Quick Lit

I am part of all that I have met...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

What a fab day in SL... there was a mind-bending session at Tuna Oddfellow's regular mindbendathon, - I gots me a free hat, too - then it was off to Bookstacks to be part of the audience at Kghia Gherardi and Simeon Beresford's fascinating podcast about publishing - they interviewed the RL team who run Jackson Street Publishing. It is also available on Radio Riel, as you probably know, so you can listen from the comfort of your own octopus. After the show, I went to another favourite haunt of mine, the inworld studio of  Patrick Faith, in SL Kolor Fall. He has a new dancing primmobile that allows you to float purposefully around the canyon and waterways of his beautiful wilderness at KolorFalls, and he let me take a test ride: no pictures, I was showing my knickers in an unseemly manner. Oh well, what the heck, you've no doubt seen worse. If you've not been to  KolorFalls and its sister sim Kolor
yet, well, you should go, but I'd have to say pants are a must. To take the ride, click on one of the cubes rising from the water near the waterfall, also look around carefully and you'll find little gifties by Kolor, 'drawable' earrings, that you'll love.

More about Tuna and his magic music mixes in a future post, this man's Got Talent (and a million bucks...) Other adventures followed, but one of my best 'discoveries' of the day was the new Inksters website, they have abandoned Blogger for the much more swanky Wordpress site Virtual Literary Salon - stunning photos supply the visual imagery intended to cue literary inspiration ! Even if you aren't able to join in the writing competitions, you'll love their photos, they made me realize for the nth time how many places I've not yet been inworld...

wow so many more parts to be part of... and so little Sunday in which to do it!

Shortlist, hard workers

In praise of hard workers.

With the festive season behind you, the new year beckons full of promise and surpises, and what better time to stop and remember all the hard-working individuals who provide so much delight. Below are just some of the people and places that have caught my eye, I bet you can think of many more. Why not drop me a note inworld about your favourite place or group, so we can give them a shout-out here on SLArtsParks? Prefer to leave a comment? You can do so at the bottom of this post, or go over to our ning site and join us there!

First call, the incredibly hard-working Madmaninc Zapatero, seen here in his green lenses.

Do not miss the Festival of Short Film at Phantasmagoria Theater  GOING ON RIGHT NOW! Madmaninc has put together an extraordinary display of talent. Dozens of new short films, from mystery to docu-steampunk, to animation, to abstract art, the choice is yours, 24/7. What a treat! It's a brilliant way to see new talent and expression in bite-size form. You might also want to check out Phantasmagoria's presence on myspace  and at blip.tv(where you can see a video of their New Year's Eve party - these people know how to have a good time!) or subscribe to the podcast at itunes. (Make sure you have the latest Quicktime download, other wise you won't see anything.)

 On the musical front,  Nasus Dumart and the team over at Molaskey's Pub have put on some wonderful music, including the great Frets Nirvana and the past few months have seen a return to the music scene of my personal music-god, Von Johin.

May his tunes last forever!! Thanks to Votslav Hax, BobbiJo and the rest of the Symbiotic team for their unceasing efforts to bring us great talent. There are dozens of gallery owners who deserve praise, I'll just mention PiRats' super-duo Newbab Zsigmond and Merlina Rokocoko, supercool Zachh Cale over at project Z and the truly tireless Lion Igaly whose Diadem gallery just found a new home at sim imparafacile.

In the literary world, the variety of venues, genres and types of activity open to readers and writers is really breathatking, and the amazing work of people like Kghia Gherardi, Harriet Gausman, Jilly Kidd, JJ Drinkwater and the beautiful people over at West of Ireland deserves a standing ovation (though they might prefer a nice sit down and a cup of tea). Much praise goes to the hard work of the team behind the Antica stamperia Il Faro, which produces virtual books in Italian, and the fascinating series Scienza on the road, presented by Giovanna Delphin who, together with Marjorie Fargis brings many an Italian event alive with professionalism and good humour. Not always easy to do with the vagaries of SL performance!

Such a short list, for every name here mentioned there are dozens more, I'm aware... who springs to your mind? Let me know! Links, landmarks, hints and ideas all gratefully received! and with your contributions, what an exciting new year of discovery it's going to be!

