Poetry, beauty, and friendship

I'm glad I managed to make it to the poetry session today. It was at the Culture Vulture Gallery in Tupi, courtesy of artists Ada Radius and Coke Bernstein.

It is always nice to be with Hensonian. She has that caring aura about her. Today she wrote a poem especially for me, about me---"The Girl At The Door"!

Mykyl shared some dark and powerful poems with us. I found it almost incredible that in her writing she could put herself into the shoes of someone else. She has the power of empathy that is ever rarer these days.

I made a lovely new friend too, Jennifer. It wasn't so long ago that I was a silly little newbie on Orientation Island; my mind cannot cope well with abstractions or references to classical literary works; but Jennifer's poems were real, human, easy to grasp and appreciate. It was so comforting to find another person so human in a world where many behave like bots. And ooh, she knows Pat!

Last week Sundai got in touch with me, out of the blue. She had come to some of my recitals before and supported me enthusiastically, but I hadn't known too much about her. She took me to her home by the sea, which was really, really, really beautifully furnished. I was in awe the whole time. Later on I played a bit of music for her. There were horrible problems with setting up the stream, and we nearly gave up, but we got it working in the end in the Brotherhood stagehouse. She is many classes above me but she is really sweet and seems to be willing to be a friend.

My dear friends, I love you very much... (That's three ellipses, without a space before.)

Random drivel

Hey.

You know what? I haven't thought of dying. For a while now.

It's been really nice meeting friends. I want to live for them. Now my life does have a purpose after all. It's difficult being so busy and having so much to do, and thinking of how to earn a living, but it's better than being sad and lonely.

Our crazy magic carpet ride

March 10: Today I met some people at an art gallery. I discovered that some of them had been at my Acropolis recital. What a small world.

March 12: Today I tried to fly FD on a magic carpet from Faeria Village to my home in Maemi. I thought it would be easy. It was only about 12 regions away. But we kept hitting banlines, and the carpet would disappear, and we would come tumbling down from the sky locked in awkward postures. It was a horrible journey.

A few days later FD told me that banlines only go up to a certain height, and it is possible to avoid them simply by flying above 100 meters (or sometimes 170 meters). If only we had known earlier! Maybe now the New Citzens[sic] Tourist Club will be able to begin sightseeing tours.

Sunday afternoon music at the House of Flames

I went to Kurt Jano's (Kurt Bestor in real life) performance today at the House of Flames, run by Flameheart Sol. He was amazing, as before, playing many different instruments, telling great stories, and endearing himself to the audience by talking to them indiviually. He even mentioned me with much praise. That was so embarrassing... Kurt Bestor is a celebrity! Eep!

I met Lehua Lamington, the Hawaiian storyteller. I hope I can go to her next story session.

Louis Volare was great too. I need to learn to play jazz like Louis---or rather, Luigi. My friend Cricket turned up during the performance to tell me that he had read this blog. We danced. It was so nice. Cricket is always such a gentleman.

An unusually large number of newbies wandered into the House of Flames while the music was going on. Maybe they had come over from the new Shelter in Swinside, drawn by the crowd. I should go and have a look at the new Shelter one day.

The Brotherhood of Twisted Prim

This is our lovely female Brother, alphaTest03 Yohkoh, resident architect and ventriloquist of the Brotherhood of Twisted Prim. Actually, she prefers to be called a "Sister".

On this occasion we were visiting a sky cafe which alphaTest03 had been working on. She showed us her grand piano and played Debussy's "Clair de lune" and a famous Rachmaninoff prelude for us.

Earlier on the Brotherhood had an important meeting, complete with office chairs and desks. The main items on the agenda were the positioning of the texture previewers and the management of Brotherhood land. I felt that our members were indeed demonstrating those worthy qualities of trust and sincerity which the Brotherhood was founded upon. My own role seems to be to entertain people with frivolous activities such as penguin-riding, giant poseball soccer, and magic carpet tours. My magic carpet did come in very useful though when we had to go up to Mykyl's sky platform and our magical powers of teleportation weren't working.

