Places in Second Life: Athan Selidor

There are places in SL you go to hang out with friends. There are places you go to shop, or dance, or role play. And then there are places you go to to just be. To stand on a beautiful shoreline and breathe in a sunset, watch a wave crash on a rock, explore the corners of an ancient library. These are the beautiful places. The places that take your breath away, make you want to just stop and stare. Or sit and meditate. To, like I said, breathe. And be.



This is Athan Selidor. An island. An ancient building. A library of obscure wisdom. A refuge.

I was first shown this place by my dear friend, Draven. An artist and a builder, he has a talent for finding beautiful places in SL--and I am always delighted when he shows me some new place he has discovered in his travels.

There are many tiny islands in Athan, but one large main one. On that is the library. Or maybe it is a temple.

It has the feel of antiquity and peace that go with ruins, and yet it is not ruined. Balconies and galleries like a castle, even a tiny chapel in the bottom. Then again, castle, temple or library, what does it matter. 

It is what it is.

In the basement of the large building on the main island, is the library, Liber Obscurum. While visiting here I have met few people. One wandering vampire, and the man who tends the library, Talisein Llewellyn. 

If you have questions he will be happy to answer them. There are notecards about as well, with information on a number of arcane topics. Me, I like some things to remain a mystery. 

I like to think of this as an kind of abandoned Atlantean outpost. Perhaps a beautiful and wise people once lived and loved here. Then one day abandoned their paradise because  whatever serendipity that drove them pushed them in a different direction. 

I can almost see their ships pulling away, taking them to new horizons.

Will they return? Who can say. Only time and the tides can tell.

SL Places to Visit: Grendel's Children

Tsai at Grendel's Children
Originally uploaded by Tsai Jie

Grendel's Children is a gorgeous sim for the inner monster in all of us. Visit their elaborate series of skyboxes and see what a talented builder can do with sculpted prims.

The Ancient Lighthouse

I'd been decorating for the Christmas season at Valis, and went off in search of ice skates for skating on the pool at the base of our waterfall. But as so much in SL is transitory, I was not surprised the link I followed to a skating rink in Wollaston lead me now to an open field. I was about to turn back when in the distance, against the night sky, I saw an Ancient Lighthouse on a rocky promontory. Not being a girl to shirk off an adventure I figured I had to explore it.

After and arduous climb over rocks and across tumbled pillars I made my way to staircase on the side of the mountain. Treacherous and steep, I slipped, and found myself falling through a crack in the rock into a subterranean cave. It was a beautiful grotto with a tiny waterfall, but to my horror I found I could not get out. the only staircase in there led to sheer rock walls. Then in a back corner I spied the trunk. No treasure, unless you could count a landmark that led me out as treasure. The night was past and dawn breaking by the time I made my way back to the stairs and began again the long climb to the top of the light house.

I made good time to a balcony about halfway up the towers. Some kind soul had left a bottle of wine and two cups there, so I fortified myself while I took a breather to look at the scenery. Back across the fields I had traveled I could see great statues of mythical beasts in the distance. To the north was a huge cathedral floating in the sky. Something to explore another day, I thought. To the west of the Lighthouse were some ordinary SL bungalows, and nestled at the eastern base of the Lighthouse itself, just on the other side of a waterfall that spilled from unknown springs at the mountain top, was a small shop (of course, there is always a shop, this is SL after all!) built among the beautiful Grecian ruins.

An iron-bound door led me to an interior room of lovely mosaic floors with a map and an impressive globe. This room opened onto a balcony where lovers (it was clear by the pose balls) must have sat to enjoy the view of the ruins below. But who were they, those lovers who built this place? I continued my explorations in the hope of finding out.

Twisting stairs took me past a room with an astrolabe and beautiful dolphin mosaics on the floor lit by the once again setting sun. Then up and up higher to the topmost room, where I sat and rested my feet and my mind. This lovely place, this seat, was meant for two and I could only wish that my beloved could be there with me. A peek at the architecture gave me the builder's name, Hacker Jannings, jewelry designer, and that of his lovely wife, Lillyanne Lustre, fashion designer, it is their shop in the ruins below. Ironic, I thought as what they had built so paralleled my own life and place in Valis.

I sat for a while and watched the growing dusk, thinking of all the SL lovers, all those who build fantastic places for their beloveds, and those who walk with their lovers in search of such treasures to share. With a smile I let my teleport carry me home.

