Joe Essid directs the Writing Center at the University of Richmond, where he teaches courses in writing and literature. He is a Richmond native who attended the University of Virginia and earned a Master's and PhD at Indiana University. His research interests include technology in the classroom and Southern literary humor. His academic writing has appeared in Computers and Humanities, The Writing Lab Newsletter, and anthologies about technology and writing. He is a contributor to Style Weekly and has appeared in Eighty One and RVA. Ignatius Onomatopoeia is the "avatar" who represents Joe in the game-world Second Life. Ignatius will be wandering the virtual terrain of Second Life while his creator writes here about what may be either "the next big thing" for the Internet or the latest darling of the cyber-hip... the reader can decide.
E-mail contact: jessid@mac.com | Web address: writing2.richmond.edu/jessid

Location: UR Island

Words will not kill us, spoken or written, no matter what my colleagues say about “the death of reading.“

Second Life has featured voice on its “main grid” for a while now, and I’m impressed. Dianna and I tried talking, instead of typing, some time ago. She sounded fine and I—well, I yelled at my laptop.  Di said “you sound like you are talking into a can,” but that will soon be remedied for $20 to buy a computer-gamer’s headset.

We talked—then typed—about what voice will mean in a virtual world.  Soon I’ll only use voice to chat with Di, Cecil, and my other friends who have made the leap.

Voice is not expected to be widespread for a while, given that many SLers go in-world from their boring jobs and it might raise eyebrows if a co-worker overheard “Yeah! Let’s teleport to the beach and ride the jet-skis!  Bring that new dude with the panda-bear’s head!”

My colleague Beeble Baxter is obsessed by this “return to the Agora” that we see around us, as the world of Gutenberg recedes before new multi-modal literacy. This terrifies traditional humanists; I’m an immigrant to this new world.  Cecil Hirvi, who’s reading this (one of my faithful readers) must be jumping for joy now…as a Borg, he’s used to assimilation. 

But, as Beeble and I have discussed at length, why be so scared?  An aural and visual culture can work…just get into a time machine and visit the Athens of Pericles.

I’m teaching the Socratic dialogs now that focus on the time just before the philosopher’s death. There one sees a culture where writing was just catching on; one dialog I’m not teaching pits Socrates, the proponent of spoken discourse, against Phaedrus, who loves that new-fangled thing called “writing.“ Writing, Socrates argued, can be used as a crutch so the writer no longer needs to rely upon memory.

Back then, argument and logic were measured by an orator’s skills (and tricks). Thus we get not only the divergence of spoken and written discourse but also the ancient and ongoing split between those who seek to influence an audience (the rhetoricians) and those who seek to convince the audience of the truth (the philosophers).

Who will have the edge in a new aural culture?  Don’t expect that answer in a 300-word blog!

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

by Dianna Defiant, Guest Writer
Location: Our Virtual Advice Desk

Dear Di,

I am a SL woman who is not afraid to have all sorts of naughty fun, and when I like someone I come on very strong.  Recently, though, a very pretty girl wrote to my SLprofile page: she wants to get to know me better. We’ve IM’ed and soon will go on an in-world date. Problem is, she’s having lots of RL problems and needs friends. I don’t want to make her life worse. She’s a bit shy, which I find incredibly sexy, but from what she says she wants to explore SL’s wilder side with me…What would you do?

Kisses,
Wild Child

Dear Wild Child,

What would I do if everything I like got dropped in my lap?? Haha - can you say “silver platter?” I’m surprised you need advice on this one! If this girl made first contact with you then she’s not that shy, so she is opening the door there. Do what she wants – get to know her better. And if she truly needs friends and you are willing to be one I say go for it and see what happens.

Everyone knows SL relationships of all kinds come & go, so go into it with no great expectations and see where things go. And if she really is shy you might want to ease her into that “wilder side” of SL. I’m sure she’ll let you know if she is or is not comfortable with whatever happens. If you’re not sure, ask.

And why do you think you’re seeing her would make her life worse? Maybe SL is a way for her to forget her RL problems and the distraction will be good for her. If her SL is all about finding people to talk out RL problems with, then you will have to decide if that’s what you want or not. I say give it a go and see where the trail leads you…let me know what happens!

XXOO
Di

Questions for Di?  Email me at diannadefiant -at- yahoo -dot- com

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: A barely lit shed somewhere in Tombstone
by Guest Writer Tenchi Morigi

Tenchi Morigi has been busy scouting the area of the town jail. It was a question of honour for her to bust Pappy Enoch out of jail.  Nobody would lock a member of her family away. Having finished her unsuspicious walks around the city she returns to her hideaway making plans and preparing everything for the big bang.  Thoughts run through her head…

“Sometimes Pappy makes me smile. I guess he had good intentions when he is courting a woman but it is always the same with us hillbillies ... we tend to stumble across our feet and the male members even more. Well, nobody puts my family in jail that’s for sure. They should have looked for someone else to mess around with.“

Taking a a small sip from her moonshine bottle she pulls her trusty six-shooter from the holster and starts cleaning it with the most care, knowing that her skill and the reliability of this weapon are the two factors that decide about the result of her plan.

