Tag Archives: umeboshi

Bedazzled or Shoe Glue Is Magical

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When long-time model Fuzz Lennie told me she had begun designing for Zanze and had just produced her first dress, I had to see it. She has a great sense of style and exquisite focus on detail and I was eager to see what she was going to make. All I can say, is wow! if this is her first, I cannot wait for her second. This dress spoke to me on another level though, reminding me of one of my favorite gifts I gave for Christmas.

It was several years ago, back when I had my very first job in political organizing – working for the mission more than the money. My “discretionary income” was close to nil and in choosing between getting the NY Times of a telephone, I opted for the Times and walked two blocks to a convenience store for phone calls. So Christmas would have to be frugal and I would have to make gifts. Well, I grew up on frugal Christmases with homemade gifts, so that was no problem.
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Feminist

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Misogynist bullshit from TIME magazine’s annual ban-a-word poll.

I was feeling fiercely angry after learning that TIME included feminist on a list of words to be banned from common usage. I will not provide the link because they did it for traffic and they should not be rewarded for their indecency.

And it is indecent. For clicks, shits and giggles, a human gerbil desperately spinning for male approval and working far above her competency suggested that feminist is overused and included it in a list of words that should be banned. Responding to richly deserved backlash, she demanded we consider the context; she is critiquing media trends, not feminism. This is doubly shameless when she blithely ignores the context in which the “I am a Feminist” campaign came to be. I am sure she is proud of herself, though, because she is the kind of feckless  crystallization of vapidity that always will be very, very, very proud of itself.

I am not going to rehash GamerGate or the War on Women or review the depressingly long list of women whom retrograde knuckle-walkers have tried to silence with rape and death threats. I am not going to list the long list of anti-women legislation proposed and passed. I will only sadly mention that 36% of Oregon voters voted that women should not have the same legal and civil rights as men. It is all sad and depressing, but, Katy Steinmetz, that is context.

Feminism is controversial because as women have become more economically independent and achieved a measure of parity in society, they are less susceptible to social and economic extortion to remain in bad relationships. Is a good relationship possible with a man who thinks women are second class citizens? That, Katy Steinmetz, is context.

Of course, Katy Steinmetz is not that important and she never will be. Though I imagine someday she will realize that she is paid significantly less than men in her same position – notoriously common in journalism. She may be angry, she might want to express that anger with a word. I wonder what word she will use?

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NPISL

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One of my favorite groups back “in the day” was Bettina Tizzy’s Not Possible in Real Life (NPiRL). Tizzy gloried in the freedom of Second Life® creation – unshackled from the laws of Euclid and Newton – free to create anything they could imagine. Of course, Second Life has its own laws that result in some things common in real life becoming Not Possible in Second Life. Something quite simple in real life can become very complicated, even impossible, in Second life. One of those things is fringe.
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Fringe is one of the fall’s hot fashion trends and promises to be an even hotter item in the spring. However, the physics of SL are not fringe-friendly. Of course, we could have flexi-fringe, but after two years of not having our clothes fall through our bodies, I think that is not the solution we want. We know from reports that flexi-mesh is not even under consideration right now. So I am excited to see Sunami Beck of Emery look for a work around. It’s not perfect, perfect is impossible, but it is a valiant effort that works pretty well overall. This fringe dress is a la page fashion – and it looks great. You can find it at Collabor88 with a bundle of coordinating loose sweaters like the on I am wearing.
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Friend or “Friend”

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Bizza’s Asymmetrical Jacket is fun, casual and goes perfectly with the Josie pants.The Josie pants come with a HUD offering three options for each pair of pants. The details on these pants are out of this world.

Most of our friends are not our friends; they are acquaintances, contacts, colleagues and associates. However, in social media, we lump the people on our mobilization phone trees together with those for whom we would give up a kidney. The act of reading each others timelines foster that sense of shared intimacy that is the hallmark of real friendship. The boundaries blur and sometimes we invest more emotionally in those who are merely ships passing by, mistaking acquaintanceship for friendship. More than one person has been devastated recently by opinions of “friends” they have mistaken for friends.

