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: Bliss Garden Center

Among its other attractions, Luna Bliss’ creation features “the largest cave in Second Life.“  Since Second Life® lets real estate be “sky high” in a literal sense, making such a cave is easy: just put a roof, or in this case a garden shop, far above the ground. This creates a cavern to end all caverns.  And straying off the path in the shop often results in comic falls through the floor and into the depths below.  If only I could do that in real-life botanical gardens to keep lazy-bones taking short-cuts off the paths!

This image gives an idea of how far one CAN fall…Ms. Bliss provides a glass floor near the shop that gives a dizzying perspective of the cave.

Before setting out on my bike-trip to the cave (the subject of a blog soon) I walked down the path a ways to get these shots of private residences clinging to the precipice.  As I often do in-world, I got the feeling of walking through interactive artwork in 3D.

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