Of Being Birds and Designing Dresses

So Draven has been designing again. He has a new dress series called "Dove." Dove came out of a conversation about a tag Jinara picked for herself in our group. See we sort of accidentally developed this bird name thing.

The bird tags came about because Draven's shop is called Bird of Prey, and back when he started building he made a tag for himself to go along with that: "Black Crow." This is appropriate in many ways for him--he always wears black, his SL name comes from the movie The Crow, and like the ravens that sat on Odin's shoulders he is always quietly observant, collecting information about the world around. He gave me the nickname "White Crane" because of the Decemberists song "The Crane Wife," which, he said, made him think of me. I liked that since my name, Tsai, means white or pale, and because the crane is a symbol in Asian folklore for wisdom, virtue, and longevity. One Japanese tradition also says if you fold 1000 origami cranes your wish will come true. That also seems right to me as I'd like to think I've made a lot of men's wishes come true (wink!) in my day.

When Wren joined us in SL (or maybe I should say when Draven turned her on to SL) she picked her bird name purposely to match her brother's; her tag is "Dark Bird," very appropriate for my lover's goth-chick little sister. My own sister, Jhai, joined us not long after and she picked the tag "Silent Swan" (she's had a thing for swans ever since Mom put a swan on the cake for her sixth birthday, though Jhai is anything but silent!).

Up to that point Jinara had just worn the standard member tag in our group: "Balance Seeker." In fact it was Jinara who started the group, so she was rather opposed at first to the "bird trend" as she called it. But then a couple months ago some of us were sitting around the table in the dining room, Jhai and Draven with coffee cups in their hands while I was sipping green tea, when in strolled Jinara wearing a tag that read: "Soiled Dove."

Jhai nearly snorted her coffee through her nose. "OMG!" she said to Jinara, "Do you have any idea what a 'soiled' dove is?"

"I dunno. A pigeon maybe?" Jinara mumbled, looking puzzled, "I just heard it somewhere and kinda liked it."

"Oh, my dear girl, you just labeled yourself as a 'lady of the evening'!" replied Jhai, who was still chuckling as she (ever the teacher) explained it to a mortified Jinara, and a highly amused Draven and I.

It seems that in the 18th and 19th centuries the term "soiled dove" was applied in particular to gentlewomen (doves) who had fallen from some higher social strata into prostitution (thus soiled) by a need to support themselves after having been wronged and/or deserted by men. In fact, in one famous speech called the soiled dove plea, an attorney in 1889 convinced an all-male jury to acquit a woman facing prostitution charges by arguing that women were not to be blamed, but that it was instead men who should take the blame for the prostitution into which some women are forced.

I thought it was pretty funny that Jinara, who has been a dancer and a stripper but never an escort, should label herself as one inadvertently; while I, who have taken pay for my "services," was labeled as a crane, a sign of purity. No wonder Jhai found it hilarious!

I could see Draven's wheels turning as Jhai told the story, and I was right. Pretty soon he had the dress all planned out. Imagine the girl headed west to find the lover who has gone off to war--but he is not to be found. Her once beautiful best dress is eventually worn to shreds as she runs out of money and hope, and finally, in desperation, she turns to a life of prostitution to feed herself.

Draven built the dress with multiple looks. There is the pure white version, the white underdress with a softly dove-colored overdress, and then he made the same dresses in torn, tattered, and soiled fabrics. Both also come in long and short skirt versions.


This is me wearing the pure white Dove, and below I am wearing it with the overdress while standing to the left of Jinara who is wearing the Soiled Dove overdress version.

Funny thing about that tag "Soiled Dove" is that despite its connotations, Jinara (who is still young enough to disapprove of selling sex, of the SL escort business, with all the moral certainty of youth) is the one still wearing it.

Moving On Up!

I haven't been writing much of late because I have been incredibly busy in both RL and SL. In RL it was back to school time, and in SL I have also been learning...to build! It all started with Draven's fascination with airships. See in Valis we kept getting weirder and weirder neighbors. First there was a giant ugly box of a castle with neighbors that had a loud obnoxious trivia game broadcasting day and night. Then they sold to a strip club with loud misspelled-text promotional ads that were broadcasting (you got it) day and night. That was always empty, so it sold to a couple who turned it into a large ugly purple club with loud gambling machines. To the other side of us is a really ugly house with big signs advertising a store. For a while now the only amusing thing about the neighbors has been guessing how long till they fold and move on and what ugly thing will turn up next! So Draven proposed we take down the Villa we'd been living in, and live in the airship high above all the chaos below.

