"You do realise that's what makes Second Life special, don'tyou Texter? Not the idiots with the huge cocks, not the novelty
avatars, not the little cliques and clubs and groupings, but the
cool controllers there privately to let it slip, just a little, just to
see what having it slip just a little feels like."
November 2008: Texter Triste is standing on the platform at Le Havre railway station, waiting for his Second Life love to turn up; but a killer is watching him, and smiling...
Just So That You Know, Huckleberry Hax
Huckleberry Hax didn't come into SL with the intention of sharing his writing; it just turned out that way. He chose SL because he was taking part in the National Novel Writing Month event. He's since produced five novels that carry the reader from the Metaverse into the real world, and back again. What kind of books, I hear you ask? Well, that's the teaser from his fourth book "Just so that you know" up above. Next thing you're going to want to do is download, for free, some of his stuff - you'll find it here on the web.
So what's the story, Huck?
Huckleberry Hax: National Novel Writing Month. I wanted to take part and actually finish a novel. On one of the weekly podcasts, I heard that there was a guy in SL holding support meetings in some sort of virtual cafe. To be honest, I was more interested in work avoidance than I was in virtual meetings! After a few hours wondering around (and, quite frankly, wondering what all the fuss was about) I went back to my novel writing. But I was back over Christmas, and then again in the Spring. I've pretty much remained here ever since. Starting with my first SL novel, 'AFK' (which I wrote for National Novel Writing Month 2007), I've made everything I've written under my SL name available for free, on my blog.
I wondered how and when Huck started reading his work inworld.
Huckleberry Hax: In July 2008, Harriet Gausman of the Guild of UK Writers group asked me to read my second novel, 'The Day is Full of Birds' in parts over period of a couple of months at her Milkwood sim. I'd done very little voice communication on SL prior to that (I still prefer text for chat), so it was quite daunting! I've discovered that reading in voice is a very satisfying experience, however, and over the many reading events that I've done since then, I've enjoyed working on improving my style as much as possible.
Since Huck was originally lured into SL by a support group for writers, I was curious to know if he frequents any meetings of that kind nowadays.
Huckleberry Hax: I try to go every week to the weekly Writers' Circle meeting at Cookie, where writers share extracts of their work for feedback. I also go sometimes to the poetry workshop at The Blue Angel Poets' Dive on Saturday mornings, although I fancy my poetry advice is probably not in the same league as some of the more established poetry writers who hang out there! I'm working with two other writers from the Blue Angel - Persephone Phoenix (the owner) and Shara Levanque - to produce a new poetry journal that's due out any week now - 'Blue Angel Landing'. Its mission is to celebrate the work of SL poets, both new and experienced; this pretty much encapsulates the mission of the Dive itself, actually: the weekly open mic session held there (Sundays at 5pm SLT) has been running without break for nearly three years and is rarely attended by less than 30 people. It's an amazing achievement and the event has a quite unique atmosphere, no small part of which is the exhilaration of new poets reading their work in front of a live audience for the first time.
With the limit of groups one can belong to still firmly at 25, we all have to think twice before signing up for anything new, and I wanted to know which ones Huck found the most useful for his literary activities.
Huckleberry Hax: P.S. (Post Scriptum) is a really good one to belong to, since all the major events get advertised in that. The groups I'm most active in are the The Blue Angel VIP, the Guild of UK Writers and the Written Word. I also go to events sometimes organized by Bookstacks and INKsters. But there are plenty more groups besides these. Oh ...and I should also plug here my own group, Huck's News.
Huckleberry Hax reads regularly at Milk Wood, at the The Waterstage in Cookie, the Blue Angel Poets' Dive and on occasion at Bookstacks, The Bookworm Cafe at Da Vinci Isle and the theatre in The Village. I asked him that terrible question - which place he likes the best.
Huckleberry Hax: The Blue Angel is perhaps my favourite place to read my work in Second Life, because the atmosphere there so perfectly seems to match the type of RL place it's been designed to look like. But Cookie would be a close second - there is just so much that goes on there.
I asked the Usual Question, but got a surprising answer this time: Huck went with architecture, not books.
Huckleberry Hax: An Art Park to suit my taste? Well, I'm a fan of post-war brutalist architecture, so I would love to see a sim dedicated to the work of architects like Rodney Gordon, who died last year. I'd like to see again departed builds like the Tricorn Centre, (in RL Portsmouth, UK, demolished in 2004) - not the stained, crumbling, rather dreary looking things they became, but the way they were intended to look when they were new.
