The Voices in My Head

As every cow and chicken in the land must know by now, BigPond has launched its presence in Second Life, in a set of 11 sims, the centre piece of which is called simply The Pond. And I am proud to say I had a part in building these sims. Most of the work was by Gary Hazlitt. To be sure, mine was just a small part compared to what Gary did. He did pretty much everything except my build and the Sydney Harbour Bridge (good job, Charlene Trudeau). But culturally, my bit was a very significant one.

I built the Sydney Opera House. You can see some decent pictures over at sloz.

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…continuing on from my essay on beauty in SL and whether a man can be beautiful. This was of course inspired by comments on my view that it is unusual to call a man “beautiful”, and that the usual word is “handsome”.

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I’ve got a secret. And it’s burning a hole inside of me. I really want to just scream it out loud for the world to hear. But I mustn’t. So, basically, I’m blogging to tell you that I’m not telling you anything. Kinda pointless huh?

All this week I am building something for someone. Ultimately, it is being built for a major ISP, and paying real money. I am absolutely sworn to secrecy on what it is that I am actually building. I think though, it would not break the non-disclosure agreement to say that it is something that I had expected Big Brother to challenge us to build had they decided to be tricky and devious.

Use your imagination - speculate wildly, and comment both early and often. I can neither confirm nor deny that I have been comissioned to make a copy of the Eiffel Tower.

I have a piece of artwork at Dreams in their art show. Last night the artists talked about their works. As I listened to others talk, I felt totally out of my league. They talked about symbolism and the techniques that they used. They referred to artists that they admired. I wanted to tuck my tail and hide under my cape. How can I compete against these passionate people whose skills and natural talents ooze from their very being?

What would I say when it was my turn? My throat got dried, I coughed. Damn, it is the fingers that talk here. I hear Soj; she asked a question. “Yes,” I replied. “I took the picture to the right. I used an older version of Photoshop to come up with the line drawing to the left. I have no idea what I did to get it, but stopped when I got the effect.”

It was easier from then on. I no longer worried about capabilities but shared a little of my experience in Israel and the archeological dig. I talked about the subject of the piece, the Cardo in the Jewish Quarter of Old Jerusalem.

I no longer felt in competition with the others. Instead, it was a moment of sharing my world. I realized that they had done the same, but in their own way.