Now we share space with several folks (it gets us a bigger space and larger tier). There is my older sister, Jhai; Draven's younger sister, Wren; my friend, Jinara (the group was actually her idea); her first SL boyfriend, Malcolm; Wren's friends, Hawk and Heron (We got this group bird title thing going, and Wren met them while camping when they all looked at each other's names); Dabrin, who is a friend/RL colleague of Draven's; and our most recent addition, Japhrimel, a friend and student of Jhai's who I think of as our younger brother.

But if we were going to move up into the sky what did that mean for our friends? One big family meeting later (well, really it all us girls, Japh, and Draven, since Hawk didn't care and Mal and Dabrin are never around much anymore) we decided to move all of us up into the sky. First we placed Draven's airship, the "Nereide."


Then Jhai bought a second airship, the "Selene."

And Draven rezzed a copy of the ship he'd built for Jhai's SL workplace, a green glass blimp I promptly christened the "Vitreaux."

I had a grotto with a pool and a waterfall (by Juanita Deharo), so I built a big flying hunk of concrete to place it on. It has wind chimes, a Straylight tree, an Isle of Mists waterlily that opens and closes with the sun, and 2 lily pads Jhai found that we can float on. Inside the grotto are candles, a small waterfall and pool, and a grassy place that will be just right for Draven's Kamasutra rug (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). Draven's Rustica furniture and the lovely claw-footed tub he made (for one or two!) also needed a place to be, so I built a large flying rock garden. I took a large, rocky, sculpted megaprim and made an edging of boulders from the library by matching the textures, added a grassy patch Draven had made (for our old yard below), flowers, trees, and then linked the whole thing.

I am particularly proud of the L-shaped bridge that links the Grotto and the Flying Rock because I built that all by myself. The base of it is 2 prims with mahogany planking texture, but nowhere could I find an iron railing texture. Then I remembered a freebie iron-topped table I had in inventory--I took it apart and used the texture on the transparent prim that was the table surface, and stretched it out with the texture repeating for the rail (thank you, oh unknown builder, for your lovely table!). It took a bit of finagling to get it all to line up so I could link it, but one thing I have learned from Draven is not to give up. When you are frustrated, walk away and come back later. It will be a better build if you do.

Jhai and Wren popped in from time to time to give me advice, and Draven came by to check up on me and teach me a new trick here or there, but mostly I just arranged and rearranged all by myself. I've placed our Intan couples dance balls everywhere, and a Bits and Bobs kiss or two around for Draven and I (or for Jinara and her next mad crush). I can't wait to see Draven tonight and show him around. I got him a present too, a murder of crows from WaterMoon Breeze to fly around his ship and the shop below.
Oh, yes, down below Draven rebuilt the villa as the main store for Bird of Prey Designs. Come by and see his dresses and Steampunk gear, stay tuned for more of his furniture builds, and if you want an airship skybox of your own, just IM him--I am certain he'd build you one, too.

Places to See in SL: the Garden of NPIRL Delights

It is almost too late, this being the last day for this incredible four sim exhibit of fantastic and surreal builds, but if you get time tonight you must go see The Garden of Not Possible in Real Life Delights in Rezzable (click here for the SURL). Loosely inspired by Hieronymus Bosch the Garden is a masterwork of multiple talented builders come together in one spot to create what the NPIRL Blog calls: ". . . not a routine build festival. In fact, it is the first time that such a large number of mostly well-known and well-regarded artists, architects, and scripters have come together to not only embrace and demonstrate art and architecture and landscaping that is 'not possible in Real Life'or NPIRL, but also to construct it around a theme so surreal that a similar effort could not be duplicated in Real Life."

Here is one small example: Last night Draven found himself in a representation of a Salvador Dali painting there! Here's on the left is the original Dali painting, "Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)."
And below to the right is Draven posing on the build in the Garden (or as he put it: "Irish Catholic boy creates Franco-Celtic persona in virtual world and re-enacts The Crucifixion in a surrealist sort of way.") Yes, you too can become one with a piece of art--only possible in SL!

So come out and see the Garden tonight, it's your very last chance!