“I hope that Cousin Axon delivers in time. Without that dynamite of his we will sure have a hell of a time. Lucky thing that Cynthia organised some spare horses so we can make our get away.

I just hope that nobody is hanging around near the dead man’s canyon silver mine. It the only place within a day’s ride that is safe and nobody has found any silver in years there. Well if someone is nosing around there he will meet my ropes and tied up into a handy bag.“

Finishing the cleaning of her revolver she let it glide back into its holster and looks around the shed. Smiling, she ticks off the things there on her mental list. Everything is ready. She takes her hat and leaves the shed. The sand and flints scratch under her boots and she makes her way to the saloon to get some sleep.

“His next hearing will be soon. So we must act sooner. The closer it comes the more people will be around. So next Sunday it is. I have two choices. Either it will be during the night or during the day when everyone is in the church. But I guess it will be in the night. Otherwise the big bang will lose much of its effect.“

On her way to the saloon she stops opposite the jail and watches the building again for the 10th time. She hated it with all her passion. Yes she was divided from her family when she was young. Her uncle took her from the quiet valleys she used to stroll when she was a toddler and raised her in the back of a Chinese laundry in San Francisco where he was working then. But all those years nothing could extinguish her hillbilly heritage and so she put another log onto that fire. She would blast the walls away and she would get a flag and celebrate her own 4th of July for the Enoch family.

Will Cousin Tenchi break Pappy out of not only his cell but his unrequited love for Tombstone’s Sheriff and her deputies?...stay tuned…

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: CIA Headquarters

Take note, one and all—HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CYNTHIA BARLEY!. Visit her SLProfiles site and extend your wishes.

You have to be taken in by a virtual business that names itself this. Owner Jamie Bergman, a woman tired of griefing by male avatars in SL, has a “sister store” called Femme Fatale. It’s full of gadgets so women can be rid of the male jerks who so often bother the typical (which means drop-dead lovely) females in-world.

No man can enter Femme Fatale un-attended.  Afraid of what might happen were I to try,  I called in Pappy Enoch’s (and now my) friends Cynthia Barley and Tenchi Morigi, put on an “Office Boy” suit to look serious, then went into Femme Fatale.

Tenchi, Cynthia, and I had a blast exploring these stores and plotting a possible jail-break for Pappy Enoch.  Cynthia and I returned again the next day for a photo-shoot and chat marathon.

On our visits, I got to see anti-griefer devices such as “Pooh of Doom,” Cynthia’s favorite. It’s a little cute bear that can send an offending avatar far into orbit above the Lindens’ world, presumably to fall for many long minutes.  One must log off SL and then on again. I invite any veteran SL resident with an “orbiter” to try it on me.  I plan to take photos of Iggy flailing about in Zero-G.

While I love Bergman’s “Silly Old Bear,” some of her other devices are more sinister: bugs to monitor others’ chat, GPS units to track them in-world. There’s some sort of “assassin” service here as well, upstairs in the CIA HQ with other high-dollar items. I admired a device to flood a griefer’s SL client with colored bars that look like a system crash.  Yet even as I saw these brilliant bits of coding, I envisioned griefers using them on the rest of us.

On a note both more positive and positively seedy, I envisioned a virtual gumshoe, tracking the movements of virtual spouses on their way to some assignation in a low-rent sim.  Given how seriously some SLers take their virtual marriage, why not virtual PIs, taking surreptitious snaps of slow-dancing avatars at a nightclub? Of me and Cynthia dancing on the table at CIA HQ?  Hey? Was that the sound of a camera’s shutter I just heard in-world?

Virtual Noir:  Phil Marlowe in pixels.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: UR Island (and no one around, thank God)

Once, when I logged on Second Life, I appeared in my previous location—a busy store—in the form of “Ruth,” a default female avatar with unlikely plain looks that mock SL’s commonplace babe-and-stud-itude.

The phenomenon is called “being Ruthed,” and it’s the odd practical joke by Linden Lab on us residents. I panicked the first time I appeared in-world as Ruth—as my photos show, it’s not a pretty sight.  For a while one has body and hair of Ruth, then as the rest of the avatar’s possessions “rez,” one is left with just her hourglass figure but, in my case, a man’s head! Eventually, all is well…as well as one can be in a virtual world.

When I first got Ruthed,  I contacted Dianna right away, who had a good laugh at my then-newbie’s expense.  In fact, she wanted to see!  Luckily, by the time she found me, I was once again my “normal” self.

There’s some Linden inside joke at play here—Ruth may have been a nay-sayer who ticked off Philip Rosedale or made fun of the idea of a virtual world.  She has the worst hair ever seen in SL—a true insult in a world where hair can determine status. 

For weeks, I have been waiting for this to happen again so I could get a snapshot. Having a slow connection really helps Ruth appear.  I know it’s sick, but even some SL veterans call me a nut when I go on a tear in-world.  But being free to be a surrealist nut is a lot of the fun in SL.