We have a lovely little shop in Faeria Village now, next to The Booksmythe. FD made a beautiful calligraphic sign saying "Brotherhood Of The Twisted Prim". I'm beginning to be proud of our shop now. ... Oh, you must come to see the village! There is a pub called "Slainte"---Celtic for "cheers"---where you can play Othello while munching on magic mushrooms while listening to soothing music. There is a campfire and a pond and an ice-cream cart. Yay! I love ice cream.

Today I got a message from a newbie who had found me from the "Writers of SL" group. He seemed to know an awful lot for a day-old newborn. Since he was a literary type, I put him in touch with J1mmy and Alphonsus. My little circle of friends is really growing.

Catherine Moody: the story so far

I was born a confused little newbie on Orientation Island. After some pleasant and unpleasant encounters, I found my way to the Shelter in Isabel, and spent many happy days there. But eventually I realized I didn't fit in, that it was not the place for me. The cat that Midel had given me attracted a lot of attention, and maybe that made people jealous, too.

I wandered the vast, empty world in my little red car and my black-and-gold hovercraft, looking for inhabited places, and eventually I came across the B-Dazzled shop --- then in Daikoku --- where I met Loren Fitzgerald, alphatest03 Yohkoh, and FD Spark, camping at the Scramble center.

Scramble was fun. But it felt like an empty pursuit. I signed up as a member of the poetry guild and attended some meetings, where I met mindserfer, Phorkyad Acropolis, and J1mmy Weiland, who were giving out food for the soul.

The classical music group seemed to be dead; but one day someone posted an invitation to the Classical Music Aficionados group and a landmark to her new garden, the "Truth and Beauty Assembly". I decided to visit the garden, and soon I came across its owner, Tyrol Rimbaud. She helped me start a musical career, and with her poetic friend Pat she was thinking of adopting me. But no longer. I must have said or done something wrong. Now, it seems, I'm left out in the world to fend for myself. A little gypsy girl come full circle. It hurts.

I'm lucky that my kind friend FD Spark invited me into the secret Brotherhood of Twisted Prim. Our summer headquarters are a hidden spot for artists to seek refuge in. Yesterday I met a writer, Mykyl Nordwind, who built a cozy little village with a few houses and shops. Maybe it will be another source of warmth and comfort in this journey through life, on the way to that final resting place.

Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's a ware that will not keep.
Up, [lass]: when the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.
- from "Reveille" from "A Shropshire Lad", A. E. Housman

With grateful acknowledgments also to my loyal friend Cricket Crabe, whom I met at the Shelter; to my dear eccentric Zin and her hangers-on; to Slim Warrior, Anoron Hanson, Celeste Stardust, Tony Bouchard, and Muli Basiat for organizing concerts, and to Ged Larsen, Seeron DeVinna, Desire Jacques, Alphonsus Peck, and Princess Ivory for enthusiastically supporting me; and to all the other people who helped make my life more livable.

C. Moody, 2007-2-20.

The Concert at the Acropolis

Today Tyrol took me to a concert at the Acropolis auditorium. I was amazed to see such an enormous hall with so many seats and spotlights shining down from the ceiling. There were several grand pianos on the stage, shining in the spotlight. Kori Travanti was sitting at the piano and playing some of her own music --- I think it was New Age. Later on there was a performer called Heath, and then another one who was really good ... I forgot his name.

Wow. It must be scary to perform on a stage like that, in front of so many people from all over the world.

* I might have forgotten, or made up, some of the details here. This really sucks!

The Garden of Truth and Beauty

I forgot how it all began. Hmm ....

Ah. I have it now. One day, I received a notice from the classical music group. It was written in very fine language which I can't recall or imitate, but the gist was something like this:

“Hi all, this group has been dormant for a long time. I am setting up a new group called Classical Music Aficionados and hopefully we will be able to start holding many fun activities. You're welcome to my new place, called the Truth and Beauty Assembly in Taedong.”

Eventually curiosity got the better of me, and I followed the directions on the notice. Everything went dark for a moment; I thought I saw a colored progress bar appear in front of me; however, by now the experience of teleporting to unknown places was routine to me. Now I could see again; I felt gravity pulling on my body again as I rezzed into the new area, and objects started appearing all around me, grey at first, gradually acquiring color and coming into focus.