Leaves in the Stacks

It may happen that we do not want the most beautiful form, but one of our own designing.

Shirley Hibberd.

Simeon Beresford and Kghia Gherardi started Bookstacks about a year and a half ago, and bought sim Awen at the end of last year. I asked Kghia ("call me K") what had brought her - and keeps her - inworld.

Kghia Gherardi: I think people who become part of a community are more likely to stay in SL. I came in a couple of years ago, thanks to the book-trading website Bookmooch. It was an opportunity to talk about books with other readers, and that initial meeting evolved in time to our Book Lover's Sunday Socials, here at Bookstacks on sim Awen. Simeon and I met inworld at a gathering of book lovers. This is my favorite place in SL, Simeon built the pub: I don’t build anything that takes more than 1 prim, but I wanted a nice place in which to curl up with a book. The Guild of UK Writers(SL) has one island here. We’ve partnered with them, which means we can reach a broader audience, but timing is a challenge. For example, for Off the Shelf, the producer lives in Hawaii. She and Simeon are 10 hours apart. But it's worth it! Off the Shelf is a half-hour Arts talk-show, made in collaboration with Radio Riel and the Second Life Literary Foundation, and goes out every two weeks on Sundays at 1.00pm SLT. Upcoming guests include poet Manx Wharton, and Explorer Dastardly who uses SL to tell the story of her mother's experiences as a survivor of the Shoah, Book Island's very own Selina Greene and author and podcaster Mark Eller. I really like the main reading room at Bookstacks, it feels like the lobby of an old-fashioned hotel, and it was here a few weeks back that I enjoyed Simeon's reading of MR James ghost story: his lilting Welsh accent carried it off perfectly. I asked Kghia how easy it is to organize events like that.

Kghia Gherardi: That reading was part of Horror Fest - which involved a solid 15 hours of programming, not including all the time involved in planning and organizing it. As you can imagine, this is a labor of love, we don't charge our public. There seems to be concern about multiple events being offered at the same time. I see it as positive. We can team up with other groups to offer a huge variety of activities in SL, so readers and writers from all over the world can choose what really interests them. This Japanese book, for example, is on loan to us from the library at Amatsu Shima. We are scheduling a reading by the librarian there, Pomona Writer. The library is part of the Alexandrian Free Library network, which you may have heard of if you know the Caledon Library, directed by JJ Drinkwater. Since my interest is in 19th century English and American literature, the Caledon connection is a natural fit. Last year JJ and I coordinated a Jane Austen discussion in conjunction with the PBS airing of movies based on her novels. I have a new discussion series starting there in April called Whitman Weekly, where we'll be looking at sections of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Join Bookstacks for regular notices, and to find out more!
Interestingly, Whitman self-published his first volume of 12 poems: the title is an ironic pun on a derogatory term used by publishers for minor works - 'grass'. He wanted his book to be pocket-sized, since that would "tend to induce people to take me along with them and read me in the open air, I am nearly always successful with the reader in the open air." The slim first volume grew into a mighty 35 book collection containing some of the most enduring classics of 19th century American verse.
Kghia Gherardi: If I were to make an Art park, as you call it, I'd pick Walt Whitman. It would be some place with a large expanse of grass to lay on; but in reality, Whitman loved all aspects of America. His poems catalog the urban and the rural, the sophisticated and the simple. He would have embraced all of Second Life, accepted it all, and celebrated it.

Succede che la forma che desideriamo non sia quella più bella, ma quella fatta apposta per noi

Shirley Hibberd.