At least I’m not sharing with you the snapshot that Pappy Enoch sent me of him being Ruthed.  I was blind for days afterward. Since I know all of you are wondering, here is Pappy Enoch’s take on the topic (written from the Tombstone Jail):

Dear Wiggly n’ my gentul reeders:

I dun bin Roofed a cuppil o’ times, n’ so what? What cood I do wif myself as a gal (an’ tu to honest, as I always are, a plane-lookin’ gal)?

I luvs wimmin, but Roof ain’t no good tu me. I ain’t intu no auto-erratic sin-sashuns.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Femme Fatale Shop
By Guest Writer Cynthia Barley

Note from Iggy O: Two Germans, Cynthia and Tenchi Morigi, are doing columns for me.  They are among my (and Pappy Enoch’s) best friends (both are Pappy’s cousins, too) in SL. The ladies just helped me on a forthcoming story about an all-women’s weapons shop that sells defensive (and humorous) items to ward off male “griefers.“

News reports in May noted that German police were investigating SL’s “age play” characters—those avatars in the form of children who may become involved in virtual sex. Sordid, yes, and illegal under German law. Linden Lab has cracked down on residents engaged in such activity (I’ve not seen a child avatar in months).  Good. As Cynthia points out, that is not what SL is about for almost all of us…

What is the meaning of life? I honestly don’t know, but I at least figured out the meaning of my Second Life. I live in Germany and I was surprised to find out that the topic of virtual worlds is covered in an overall negative manner. The biggest controversy arose over the “child porn” debate. All of a sudden I had to start defending myself when talking to people who don’t know much about SL. Everybody who found out that I have a SL account started to ask if it was true that the game was only about sex and violence.

So is it? No, it’s not – at least not for me. Many journalists have researched the Second Life phenomenon, but most of them only had a quick look at the program and then wrote articles that I regard as too superficial and exaggerated. I have spent lots of time “in-world” and have seen a few things I didn’t like, but from my viewpoint SL is not all sex and violence.

So, what is it about then? It’s friends! I met many avatars and got to know the people behind them. That’s when you stop being fascinated by the elaborate avatar looks and establish a real connection to the person behind that façade. Interestingly enough, people are more willing to reveal their inner thoughts in the virtual world than I ever noticed in “real life”.

When I was deeply hurt by the behavior of another Second Life resident I suddenly realized how many friends I had in-world. I was offered hugs, shoulders to cry on, distractions through parties and also some very precious heart-to-heart talks. Even if you live in different corners of the world, Second Life gives you the chance to get to know people you would have never met otherwise and to establish friendships that are sometimes even closer than in the “real world”. And if you’re lucky, you could even be adopted by a hillbilly family!

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Virtual Pregnancy Clinic (no, I did not make this up)

It could only happen in Second Life: this is not World of Warcraft. If an avatar wants to be pregnant, a clever merchant will provide just that service.

The New York Times recently ran a story about the houses (and lives) that residents build, connected to the virtual affairs and marriages they have, in Second Life.  It was fascinating stuff. Often real-life spouses not only condone but even encourage the extramarital activities that happen in-world.  It only seems logical, then, that a virtual marriage could result in virtual offspring.

Di’s columns have touched on the complexity of love in-world, but she and our little furry trustee, Marcus Boo-Boo Aurelius Enoch, had to find out more in person. Pappy Enoch’s basta…I mean that little shaving off Pappy’s log, followed Di so she could have his DNA tested and sort out his parentage.

MBA Enoch and Lady Di teleported to the Cherish the Moments Clinic, where female avatars can purchase a pack of custom animations (known as an “AO” in SL) that make them walk in a sexy way while appearing pregnant: the ultimate in virtual “yummy mommies.”

The clinic is set up much like a real clinic, though, as with so many SL places, the receptionist’s station is eerily empty, like a scene out of The Omega Man or 28 Days Later.  Di and Boo-Boo might have been the last avatars on the virtual planet.

Despite Di’s fears that “the apple did not fall far from the tree,” the little fellow did not look up her dress but instead sat patiently…and sat patiently (in Di’s lap)…and sat some more (and got his ears scratched), but no doctor appeared. Later I just had to go back to get more photos.

So the saga continues as Pappy languishes in the Broken Rose pokey. There are rumors of a jail-break attempt in the air, despite Pappy’s crush on the Sheriff.  There is an unconfirmed report that Pappy will soon start a career as a 17th-century pirate.  Either way, I’ll be sure to cover the story.

Meanwhile Di and I did find out one thing: you can put a bun in the oven in SL.  I didn’t stick around the clinic long enough to find out if any birth animations exist.  Give it time…some coder will make it happen.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Second Life Home Page

There’s an image that often appears on the opening page of Second Life’s Web site: a very natty African-American avatar with his pals: a tough male biker and two devastatingly hot women.  It’s such a perfect visual summary of what most avatars try to attain in-world.

On face value, there’s nothing wrong with this preening, as long as we remember it’s just a virtual world or a game, depending on whom you ask.  Besides, who wouldn’t want to be this guy or his lover? On the one hand, he’s a great role-model of an empowered black man, albeit one made of pixels. On the other hand, what this image shows, as with celebrity avatars, makes me think darkly about the future.