I looked around. I was in a garden, surrounded by lush greenery. A beautiful secluded garden with trees in various shades of green, leafy branches gently swaying in the wind, protecting it from the rude world outside. On the grass were a few cream-colored benches, as if placed thoughtfully for the benefit of visitors, but not unnaturally .... not intruding upon the peace and calm of the garden. [very badly written --- need to fix] I wandered around in awe, and soon realized that the garden was quite small---about the size of a tennis court---and that it was surrounded by four walls, cleverly painted to resemble a forest stretching in all directions as far as the eye could see. I marveled at the unknown person who had created all this. Or was it not the work of a person?

Against one of the walls was a fountain, a sheet of water cascading gently down a marble mosaic [inlaid picture---need to find out what such a thing is actually called] into a square pool at the foot of the mosaic, fed by some invisible magic. There are many strange and powerful magics in our world; I have some idea about the direct magic, the type that flows out through a limb of our body and commands things to move about, but I have yet to learn about the magic that can be infused into inanimate objects and manifests itself even in the absence of the one who invoked it. ... But back to my story. On either side of the fountain was a white-colored notice board. Why, I wondered, did someone stick up whiteboards in the middle of a garden like this? As I stared at the board on the left, it seemed to shimmer, and words began to come into view. At last my confused eyes were able to decipher them:

Sonnet

I know not how or why the soul does search
for kindred hearts in lands it cannot see ...

I gazed at the magical words. They seemed to be calling out to something within me. But my attention was distracted by a gap in the wall to the left of the poetry-board. I realized that there was a path of red tiles leading out from the garden. It was framed by two wooden posts, with a banner strung between them, reading:

SLOW!
You are entering another sim.

Again, curiosity got the better of me. I stepped gingerly through the archway formed by the posts and the banner, the border between Taedong and Maemi. I walked up a grassy slope, and when I got to the top I saw a lovely house --- a house I could only dream of having myself. I was tempted to enter and explore, but stopped out of reverence for the owner. There was an atmosphere of peace which I could not bring myself to disturb. There was the sound of rushing water, and some beautiful music being played by some invisible hand. [badly written, must fix] I sat down on the grass and closed my eyes to listen.

Suddenly I heard light footsteps treading on the grass, barely audible. I started up and looked around. I was just in time to see a young woman stepping down the grassy slope to the path leading to the garden.

“Hey!” I called out. “Excuse me ...”

The young woman turned around and greeted me. She was short and slender, dressed elegantly in a black sleeveless top and a matching skirt.

“Hi, I'm Catherine,” I said. “I hope you didn't mind me being in your garden.”

“You're very welcome here! I'm Tyrol,” she said. Or something like that. I don't remember what words she used.

“Tyrol? ... Oh, it must have been you who sent out the notice to our group! How nice to meet you!”

That was my first encounter with Tyrol Rimbaud.

The Yard

When I rezzed into the world today, I found my friends FD Spark and Blu Laszlo setting up shop in The Yard at Honeoye. [details to be added]

I also met Southy Buckenberger, the friendly, double-gun-wielding owner of The Yard. [details to be added]

Martin Luther King Day

[writing in progress]

Shopping for Hair

[preparation in progress]

Poetry at the Bear Dream Lodge, including "The Griefer"

The poetry guild held a meeting near the Bear Dream Lodge Infohub this evening. I was distracted by something else, and turned up rather late for the meeting. When I got there, there was quite a large group gathered around the campfire, seated on logs and tree stumps. I sat down quietly on the grass and listened to the discussion.

[writing in progress]

The Griefer
- Phorkyad Acropolis

He made a black box
It swallowed all of us whole
Then we kicked his a**

[writing in progress]

Catherine's Tea Party

Today I rezzed my house in the sandbox at the New Citizens' Plaza, Kuula, to show it to my friend Cricket. Anyway, I rezzed a couch and a table so we could sit down while discussing the decoration of the house. The New Citizens' Plaza was full of newbies, as usual, and soon some inquisitive newbies stepped in through the doorway (I had yet to put in a door) and started jumping on my bed. Well, I thought, let's be hospitable and serve them some drinks.

