Tag: Exploring Second Life 2018

Celebrating music, films and dance in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Listening Room

Second Life offers plenty of opportunities to enjoy music, films, dancing and dance troupes in Second Life; however, R. Crap Mariner and Marx Dudek bring all of these together deep inside the bowels of Mount Edloe, on Crap’s home region of Edloe.

It is here, either reached via the road winding up the mountain from the lands beneath, or via direct teleport, visitors can find three interconnected venues: The Listening Room, The Screening Room and the Bad Luck Steak Gallery.

“The Listening Room (or TLR for short),” Marx explains, “Began as a private place for me to lure friends out of my IM box and into a common space where I could chat with them all at once – with the promise of music. I try to play a set every Wednesday night from 6-8pm SLT. Feel free to stop by!”

Bad Luck Streak Gallery

TLR is the largest space (by volume) in the mountain, offering something of an industrial chic environment of high brick walls, shipping containers, pipes and metal catwalks and stairs. The shipping containers form the backdrop to a DJ’s booth, with pallets and trolleys topped with mattresses, bolsters and cushions offering a cosy sitting area close by, alongside an impressive collection of vinyl records. Billy Bragg, Bowie, the Goons and more look down from posters on the walls, while HMV is celebrated via graffiti on one wall.

Opening off of The Listening Room, but connected to it over all four levels, the Bad Luck Streak Gallery is curated by Crap and is a showcase of dance troupes from across SL, (and also of Crap’s own photography). Each level of the gallery space has a number of framed slide shows on display – each representing the work of a specific dance troupe in Second Life. Click an image on any frame for a dialogue box of options, including paging back / forward through the slides and receiving a copy of any individual images you like. Push pins in front of each of the frames provide a landmark to the specific dance troupe’s theatre / home region, and may also offer a note card of information.

Bad Luck Streak Gallery

Crap notes of the gallery, “There are a lot more dance troupes out there in Second Life. My friend Sho Kyong got me into Dance Performance in Second Life. She kept inviting me to Guerilla Burlesque performances, and I finally made the time to see for myself. Now, I roam from performance to performance, trying to capture a moment of motion and emotion. I did my best to display as many groups as possible here, but I only have so much wall space and prims to work with. And I don’t know about every dance group in Second Life.” Personally, I think this is a superb resource for anyone wishing to discover, with almost 40 troupes represented, and Crap unsells the emotions caught in the images.

Connected to The Listening Room via the stars climbing the various catwalks (and a passage in the mountain) or via the ornate Maxivator elevator, The Screening Room sits atop both The Listening Room and the Bad Luck Streak Gallery (and so in the first venue to be reached as visitors enter the mountain’s tunnel after climb the road up from the rest of the region. With a foyer area offering an eclectic mix of movie posters and where refreshments might be had, a red carpet lead the way to the screening room proper.

The Screening Room

“A long time SL dream of mine realised,” Marx says of it. “I finally have a movie theatre! I will be showing films every Wednesday, and other nights as well. Foreign films, classic films, B-movies, documentaries, music movies, and more!” At the time of my visit, the film on offer was 2007’s Fears of the Dark, scheduled for a Thursday – although I confess, I’m not sure which Thursday.

Hidden within Edloe mountain, all three offer a great set of venues, although both The Listening Room and The Screening Room are best suited to smaller numbers. Those wishing to be kept appraised of events at both can join The Listening Room group via the group joining in TLR.

Slurl Details

Return to Brand New Colony in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Brand New Colony; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrBrand New Colony – click on any image for full size

Brand New Colony is closed. SLurl have been removed from this article as a result.

In September 2017, we visited Brand New Colony, a homestead designed by Bunny Blessed (Svelte Blessed) and Mimara Blessed (Mimara), and we very much enjoyed our explorations. So when Miro Collas sent me a message to say the region had relocated and in the process had been rebuilt, we decided to jump to the new location and take a look.

Still in the hands of the Blessed family, and designed once again by Bunny and Mimara, with assistance from Seren La Croix (torturedstar), the region in its new location carries on some of the themes from the September 2017 design whilst presenting a wholly new look that touches on fantasy in an eye-catching and imaginative way.

Brand New Colony; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrBrand New Colony

As with the September design, a core aspect of this new build is islands. Surrounded by tall, grass-covered peaks, Brand New Island presents six islands – although three are not what you might expect. The largest of these islands is a rugged affair, thrusting up from foamy waters, its flat top home to a large villa which echoes part of the look from the September 2017 design. Furnished indoors and within its courtyard, the villa shares this table of rock with an outdoor terrace located closer to the water, sitting on a low shoulder of rock reached via a stone stairway. With plenty of room to sit around the fireplace, this terrace ends at a small jetty against which a Loonetta 31 is moored.

The terrace also offers a fine view across the water to two more islands – these so closely linked, they at first appear to be a single body of land rising gently from the surrounding waters. It is only while exploring that the narrow channel dividing them becomes apparent, stone and wood bridges spanning it to link these two richly wooded islands. Much is to be found on them, be it the red-roofed chapel or the little Romany encampment or, a little further afield and more secluded, various points where couples can sit and cuddle under the shade of trees or by rounded pools of quiet water.

Brand New Colony; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrBrand New Colony

But how does one get from the villa island to its neighbours? The answer to that question isn’t hard to find, lying as it does within the unique presentation of the three remaining islands, one of which forms the landing point for visitors, and is home to a gazebo those who visited the September 2017 design will likely find familiar.

Rather than being surrounded by the region’s foamy waters, these three islands are floating – rising, even – above them. It is as if gravity has forgotten them, so they have cut loose from their foundations to start a slow rise into the sky, setting smaller boulders and rocks tumbling and spinning in the air in defiance of gravity in the process. But they have not been allowed to escape entirely: great chains anchor the larger two of these floating islands to their cousins below, the chains massive and rusted, forming iron bridges visitors can use to travel between those below and those in the air.

Brand New Colony; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrBrand New Colony

Two of these islands seem content with their lot, firmly anchored in place to those below. The third, however, linked to the landing point island, appears more wayward. Canted at a slight angle, it seems to resent the massive chain impeding its upward progress and is still attempting to ascend, the great trees on its grassy top seeming to grasp the grassy rock in their roots, grimly determined to hang on.

With chains connecting it to both the villa island and one of the wooded islands, the landing point offers a natural connection between the two, while to the south-east, and linked only to the villa island, the last of those floating in the area offers its flat top to a garden setting. Focused on a large gazebo, this features statues, fountains, a rich variety of unusual flower planters – including an old grand piano and a garden swing to an overgrown tea party attended by stone sculptures, presenting a wonderfully fanciful scene.

Brand New Colony; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrBrand New Colony

For those who prefer not to chance the chains linking the islands together, a teleport system is supplied; look for the chalk signs boards found at or near each of the major locations and click on them for a list of destinations. Make sure you accept the local experience, and TPs will be automatic on selecting a destination thereafter.

At the time of our visit, some construction work still seemed to be in progress, so some things may well change over the coming days. However, that shouldn’t put visitors off. This latest iteration of Brand New Colony retains all the beauty of the former region, while offering something very new and fun to explore.  Our only word of warning is that it is rich in textures, some of which can take a little time to load.

Brand New Colony; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrBrand New Colony

SLurl Details

  • Brand New Colony (Teasers, rated: Adult)