I’m a pessimist by inclination, so I do not think we will adequately address climate change and a looming energy crisis in enough time to avoid some massive disruptions to our overloaded consumer economy and oil-squandering way of life.  I’ve written elsewhere about a global peak in oil production; it’s depressing business to consider that we’ll pay a lot more for gasoline in coming years no matter what we do, and no miracle fuels will let us continue our car-based, suburbanized lives.  If you want a peek, consider the work by a writer I know, Jim Kunstler.

We are in for a rough ride, yet as long as the power stays on, we’ll have our broadband infrastructure, Second Life, and its competitors to pull us into a place where, for pennies, we can escape any misery.  Americans love fantasy; when Jim attended a technology conference some time back, he noted that “By far the most popular presentation of the whole conference was the one on flying cars.”

Flying cars?  How about a light-rail network like the suburban trains we shut down in Richmond and elsewhere in the 1950s and 60s? How about real incentives to get commuters on buses, bikes, and foot before gas prices and rising oceans make all of it moot?

Are virtual worlds therapy?  Pernicious illusions keeping us from action in real life?  No idea, but I’ll stay in-world to keep recording what real people, the ones who’ll never own multi-million-dollar estates or supercars (flying or not) do to entertain themselves as things get worse for our poor planet and our fellow citizens. 

After all, movie theaters were packed in the Depression, my folks told me. For a quarter, a moviegoer could live vicariously as Bacall or Bogart, the avatars of that age, and still have enough left over for popcorn.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Info Island II
by Meredith Gleason, Guest Writer

Note from Iggy O: Meredith was one of my first-year writing students who completed an assignment to explore a few of Second Life’s regions.  Like Amy Mueller, whose column ran earlier this summer, Meredith had some difficulties in SL at first but, as this column shows, she found good content and had fun.

Still quite skeptical of the Second Life experience and the people in-world, I decided I would start at a fairly basic place when beginning my own personal guide: Info Island II. The map showed no people were currently on the island so I hurried to teleport there and begin my explorations where no strangers would bother me as I took my time poking around. I landed in the midst of Bradley University, with a library, student art center, book shop, and science center.

I began with the student art building, looking at all of the digital paintings that various Avatars had submitted. Some was very traditional, some was modern art, and some of it was on the roof or on the floor. It is incredible to me to imagine creating a work of art in Second Life, as I can barely move around without bumping into objects and the making of a basic outfit is a huge accomplishment to me.

My favorite part of this island is also found in the student art center, where there is a vanity of sorts with various perfumes and lipstick. Here, my Avatar sat on the stool and I was facing myself in the mirror, a nice change from the usual rear-view that I get. A list of actions popped up and I enjoyed making my Avatar practice facial gestures and taking pictures of her sticking out her tongue, waving, blowing kisses, and even feeling embarrassment! Next was “Ye Olde Book Shoppe,” which was quite small compared to Richmond’s bookstore, but was full to bursting with books.

Next, I went to the library and was amazed with the art found there, as well as the architecture. How people design these buildings in-world is beyond me – they all seem so intricate and well planned. The spiral stair-cases and huge many-paned windows add to the effect of the architecture and no building is alike. In the area of Bradley University, the parks, statues, and campus-feel all add to the illusion that it is a university. Since it is Info Island, it is only appropriate that a university would be there with all kinds of information. For me, it served as even more training on how to maneuver through second life and get used to it.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: the bar (and I do not mean the saloon) in Broken Rose Sim

In a crowded courtroom, Pappy Enoch sat before the Honorable Justin Kase Linden.  No jury of peers could be found for the peerless Pappy, so Judge Linden decided to move ahead by himself.

Linden: Mr. Enoch, do you know why you are here?

Pappy: Well, yer horror…

Linden: That’s “your honor…”

Pappy: Him, tu.  I are hear becuz o’ a lil’ fuzzy feller hoo klaims I are his pappy.

Linden: Yes. One Boo-Boo Enoch, my records show.

Pappy: Yep. Marcus Boo-Boo Aurelius, I calls him, fer short.

Linden: Are we to understand that this lad is your son?

Pappy: I reckon so. I’ll take him if’n nobuddy else wants the po’ lil crittur.

Linden: “You reckon?”  You don’t know your own illegitimate child?

Pappy: Why he cain’t help that—he ain’t nuffin but a baby! Soon as he’s old enuf I’ll teach him how tu rite good like his pappy!

Linden (sighing): Oh, forget that. Do you even recall if you have, um…been with a woman?

Pappy: Oh, lots o’ times n’ wif several gals. I bin tu the shoppin’ malls, n’ tu sum dances, n’ tu a place fer catchin’ fish…

Linden: And who, exactly, was present on these occasions?

Pappy: Well now, I were thar, n’ Miz Di, n’ me, n’ Miz Tenchi, me, Miz Cynthia, me, n’ Miz Kyo, n’ me tu.

Linden: You’ve named yourself five times, Mr. Enoch.

Pappy: Well, yu did say tu bee egg-zact. N’ I figgers that I weighs five times as much as they du n’ I are at least five times the fool…

Linden (drumming his fingers on his desk): Be that as it may, with any of these women have you had intimate relations?

Pappy: Why, yer majersty! I ain’t that type o’ hillbilly!  I don’t fool wif no relashuns!