Il segreto di una felice e lunga seconda vita? Trovarsi una communità idonea e servirla, secondo bibliotecaia e owner di Bookstacks Isle, Kghia Gherardi. In SL da oltre due anni, lei ha trovato SL attraverso il sito Bookmooch (disponibile anche in italiano!) Da quegli incontri con altri amanti della letteratura del '800 è nato il suo gruppo Bookstacks, e dal 2008 anche un luogo d'incontro su sim Awen. Qui vedi il pub, creato da Simeon Beresford. Insieme a Kghia, Simeon gestisce e organizza moltissimi eventi in SL; Simeon è anche un lettore bravissimo, l'ho sentito un paio di settimane fa durante il Horror Fest, nella parte inglese vedrai una foto di lui, mentre ci leggeva un racconto di M R James maestro della ghost story. Ha l'accento gallese perfettamente addatto al racconto. Il gruppo non era grandissimo, ma la stanza era comoda e di sentiva proprio come se ci fossimo radunati in un vecchio albergo inglese, tutti intorno al camino, mentre uno degli ospiti ci intratteneva con una storia come si faceva una volta, prima della TV e la radio, prima dell'internet.Kghia Gherardi: Quando sono arrivata in SL, non c'era molta scelta per chi come me voleva una seconda vita letteraria. Oggi in Sl la scelta è vasta, diversa, e sempre in evoluzione. Per alcuni questo pare un problema, visto che il pubblico è limitato, vuol dire che siamo in concorrenza tra di noi, ma io preferisco vedere l'ampliata scelta come un'occasione di servire il pubblico con più 'piatti' - nel nostro pub diamo spazio ad altri gruppi letterari di fare pubblicità. Questo per noi è un lavoro fatto col cuore, non a scopo di lucro. Per organizzare le 15 ore di eventi per Horror Fest, ad esempio, ci sono voluti molti giorni e la cooperazione di molti volontari. Attraverso l'Alexandrian Free Library, (una rete di biblioteche reali e virtuali) abbiamo legami anche con il sim giapponese Amatsu Shima (vuole dire isola divina) - ci hanno prestato questo prezioso libro, e fra qualche settimana la direttrice della loro biblioteca Pomona Writer verrà a Bookstacks a fare una presentazione. Come per tutti, a volte crea difficoltà la questione del fuso orario: io e Simeon ci troviamo su continenti diversi, e ci siamo 'alleati' con il Guild of UK Writers (SL), un gruppo basato in Europa... e per la nostra nuova iniziativa, un programma sull'Arte in SL che va in onda via podcast, non ti dico! Il produttore si trova nelle Hawaii, Simeon in Inghilterra - una differenza d'orario di dieci ore!

Il nuovo programma di Simeon e Kghia si chiama Off The Shelf, va in onda ogni 2 settimane, su Radio Riel, (domenica ore 13.00 SLT) : è un'ottimo esempio dello spirito di cooperazione di cui parlava Kghia. Tra i collaboratori UK Guild of Writers, Radio Riel, e il Second Life Literary Foundation.
Kghia in RL ha un Master's in letteratura americana e inglese del '800, naturalmente si sente un forte legame con la biblioteca Caledon Library, diretto da JJ Drinkwater. L'anno scorso hanno organizzato una serie di serate all'insegna di Jane Austen a coincidere con la serie di film basati sui romanzi della nota autrice messi in onda sul canale televisivo americano PBS. Ad aprile, Kghia organizza incontri settimanali per parlare delle poesie di Walt Whitman. Fatto interessante: questa sua prima collezione di dodici poesie Whitman l'ha pubblicata a proprie spese. Il nome Foglie d'erba è un gioco di parole: 'erba' era la definizione spregiativa data alle opere minori dalle case editrici. Whitman volle che il suo libro dalla copertina verde fosse dalle dimensioni tascabili, poiché "inducesse alla gente di portarmi con loro e di leggermi quando escono all'aria aperta. Ho quasi sempre più fortuna con il lettore all'aria aperta." Quelle 12 poesie sono divenute trentacinque libri - classici della letteratura americana, letti in tutto il mondo.
Kghia Gherardi: Se dovessi io creare un Parco d'Arte come lo definisci tu, farei un'omaggio a Walt Whitman. Sarebbe un prato immenso, una prateria, dove ci si potrebbe stendere; ma in realtà Whitman amò ogni aspetto dell'America. Le sue poesie sono inni alla vita delle grandi città e quella della campagna, il sofisticato e il semplice. Avrebbe accolto tutto di Second Life, l'avrebbe accettata in ogni suo aspetto, e l'avrebbe cantata.