Second Life Herald

Op/Ed: So Long - Thanks For All The Fish

by Ms. Penance Sautereau

So here it is, my last article. It's due today, and I still can't really think of a particular subject to cover. I've been sitting here staring at the edit page for an hour now I think. A few ideas have popped into my head, but most I dismissed.

I pondered writing about the good things Prok has done on SL as a follow-up on my last article. I decided against it. My little Anti-Fan Club here would just accuse me of pretending to care about her sanity to serve my own interests. (Though I really can't imagine what self-interest I serve by trying to help someone so universally loathed on the Herald.)

I considered maybe writing a third Religion in SL article. I never did get to finish my series. But the research was draining and I can't be bothered to write one knowing  the Herald loudmouths will just dissect it as an attempt to ignite debate. The point of that series was to try and showcase spiritual diversity and foster more tolerance. It was a point no one seemed to get, so it isn't worth a third attempt.

I thought of just asking Pixeleen to post that last fluffy "How-To" piece I submitted in November as my last article. But it'd be frilly and pointless, and I feel like I owe the whole whopping 4 people who like my stuff better than a canned fluff piece as a goodbye.

So I sat here. I pondered. I looked over my past submissions and read the reactions to them. I self-analyzed how I reacted to trolls, evolving from the angry bawing they wanted to just mocking how sad they are. I smiled at the 15% of comments that were nice, appreciative, and supportive. I laughed seeing old comments from people like Candy Lemmon telling outright obsessive lies about non-existent in-world harassment supposedly happening well after she was muted and forgotten. I grumbled at the Effite Diction robot's obsession with trying to fix my writing and ignoring the point of what I'd written. I smiled sadly reading comments from Artemis and D3adlyCod3c, wondering how different things might be if not for initial misunderstandings (Artemis) or if cooler heads had prevailed much sooner (Cod3c).

Second Life Artists, part 1: Daequix Scarborough

The Herald is pleased to introduce a new series featuring Second Life artists. In this series Second Life resident Frank Koolhaus (irl Mario Gerosa, the editor of Architectural Digest Italia) will interview a series of prominent and outstanding Second Life artists, beginning today with Daequix Scarborough. Artists should feel free to contact Frank in world. The rest of you, enjoy! --Uri

Frank and Dae in front of Dae's piece: Magic Lantern Dreamer

Daequix Scarborough has a great gift. With her art, she can offer you instant fame. Her portraits always have an aura of celebrity that transform the ordinary people depicted into celebrity characters. You can see this by looking at the “Club Hex” series. These are screenshots taken in a Second Life disco, with people you can meet at any moment. But, then, when you look at the portraits of these dancers, waitresses, and clubbers, you have the impression you are in front of someone famous, someone you did not recognize before. The same happens with “Shopping Time”, another great work by Daequix. The work shows three women shopping -- Daequix and her friends Gadget and Arteer -- but the impression is that your are in front of a poster for the rights of women. These three friends look powerful, determined and strong, and they represent a sort of a bidimensional monument created to honour the girl power in Second Life.