Linden (clearly exasperated): No, no.  What I mean is, well… HAVE YOU BEEN MAKING BABIES?

Pappy: Heavuns abuv, yer excremency!  Only Gawd kin make a baby happin.

Linden: Now don’t go trying to blame the Good Lord.

Pappy: I ain’t.  If’n it did happen, I wood a been only the, what you calls it, farce-illustratur in the situashun.

At this point the mood in the courtroom was getting out of control.  Several women present, moved by the stern judge as well as the honest face (and undoubtedly the manly appearance) of Pappy, began to yell out “Boo Boo’s mine!”  Then Judge Linden brought down his gavel.

Linden: Order!  That’s enough!  I find you, Pappy Enoch, guilty of moral turpitude…

Pappy: Turpentine?  That’s a crime?  My Shine tastes better’n…

Linden: Silence!  Public drunkenness…

Pappy: Well, yu du got me cold on that wun. How many counts?

Linden: Never mind. And negligence of a minor….

Pappy: Yer horror! I wood never let no miner ware sum’fin like a negligee!

Linden: Shut up!  Thirty days in jail and 100 Linden Dollars monthly in child support!

Pappy: Okay, yer Grace.  The food ain’t bad thar, n’ kin I pay in Shine?

Linden: NO!  No go back to your cell…Sheriff?

Pappy: SHE am the Sheriff?  Hot Dawg…cood yu give mee 30 years in that-thar jail?





Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Our Virtual Advice Desk

Dear Di:
Why do some people take SL so seriously…building houses, getting married, having babies, etc? It seems a little extreme to me to do all that in a make-believe world. What do you think?

Signed,
Here for FUN!

Dear Fun:
There’s lots of reasons for people doing these things in SL. One, they are too shy or scared to ever do those things except with the anonymity that the computer gives them. There are also lots of people in SL who are physically disabled in some way. SL gives them the opportunity and the mobility to do things they can’t do in RL. You will even see avvies in wheelchairs, and there are groups and places dedicated to the disabled in SL.

SL is appealing to those who are housebound for whatever reason. It gives them the chance to go out and explore “the world” safely, without being stared or laughed at, having anxiety, or facing any of the other challenges that some people face.

It’s a form of escape from everyday life for the everyday person… a way to have fun and live your fantasies. Always wanted a big wedding and reception but couldn’t afford it in RL? Well you can in SL – plus a honeymoon just about anywhere you want to go – and you’ll be back by dinnertime! I believe one reason there are so many good-looking avatars running around SL is because their owners never got to experience that in RL – so why not? Miniskirts & go-go boots – sure grandma! Male dancer with a 6-pack and bulging biceps for the couch potato who’s never been in a gym – of course! And babies in SL don’t need sitters…

So Fun – it might all seem too serious for you, but think about who might be behind that avvie with the baby or the one getting married. They might be using SL to fulfill a dream they could never have otherwise – and is that really so bad?

XXOO
Di
Diannadefiant at yahoo dot com

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Meatspace, drinking a cold beer

When I was a grad student killing time to avoid reading the latest chic-but-boring work of literary theory, I would pick up the works of the early Cyberpunk writers like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

Recently NPR ran an interview with Gibson about his latest book, Spook Country.  Gibson’s no longer writing science fiction; this novel, with its post 9/11 conspiracies and domestic surveillance, is set in the very recent past.  In the interview, Gibson seconded something Sterling predicted in the late 1980s, in the introduction to an anthology called Mirror Shades: ours is the first age that looks and feels like science fiction.

These writers all imagined virtual worlds that we have or are building.  Before I dive back into the Linden metaverse for more fun and games, I want to step back and consider what we have already done with Second Life’s virtual world.  We don’t have body-gloves, or electrodes strapped to our heads, or “teledildonics,” yet, but we do have 3D graphics, voice, and other features of the Cyberpunks’ visions of tomorrow.  And already the borders between real and virtual grow fainter.

Ask yourself this as you read Di’s two columns about real people struggling with problems that arise from having an avatar: virtual infidelity, crises of identity because one poses as a nonhuman.  I want “Ask Di” to become a regular feature of this blog, because what she’s doing is important; we are on new ground here, even if many of the problems carry over from our real lives.

Are we better humans for having avatars?  Or just different, extended, ones? Can we now all consider ourselves cyborgs?  Theorist (and not a boring one!) Donna Haraway posed this question some time ago, about the same time Sterling wrote about the oddity of the age we inhabit. 

Any tool that extends our capacities makes us cyborgs—the cave-man’s club, a pair of bifocals, a telephone, a moon-rocket, an avatar.

What we do with any of these tools makes all the difference.  In the next few months, I hope to find out, as a journalist in-world, how readers’ avatars are changing their real lives.  If you want to write to me directly about this or meet in-world, please drop me a line at:

jessid –at- mac –dot- com

Thanks to my incarcerated pal Pappy Enoch for the “rite loverly foto of my German lady-frend, Miz Tenchi.“  She’s the avatar on the left and is not the mother of Marcus Boo-Boo Aurelius Enoch (I reckon); I hope she will write a guest column soon.

Nice avatar, Tenchi!