The crowd gradually grew. I rezzed more and more chairs around the glass coffee table. I invited some of my friends to join us --- FD, Noelle, Zin; it was nice to see Hooper again; and we got to meet a clothing designer, Blu. As some people left, others popped in to take their place. We had a lively discussion going.

I decided to move my house up about fifty meters, to avoid the noise and also to avoid disturbing the people on the ground. Even then, there were still some curious newbies who flew up to join us. For some reason, many of my guests had decided to come in what looked like underwear. “Welcome to Catherine's Mile-High Lingerie Tea Party!” I joked. “When you leave, use a parachute.”

I was quite carried away. And then ... the inevitable happened. The furniture and tea set vanished. The house disappeared into thin air. We all came tumbling down one after another, falling flat on our faces. I looked up, wincing, and saw a large signboard at the corner of the sandbox: TWO HOUR AUTORETURN.

An NCI Land Officer came over and began telling me off, politely, for holding a tea party in a sandbox. She explained that the NCI sandbox was for newbies to practise their building skills, and that living in sandboxes was not permitted. And neither was holding tea parties. I appreciated the necessity of such a rule, although I was sad that our party was over. It was nice getting to know new newbies, and I think they enjoyed experiencing some of the things our world has to offer, a civilized teatime discussion in a cozy little house ...

The land officer also said later that “SL is not the place for religion or politics”. Perhaps if I notice people discussing those topics, I'll report them to her.

* I can't remember exactly what happened, and when it happened --- some details may be incorrect.

The Librarians' Meeting

We all know that power comes with numbers. A single bee may not be threatening but I wouldn't go near a hive. A herd of elephants is a force to be reckoned with.

There is nothing quite as terrifying, however, as a group of librarians congregated in one place. Large numbers of serious, bespectacled librarians. Spacetime itself warps and cracks, unable to sustain the collective weight of their knowledge. I observed this myself at the meeting today at the open-air auditorium on Information Island.

I was fortunate enough to get this picture of almost forty librarians before the inevitable happened. It was a tragedy of apocalyptic proportions. It left us frozen in our seats, unable to leave, some making typing motions for eternity. As one of us would observe later, "the sim had crashed".

My friends, beware: the librarians are planning to meet again next Sunday!

Chess at Info Island

Catherine plays the classic "Varyoshnikovskaya" opening! This is the giant chessboard at Info Island. My opponent said that the knights looked like Snoopies (from "Peanuts"); I thought that the bishops looked like penguins. Note the white cone and the black cylinder that we used in place of the missing pawns. The black cylinder was almost invisible on the black squares, which gave me an unfair advantage that led to victory. Strategy, indeed.

The Ups and Downs of Second Life

Life is hard, and Second Life is no exception. I feel rejected by most of society in this world. Most people seem to expect me to be a representation of my real life counterpart, but that's something I can't possibly do. Nobody seems to accept me, Catherine Moody, for who I am.

Perhaps that is depression speaking. Really, things haven't gone too badly. Most of my relationships have been very positive. People seem to like me. Why, then, does it hurt me so much whenever anyone says a harsh word? I suppose it's because I'm afraid of offending others. Deathly afraid.

What was responsible for this bout of soul-searching? Probably the incident at the Shelter ... I felt that I wasn't wanted around, that people didn't want me to have normal conversations. Perhaps I should have taken my conversation partner aside and spoken more softly. What did I do wrong? Did I hurt anyone?

I left the bustle of Shelter for the tranquillity of the library plaza on Information Island, and sat down on the cool marble to begin contemplating funeral arrangements yet again. Today, however, there were visitors, and a bespectacled but attractive young librarian was showing them around. She had an air of quiet dignity, and she spoke clearly in complete sentences with full punctuation and capitalization. There was an aura of power about her, and I trembled, feeling that she could unleash great punishment upon me if I messed with her. But I also felt the presence of Reason in her.

Eventually we got into a conversation, and she gave me directions to a coffee shop. [....minor details to be inserted later.......]

