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: Worried Silly on Richmond Island

When I was just a noob in Second Life®, I ran across a reference to Ida Keen’s blog Baedaker, a travel guide to the curious and interesting in-world. Ida was gracious enough to let me interview her and to work with my students.  Her blog never covered adult topics, so it was a safe introduction to the world of virtual journalism and travel.

Now I fear that:

1) Ida has encountered real-life problems preventing her from being in Second Life
2) The sinister totalitarian state she covered in her final blog post imprisoned her
3) She has run off with the virtual circus.

I hope it is #3, because when Iggy and Ida last chatted, she was preparing for a dance routine in The Show Must Go On, a performing troupe in Second Life.

Okay…I’m worried that she may be in that virtual jail after all.  As soon as the “brains” involved with this blog get the Pappy-James Dean transformation sorted out, I am heading to Suffugium, a dystopian roleplaying area where we last know Ida to be.

Sounds a bit silly to non-SL folks, and maybe to many who are in-world, but when a virtual person with an active writing life just vanishes, I worry.

Is this all part of Ida’s show? There are two little green dots on my map of Suffugium tonight….could one of them be the intrepid reporter, Ida Keen?  Stay tuned.  We got Pappy Enoch out of jail in Tombstone (and he didn’t even want to leave).

We can do it again.

I have a fast fake car, a bunch of fake firearms, and a bunch of real friends who are as nutty as I am.  Let’s do this thing!

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