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Empty Lot Where a Casino Might Have Stood

Linden Labs’ decision to ban almost all wagering in Second Life has created a few shock-waves in the metaverse.  At a gut level, I’m pleased.  No more stupid slot machines next door to an art museum or in the middle of a park.

In the end, however, what could the Lindens do?  Online gambling is illegal in the US and squarely in the sights of the FBI.  For that reason the Lindens’ earlier decision to ask the Feds to check online wagering and provide advice seems like a wise one.

Will other aspects of SL that may offend—such as sex and violence—be next?  I’d wager (well, not with Linden Dollars, anyway) that they will not.  Linden Labs has put in place age verification and set up a teen grid.  Presumably, these show due diligence (whatever that means—I’m no lawyer, thank God) to limit access to potentially offensive content.  And unless we get some type of openly theocratic government in the States, stronger regulations do not appear to be forthcoming.  In any case, were that nightmare to happen I’d wager (not with Linden Dollars, anyway) that Linden Labs, not to mention this blogger, would be working out of Europe or Canada and thumbing our noses at the Puritans in DC.

But libertarian impulses must yield to common sense when it comes to existing law. Linden Labs is a US firm with its servers (mostly, for now) on American soil.  It had no choice.

If, however, a few coders packed up and opened a virtual world with severs in a nation that does not ban online gaming, there would be precious little our Feds could do.  And I hope that happens—other than protecting minors, I want the Web as open as possible.  If chumps want to bankrupt themselves in real or online casinos, it’s not the government’s business.

In the end, I’m betting that as in Cyberpunk fiction, virtual worlds will become bigger and more important than governments.  In the futures described by Gibson and Stephenson, virtual currency trading eventually topples the conventional currency markets and a stateless, anarchic gray economy replaces the one we know. 

Will it happen in real life? So far the Cyberpunks have called lots of developments spot-on.  I’d say that it’s a safe bet.

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Location: The Hoosegow, Broken Rose Sim

Recently on UR Island a tiny avatar was found by me and Dianna Defiant.  The forlorn tyke, a white-furred, bipedal fox about 2 feet tall, was wearing a hat just like the one eternally on the head of our frequent guest writer Pappy Enoch.

We suspected the worst and our fears were soon confirmed about the unfortunate waif cast ashore on the shoals of academia. When we asked the lost urchin its name, it replied “I are Marcus Boo-Boo Aurelius Enoch, and I’m a-looking for my pappy.”

Yes, a “Pappy-ternity” suit has been filed in Second Life by Linden Lab’s prosecutor, Caligula Linden. Pappy Enoch languishes in the calaboose of a Wild West role-playing area, awaiting trial on charges of abandonment, moral turpitude, and nonsupport of a virtual furry infant.

For the legal record, the Judge presiding over the trust for the little shaver, the Honorable Justin Kase Linden, asked me, as Pappy’s employer, to publish a short inventory of the hillbilly’s worldly goods, now piled up beneath my house on the island:

—One (1) Moonshine still and related equipment (8 barrels, 6 crates, 42 jugs, 514 mason jars, 1 funnel)
—One (1) 1948 International Harvester pickup (not running)
—One (1) 1941 Ford Garbage Truck (on its side, definitely not running)
—One (1) pup tent, recently fumigated
—One (1) wooden outhouse, in need of fumigation
—Two (2) cinder blocks
—One (1) I-Beam, slightly rusted
—One (1) cord of barn-wood, some of it assembled into signs
—One (1) Hound dawg & dawg-house (in this writer’s keeping)
—One (1) unidentified and hungry critter in a packing crate (fed daily with raw steak)
—Two (2) Union suits (recently laundered by two semi-nude women who showed up on the island during Pappy’s recent “vakashun” )
—One (1) set overalls, one (1) hat, one (1) undershirt (worn by accused)
—Eight (8) Linden Dollars.

Di and I serve as trustees of the poor abandoned halfpint, and we will keep our readers posted about events in this sad, sad case. 

Little Marcus Boo-Boo Aurelius will be doing independent study with me in writing, as the semester begins at Richmond.

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Location: Our Virtual Advice Desk
Dear Miz Di,

I am havin’ mysef a tarribul time in Secund Life.  To keep my proberlum in as few wurds as I kin, here it are: Every gal in that-thar meataverse am purtier than Ellie-Mae Clampett. I luvs ‘em all (yerself included) so I keeps perposin’ wedlocks to every wun I meets. Am this a tarribul thang tu du?  Butt if’n it are a fake wirld ennyhow, why cain’t they AWL become my wifes an’ I’ll have me wun o’ them-thar harry-ums like that ol’ Sultan over in Cornstarchapple, or Itzabull, o’ whutevur them Turks calls it this week? Mistopher Ignoramus dun bin thar, in reel life, an’ he sez they all gits along sumhow, deepite lots o’ purty gals and fancified weddins’ an so on. What in the Sam Hill shood I du, ma’am?  How kin I stop a-warin’ my heart on my sleeve? I are wastin’ away worryin’ an figgered yu mite help me out sum.

Sin-seerly,
Lonesum Pine

PS: Wood yu marry mee?