Art in SL: Boston College gives out an MFA for an SL build

Places in Second Life: Crescent Museum, guest post by Jhai Thorne

There are many galleries and museums in SL, but none that boasts such a rich history as the Crescent Moon Museum in FairChang Village. Owned and run by Tayzia Abbatoir, this museum has some of the most unique examples of the kind of art that is NPIRL (not possible in real life) and in such a large collection that the displays are changed on a bi-weekly basis. The Crescent Moon is also the oldest museum in SL dating back to 2004, when Ms. Abbatoir began collecting the works of the infamous builder Starax Statosky. Since August of 2007 is has been housed on FairChang Island in a grand ballroom build by Random Calliope, the famous jewelry designer who has placed his well-known Mata Hari's Jewelry Quest there.

When I visited the museum recently I was delighted by the wit of some of the exhibits, such as the multi-figured "Primolution" showing the evolution from prim to avatar by Stella Costello, and the ever-changing metallic puzzle, "Tricky #1, by Yoa Ogee, or the amusingly morose figure of "Sad Bob" by Red Levitt. By far, however, my favorite pieces on display were the series of Top Hats by Spiral Walcher. Each of these delightful whimsies is a tiny world of its own complete with a miniscule three-dimensional dioramic scene built inside. You can find everything in these hats from a factory complete with steampipes to a dinner table set in a wheat field.

Of course anyone who has toured the museum could not resist taking the Mata Hari jewelry challenge, and I am no exception. The challenge begins with a box on the mantelpiece over the fireplace. In the memorabilia box the quester will find many interesting photos and unsent postcards, notes from Margarete to Random, and a seashell brooch. You must read all the notecards and discover the tragic tale of unfullfilled romance of Random and the entertainer known as Mata Hari. Mr. Calliope has based this quest very cleverly on the story of the real Mata Hari, Margarete Zelle, who was shot by the French as a spy in October of 1917. Be careful when you try this challenge, Dear Readers, not to dismiss any detail you uncover as insignificant! Random Calliope has demonstrated not only a brilliant imagination here, but also that he has a remarkably romantic soul.
I was very fortunate while embarking on the challenge to encounter an attractive, albeit somewhat mysterious, man--a fellow quester who very helpfully demonstrated just how Random Calliope kissed Margarete after her performance in his ballroom, the current home of the Crescent Museum. This . . . um . . . kind gesture on his part led me to find the ring as well as the first few clues. Armed with that information I intend to pursue to the end this quest to find Margarete's jewelry and to, perhaps, meet my charming fellow quester once more. I shall endeavor to keep you posted on my . . . um . . . further adventures there.

In the meantime, take a trip yourselves to FairChang Island and discover the Crescent Museum, a place where so much of what is best about Second Life--art, music, dance, creativity, and romance--can be found.

Places to Visit in Second Life: Falling Water

On a hilltop in the real world in western Pennsylvania is a house called Falling Water designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. On a sim called Schwanson Schlegel in Second Life is an homage to that house, a virtually identical replica of Falling Water created by a team of dedicated Frank Lloyd Wright lovers:
Cecilia DeLacroix is the benefactor who is donating land for the Falling Water of SL. Lox Salomon is the builder and texture artist. Ethos Earlanger, builder and project manager, contributed building details and provided constant motivation to keep the SL version of Falling Water as true to the original as practical. Ty Jaehun scripted the Living Room Hatchway allowing access to the river below, as well as the bifold doors and windows after their unusual prototype. James Linden's "Door 1.0" script is used many times throughout the structure for door swings. In RL, Robert McCarter authored the primary source of prototype drawings and photography in the article "Fallingwater," in Architecture in Detail. The website of the Western Pennsylvania Conservatory which maintains the original Fallingwater house and site, was also referenced for drawings used in-world to build Fallingwater of Second Life.

For more information also see Derek's report and wonderful photos of the SL Falling Water. Whether you are a builder or a scripter, or just an SL tourist, Falling Water is a site not to be missed!

Black Swan, The Lovers

Black Swan, The Lovers
Originally uploaded by Tsai Jie

Black Swan is a lovely sim that has some remarkable statuary, moving bridges, and incredible surreal art. At the center of the sim is this incredible Lovers statue which is over 100 meters tall. Another, called "Night Girl," comes to life when you touch her. The creator of this fantastic art is an avatar named Light Waves. Read more about Black Swan and other fantastic building going on in SL at the Not Possible in Real Life blog.