our world recognize her importance and have granted her LEA10 – one of the Linden Endowment for the Arts sims, to create art for the coming month. She’s working away and generously allows people to go there and use her builds in their photos.

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Where I first saw this build, I thought  of “Things Fall Apart”, the title of the book by China Achebe that a lot of us read in high school. By the way, if you have not read it, you should. I thought of coming undone, falling apart, coming apart at the seams; metaphors for the fragility of life. I do get the sense that Monday is tackling the big questions with her work.

Then I thought of creative destruction and Karl Marx’s quote, “All that is solid melts into air.” Marx believed the cycle of innovation, recession, then innovation, the boom and bust, would lead to the eventual collapse of capitalism. Free market fundamentalists love creative destruction believing it always leads to innovation that will always lead to more productivity and more wealth and so on. The computer destroyed the typewriter industry, factories closed and people were laid off. That is creative destruction. All that was solid about the typewriter industry has certainly melted into air. Even on a massive corporate scale, there is fragility.

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I wonder about creative destruction at the personal level. Is there something freeing about coming undone? Can losing it spark personal innovation, re-creation and growth? Probably, for some people. But not for all. Even the strongest person has points of fragility.

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The Folly

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When Inex Hax shared her newest release for The Secret Affair on Plurk, I had to comment that it looked like it might just be my favorite of her designs ever. After getting in world and trying it on, it turns out I was right! It’s yummy and comes in white, black red, yellow, pink and blue. I loved each and every one of the colors.

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Catching Up

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I shot these pics a few days ago wearing an outfit featuring items from last month’s Collabor88. Don’t despair, you can now find them in the store. The top, leggings and boots are all from Tres Blah. They come with a puffy jacket, too, but I left that off. Growing up in a place where it’s really cold, I have never understood those puffy jackets with no sleeves as anything more than an extra lining if your coat is not warm enough.
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White and Black

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I was playing with lights and shadows using a single narrow line of white light for my projector. The background prim is white and the blackness comes from wind light set to 100% black everything and bringing gamma down to 0. Then the only light there is comes from the projector. The thin sliver of light in the dark made me feel very noir

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I love the modernist simplicity of NYU’s new Thalia coat. Eschewing all the usual outerwear detailing, the epaulettes, the fabric belt, the stitched edging and the rows of buttons, its design details are a simple notched collar and a single button. This is simplicity at its most stark and striking. I wanted to maintain that sensibility in styling and kept to a monochromatic palette of white with touches of black and silver. I chose cigarette pants from One Bad Pixel for their clean and simple lines.

SnapshotI added a fedora (color-change) from Argace that I have had for ages. I also added a touch of whimsy with CAE’s lovely Blizzard earrings in silver.

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My pumps are from Glamistry and are as chic as can be. The come with a color change HUD that allows me to select the color of the metal (silver, copper and gold) and the platform, heel and body separately. However, I did not go for parti-colored shoes with my monochrome mission. There’s a lot of intelligence behind the Glamistry brand – which allows you to add color components to your HUD so if you kick yourself for buying just one color, you can add more later without proliferating your inventory with pairs and pairs of shoes.

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My skin choice is Sia (FairTales), a new release from Glam Affair for Collabor88 that features soft and ethereal makeups, several with bright, fun colors.

Store info at Blogging Second Life
****SHOPPING LIST******
Poses: Ma Vie
Skin: Glam Affair – Sia skin ( Fairy Tales ) – Asia 08 E
Eyes: [UMEBOSHI] Eon eyes dark Green (med)
Lashes: Mon Cheri *MC* “Falsies” Eyelash
Mesh Attachments:
Slink Avatar Enhancement Hands – Elegant – XSmall L
Slink Avatar Enhancement Hands – Elegant – XSmall R
Slink AvEnhance Feet High XS
Mani/Pedi: FLAIR
Hair: *ARGRACE* Fedora Hat “Wild curl”
Clothing: ::1bp:: Cigarette Pants S White
NYU – Thalia Coat, White
Shoes: Glamistry : GALLA Heels
Jewelry: Cae :: Blizzard :: Earring

Nous Sommes Tous Charlie!

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Je Suis Charlie

I made these Je Suis Charlie pencils and have them out for free at the It’s Only Fashion office.

 

The first paragraph I drafted for this post called what happened yesterday at Charlie Hebdo unthinkable. Of course, I had to delete that and start again because it obviously was not just thinkable, but doable. Three of our fellow human beings went into an office and killed twelve other fellow human beings because they were offended by their cartoons. It all sounds so ludicrous, doesn’t it?

Of course, to say the murders were about cartoons is to miss the point. The killers are bit players in an existential struggle between modernity and traditionalism and modernity is winning. When you are winning, you do not resort to tactics like terrorism. Terrorism is for losers.

Je Suis Charlie

 

You see, if they were not losing the argument already, they had many other options to object to and oppose the satiric cartoons of Charlie Hebdo. They could protest outside the office. They could have billboards saying  “Chalie Hebdo is a poopy head.” They could write letters to the editor or to the advertisers asking them to stop running ads in the magazine. They could call for a boycott of products advertised in Charlie Hebdo. But their side is losing and they know it. So they decided to smash things and kill people.  Continue reading →