Dear Pappy…umm… I mean Lonesum Pine:

If you keep proposing to every purty gal you see, you think any of them will take you seriously? Even tho SL is a “fake wirld” people there still sorta hold to real world traditions. So the harem idea is definitely out. Women don’t like to share their men, trust me. They’d all be arguing over who gets you when and for how long, and all that fightin’ and jealousy would plumb wear you out and you’d NEVER have no fun. If you really want a SL wife, then you better get serious. Find you some good ole gals that you like and start courtin’! When one rises to the top – like the cream does when you’re milkin’ the cow – that’s the one you need to propose to. ONE – not ALL. Sometimes when you are obsessed with finding something it never seems to turn up. Don’t you want that one gal who really wants you, instead of the 1st one to say “yes?” So stop trying so hard - just go out and meet purty gals and date and flirt and have you some fun. If you stop looking so hard maybe Mrs. Right will find YOU!!
XXOO
Di

PS: no – I’m the jealous type

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Location: Web Site for Million Dollar Skin Labs

Cyberpunk writer William Gibson described not only a Matrix in which all humans interacted in the near future, thus giving us the term “cyberspace,“ but he also described real-life makeovers—extreme ones—by those hungry for celebrity. Here’s a line or two from his short story, “Burning Chrome”:

I went out and looked for Rikki, found her in a café with a boy with Sendai eyes, half-healed suture lines radiating from his bruised sockets. She had a glossy brochure spread open on the table, Tally Isham smiling Ikon Eyes.

Tally Isham: the celeb of choice for a slowly decaying world propped up by the “consensual hallucination” of cyberspace.  People can buy her eyes, have surgery to look like her, put “stimsims” into a little virtual-reality console and become her.

Gibson has claimed on various occasions that he wanted to warn readers about the power of media, and then some readers wanted to build his dystopian future. Now, thanks to Million-Dollar Skin Lab, we are a step closer. Second Life residents can buy look-alike skins of Brad Pitt, Angelia Jolie, and—ugh—Paris Hilton.  The work is good, though I don’t think they got the Brad Pitt quite right.  Still, it’s stunning to see yet another cliche of science fiction realized in this world of ours, appearing first in Second Life.  When, one wonders, will the type of makeover one sees at River City Tattoo merge with extreme cosmetic surgery, so people will come out re-made? 

It’s as scary to me as it is inevitable.  One thing I’d bet: Million-Dollar Skin Lab will soon be forced to take celebs’ names off the skins.  I know that in another branch of geekdom, action figure collecting, celeb-lookalikes often go by different names, because—any lawyers out there?—a name can be protected like a brand, but one cannot copyright one’s face.

Yet.

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Location: River City Tattoo on the Boulevard

Max is the man to see if you ever want ink.  I know, many readers of the TD probably are saying “want ink? Are you nuts?“ Well, yes and yes, but Max is still the man. He’s the sort of artist who’ll show the door to pretty girls who pull down their waistbands and say “dolphin or flaming skull?  What do you think?“  Max will answer “you’ll wear it a lifetime.  Go home and come back when you are sure.“

A few years ago, Max did a tattoo for me that is strategically hidden on my upper right arm.  I made the design myself, and Max is doing a re-ink now because I stupidly got sunburned about two weeks after he did the work.  But that’s all a prelude to how I connect tattooing and Second Life.

In both tattoo parlors and the metaverse, people lay claim to something virtual: a way to enhance their day-to-day existence. Don’t believe me? Ask the lawyer with the Harley and the dragon tattoo you’ll never see on the job.  Ask the waitress whose SL avatar is a dragon or an exotic dancer or a Star Fleet Captain.

In grad school a linguistics teacher once gave his theory for why individuals fight so hard to retain languages that are fading from the world or, say, in the case of Welsh, revive one that was in trouble: we all need a tribe in scary times.  Ours is certainly an age of dislocation, of global problems, and of a numbing sameness that keeps this writer from going to suburbia any more than I ever have to do.  In SL, you’ll not find Iggy in the bland casinos or clubs, either. He’ll be chilling somewhere with the really unique avatars who throw houses at each other, or getting plastered in Pappy Enoch’s camp, or maybe even doing research in an academic space.

It’s a new tribe, and it’s fun to be a member.  In SL one’s ink, by the way, can vanish in a right-click.  Dolphin? Flaming Skull? I’ll take both, Max.

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Location: Kevin Galbraith’s Desk

In real life, I cannot resist a well made suit. So why resist in Second Life? For about 60 cents, Iggy has another new look.  And it takes me to the issue of what to wear for meetings in-world.

Iris Ophelia, the “metafashionista” featured frequently in Wager James Au’s “New World Notes,“ once did a column about how major companies do check avatars’ appearance when conducting job interviews in Second Life. That’s right—job interviews.  Show up as a hillbilly, dominatrix, or purple dragon and you do not get the face-to-face interview. Or maybe you do, depending on the firm.

I like being a clohes-horse.  But there’s no way I’ll be told how I have to dress in real life, beyond looking professional in the classroom. Sometimes I wear a suit just because they look good on me and offices have become so casual.  Ask my colleague Dan Roberts, Mr. “A Moment in Time” of NPR fame. Dan dresses nicely, and if he had an avatar, he’d be sharp, too.