Unexpectedly, she offered me a hug. I accepted, and for a brief moment I felt that warm ecstatic glow that one gets from contact with another soul. Then she was gone, leaving me floating a few centimeters off the ground with my arms around thin air, eyes closed. I remained that way until the moment of de-rezzing, when my world shut down around me.

When one is in the deepest despair, sometimes, out of nowhere, comes a ray of hope. And so here I am, still clinging on to that hope, hanging on to my second life.

C. Moody, 2007-1-1

Daisy's Christening

On Dec 31, 2006, there was a formal dance party at the Shelter by Peter Gretsky to celebrate the coming of the new year to our world. We would be voting for the best-dressed male and female dancers, and although I wasn't going to try competing with all the beautiful ladies, I still spent a long time dressing up so that I wouldn't look out of place.

When I finally stepped out of the elevator at the main floor of the Shelter, it was nearly time to begin voting, and the dance floor was almost full. As I stood apart from the crowd, bewildered by all the activity, a well-dressed gentleman came up to me. He introduced himself as Cricket Crabe and asked me if I cared for a couples' dance.

Now I have two left feet, and at balls like this I usually find myself either frozen with catalepsy or sinking into the dance floor. Cricket was a great dancer, though, and with him leading me I was able to twirl around quite professionally.

[... needs some filler material here ...]

“Do you know where I can get a cat?” he asked.

“My cat has a litter. Why don't you take a look? You can have one of the kittens. It would be a bit sad to separate it from its mother, but well.”

I picked out one of the little kittens from my magical handbag and handed it to Cricket. “Its face is dirty, but if you try you might be able to clean it up.”

“How wonderful! I can't believe it,” he said. “I've been looking for a cat all day, and there you are with kittens to spare. What do you call your cat?”

“To be honest, I haven't been able to come up with a name yet. It was Midel the elf who gave her to me, and so I thought of calling her Midel, or little Midel, or perhaps little Cathy. But none of those names sound right.”

“How about Shelly, for `The Shelter'?”

“That doesn't sound soft and cuddly enough,” I said. “It makes me think of hard seashells.”

“Hmm. I'm thinking of a name. ... What is your favorite flower?”

“That's a difficult question! There are so many answers to choose from. Flowers come in many shapes and sizes. There are beautiful ones like roses and tulips. But with beauty often comes vanity and frailty. ... I suppose if there were a competition for the 'best flowers', I would vote for daisies. They're so small and unassuming, but they have such an admirable will to live, and together they make the meadows look beautiful with their little heads.”

“Well then,” said Cricket, “why don't you call your cat Daisy?”

“What a good idea!” I exclaimed. “She's small and cute, like a little white daisy. I should have thought of that before. All right then, Daisy it is!”

And so now my cat is called Daisy, and the kitten that I gave to Cricket is “Little Daisy”.

The ill-fated Shelter Lost Lake Balloon Tour

[To finish writing] A group of us were hanging out at the Shelter ... We decided to go on the Lost Lake Balloon Tour.

We had a lively conversation as the balloon took off ...











Away and over the clear blue sea we floated ...
















And then ... [we must have hit a banline. The balloon disappeared from under us and we found ourselves in mid-air, falling, flailing our arms wildly. Even the poor guy in the wheelchair.]

[.... we hitched a ride on someone's Osprey spacehip ... etc .... and eventually we got back to the Shelter on a flying carpet, but four of our group were missing.]

What a wonderful world

[To do: take picture of prims; add link to SL web]

[Further editing pending]

What an fascinating world this is.

Isn't it wonderful how so much variety and complexity can arise from seven basic building blocks? I was amazed to learn that so much in our world is made of little blocks and balls---castles, helicopters, fountains, beds, dresses, even living creatures like my dear little cat. It seems impossible. But I'm told that that's how it is---little blocks join to form large blocks, and large ones to form enormous shopping malls.

It reminds me of that place we call "real life". From quarks, to electrons, to atoms and molecules and cells and tissues and us, new and wonderful things emerged at every level. And then there were families, villages, kingdoms, nations. And in another direction there was cognition, creativity, emotion. All emerging from a few simple rules of nature.

Praise be to the Creator(s)!