Despite the obvious Get Carter reference (aren't I predictable), I learned today that brutalism has nothing to do with cruelty and everything to do with the French term béton brut = raw concrete. It's an interesting choice, although I'm not sure a whole sim along those lines would be to my taste. But the idea of SL Pompey? That I have to see.
Last night there was a vernissage at the PiRats sim 
On the whole though, if I'm honest, I'm more of a fan of figurative than abstract sculpture, especially anything that brings RL into SL, which is why I very much enjoyed the monumental statuary of 
Speaking of the exciting intersection between RL and SL art brings us to Michelangelo Montague, whose work invites one to get up close and personal with such seminal pieces of manipulated americana as Harlem Nightclub 1949, Train Wreck, and Sunday afternoon on 5th street, 1910. 
If you're new to SL, or would like to widen your circle of friends on an international level, the regular vernissages at PiRats are the perfect place to branch out, the atmosphere is always friendly, conducive to the making of new contacts. No stuffy snobbery here, and there's always champagne on offer! 
Steven Spielberg was just 27 (ooo the same age as you and me!) when he co-wrote and directed this low(ish)-budget masterpiece shot on location on 
Outside the movie theatre I found the 
It did. I ended up sharing the front seat with a dude named Chris something, "-Call me Dave-" who made some funny jokes about the film and then borrowed 20L off me. It's that kind of place. 
There's lots more to do on Amity, you can sunbathe, or go windsurfing, or on the 
Whether you're in the mood for some quiet movie magic, or want somewhere new to take a stroll, or a date, head over to Amity Island. Don't forget to send me a postcard!
A me da bambina sono sempre piaciute le 
The Tut show is actually still at the preview stage, who knows what more goodies the good folk of Rezzable.com have up their sleeves. To say the 
The aerial view is however not even among the four attractions advertized at the landing point. Among the names that deserve mentioning are world-renowned photographer 
Next stop is the Special Pieces Gallery, which is special in its own right, a wonderfully intuitive and stylish design. The main chamber holds the two gigantic gilded shrines that originally held Tut's mummy, while the side rooms hold copies of tinier but equally impressive pieces from the treasury. Cam in tight to see the exquisite workmanship, ancient and modern, or press the Enlarge button and see the objects in extraordinary detail.
Breaking away from the subterranean, I used the TP to go up to the 
Finally, on ground level is the 
Una panorama straordinaria che muta da immagine satellitare a mappamondo - una di quelle mappe scholastiche da fine secolo, forse come quella che lo stesso Howard Carter avesse da bambino, all'epoca in cui nacque la sua passione per l'Egitto... da mappamondo il paesaggio muta di nuovo; ora è visibile l'imponente rete di necropoli. Quanto lavoro, quanto tempo, quanta vita...
La vita continua, e anche la gita: si scende con il TP nella zona scavi, dove troverai le tende bianche stile anni venti, e la tomba di Tut, naturalmente. Oltre ai bellissimi affreschi (una parete intera dedicata alle scimmie, da non perdere) ci sono alcuni articoli quale il carro da guerra reale dorato, come si vede nella foto riportata qui sopra. Hanno preferito mettere solo pochi oggetti anziché ricreare l'intero allestimento funerario, ma ci hanno regalato quanto basta per farsi un'idea (privo di lag) di ciò che ha visto Howard Carter quando per la prima volta in tremila anni, occhi vivi si sono posati sul tesoro di Tut.
Un miracolo sia della tecnica degli antichi artigiani che dei builders di rezzable.com -scripter Alejandro Rosenthal e la bravissima My Mackenzie, Beatrix Newt, una sim builder straordinaria, consulente tecnico Foolish Frost, Littletoe Bartlet e 
La galleria cosmica offre un modo molto originale di visionare molti dei tesori di Tut, tra le stelle tanto amate dagli egiziani, puoi percorrere un'elica doppia per vedere da vicino le opere giganti. E infine, al 'piano terra' del sim, troverai la serena e bella casa di Armana, e un negozio Tutto Egitto: avatar, skin, mobili e gioielli, per chi vuole vivere l'Egitto sulla propria pelle.