So the moral here is to have a virtual wardrobe for those times when you need to get that job or make that impression, but never let the clothes define you.  When in doubt in either world, I’ll just over-dress and pretend I’m Spanish. Now they are people with delightful tastes in fashion.  When I’m an actual geezer, I’m going to dress as nicely as my Lebanese grandfather did—suit, tie, hat. You will not—ever—catch me in the pastel kiddie-clothes old people wear in this country.  YUCK!

Got some fashion tips?  Send them my way.

Your hard-working office boy, Ignatius.

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by Dianna Defiant, Guest Writer
Location: Our Virtual Advice Desk

Dear Di,

Why do so many people discriminate against furries?  I like being one, but I am now getting banned from some places just by walking in. I cover up and don’t run around nude, or anything.  I’m not a griefer, and I think I look cute.  What’s wrong with people? Should I just have a human avatar that I can pull out when people are mean to me? It’s really beginning to hurt my feelings.

Sincerely,
Fuzzy-Wuzz

Dear Fuzzy:

You look different than “normal” and that scares and intimidates some people in SL just like in RL. They don’t know what to expect or how to deal with you, so they choose not to, therefore you are discriminated against. Lots of discrimination is decreased in RL because of PC-ness.  But in SL, anyone can say anything and not really be held accountable.  The other side to that is if you choose to be radically different, then you choose to receive the reaction of the “mainstream”, and will have to deal with it. That doesn’t mean the mainstream is right. And sad to say – I’m sure there have been some furries out there, unlike you, who were griefers and trouble-makers, and they have given Furries a bad reputation. Therefore some people ignorantly expect it from all Furries. So Fuzzy – if a Furry is truly who you are and want to be I would NOT advise you to be human to fit in. Go places where you can be yourself. There are some sims that are “furry only” where the humans are banned. Don’t take the mean comments personally. And don’t let the actions of a few reflect poorly upon all humans. Look for the nice people – we’re out there – and when you find the meanies, move on!

XXOO
Di

Questions for Di?  Email me at diannadefiant -at- yahoo -dot- com

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Location: Searching for Eno, Kula Sims

I’ve read about a few alternatives to SL, and I’m not impressed.  I’d never use any of them that are Windows-only, of course (my Macs and I part company very, very reluctantly).  But even if a great world beckoned me back to the Dark Side and I logged in from a PC, it would have to be as open-ended as SL and enable residents to create their own content.  And Cecil, if you read this, you do magnificent work using Microsoft’s crippled OS…

SL has its problems, clearly explains, but its creativity and libertarian environment remain the promise Linden Lab holds out to us. I say that not as someone who drinks the Lab’s purple kool-aid; I like SL despite all the down-time, flaws in its interface, broken in-world tools, and lack of coherent zoning in the metaverse (the magnificent mosque at Chebi Sim used to be quite close to an adult-products shopping mall). 

I’ve compared SL to the gallery districts that get shut down for the same banal chains and mass-culture crap that populates so much of our RL space. 

If one wants sterile perfection in RL or a virtual world, its going to bore many of the artists and bohemians to tears.  And perhaps that is fine; the world is big enough for multiple metaverses.

But if Linden Labs wants to thrive as the “different” metaverse for the likes of brilliant Linux coders, dancing academics in gorilla suits, walking ham-hocks, and Brian Eno, they have to work a bit harder to keep the globe’s “Creative Class” happy in-world.  Let the giant corporations and their passive consumers cope with our freedom from islands of their own devising.

I hope my guest-writer “Midnight Angel” reads this post.  It’s hard for gamers to get it, but there are a lot of us who don’t want games—we want worlds we can build ourselves (and where we can game, too).  The Internet and the marketplace should be big enough for that, too. To be continued.

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Location: “The Finest Literature That a Factory Can Produce,“ Kula 2 Sim

No Eno. but then a “build” this clever and complex was worth the visit.  The group charter for the land includes some well know SL residents, including Hamlet Au (avatar for blogger Wagner James Au) and Mia Wombat, whose impressive speech about open-source programming and content inspired me when I ran across it in a nearby public meeting place.  I am not on the banned list.  Neither (so far) is Cecil Hirvi.

In the factory, a metallic receptionist paints her nails while a copy of Cosmorobo sits at her side.  In the plant, large comic-strip robots make words on vast assembly lines, while cigar-chomping robot supervisors look on and, in cubicles nearby, office-clone bots slave away while cyber-children’s robot drawings are tacked to the partition walls.

Rarely has a place in SL made me laugh out loud just for its creativity, not to mention its mocking of creative work. The place has no commercial purpose I can discern other than to show off the makers’ skills with Linux and make a visitor feel transported by the creation.

That aspect of my Eno-Quest is going to take up a few more posts here. I’ve been reading, in Au’s “New World Notes,” about Linden Lab facing a slight drop in activity in-world and a few large companies re-considering the scale of their investment in SL.  Meanwhile, virtual worlds such as Kaneva or There.com, to name but a few, are attracting these same real-life firms. To be continued.

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