However true friendship requires more than knowing the name of my cat or my political persuasion. Friendship is an investment in trust and intimacy. We share our best selves with our “friends” and share our flaws with our friends. You know someone is your friend when you know you can safely confess some petty, spiteful thoughts and feeling, secure that your friendship will not falter. That is why the opinions of “friends” should be taken lightly. They know of us. They know about us. They do not know us.

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Portrait of the Artist

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The Reach Sketchbook set comes with 9 sits, 3 stands and 1 sequence for the model. when you choose an option, the sketch on the easel changes to reflect your new pose. You can also get a copy of the sketch to hang on your wall.

I found this amazing furniture at ReAct the other day, a lounge with an artist’s easel and chair. I asked Gogo if she new any artists who might be interested in sketching my portrait and she suggested Spyder Silverfall. Sure enough, he was willing to do my portrait, so I posed for him. As you can see, the sketch progressed quickly.

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While he was sketching, I snuck a snap of him. He was quite fashionable in his black shirt and pants with the kneepads. His hair was styled by Tableau Vivant and is a good look on him . Continue reading

CAI as in Cairo, Zha as in Asia

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There is no greater thrill for a fashionista than to have some design named after them. If you have a name many folks don’t know how to pronounce, it’s even more thrilling because it doesn’t happen very often. So, yes! I was thrilled when Thalia Heckroth named her newest gown in my honor. I was even more thrilled though, seeing it’s modern lines and minimalist style.

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The Colors of Fall

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Autumn has been painting its palette all across Second Life for the past month. I stopped by Izzie’s because it is always one of the most beautiful seasonal sims and sure enough, Izzie’s portrait of autumn is beautiful. In fact, it’s so lovely, I decided to use a paint filter on one of my snaps to turn it into a painting. If you stop by Izzie’s, don’t touch the kitty, she is shy.
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Would you update your viewer in the middle of a photo shoot?

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Normally my answer would be “Hell to the No” but when I was shooting these pictures today, I figured it could not possible get worse and might get better. So when I saw there was a new update, I went for it. I have not been able to save a photo to disk since Monday and was saving raw shots directly from the SL viewer to Flickr. The photos for this post are raw, unedited pictures. They have not even been cropped. I know Flickr has a photo editor, but I don’t like it. Still, it turns out fine. I just like to play with a few little touch ups now and then. I am wearing a fun and adorable sailor sweater and flared skirt from MotiAme that I found at Kustom9 when I dropped by to throw money at Apple Fall, as one does. The sweater comes in gray, brown, blue, black, red and white. The skirt is in black, white and blue. They fit together well and have a lovely early fall feeling – for those days with brisk breezes, a bit of mist in the air and moments of sunshine. October in Oregon.
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Crashy McCrasherton

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So I have been crashing every single time I saved a picture to disk for the last two days, perhaps some new incompatibility arose from upgrading my OS to Yosemite. I will have to figure it out soon, but I didn’t feel like trouble shooting today, so I just save the photos direct to Flickr®. That means these are truly raw photos, not even cropped. I just set the size of the frame inworld and clicked until I got the shot I wanted and so what you see is what you get. As to why it crashes saving to disk but not to Flickr, those are the mysteries of computers and graphics cards and code.

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Vintage Is Cool or I Saw My First Flasher at the Vintage Store

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I have always like vintage clothing, particular that from the 40s and 50s when clothing was structured and fitted with sophisticated glamour the aesthetic goal designers had in mind. The Vintage and Cool event currently going on seems made for me. People were coming out of the austerity of the Thirties and the World War and the expanding economy and growing middle class allowed for a real explosion of fashion. This lovely dress from AVALE fits firmly in that tradition.

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