Saint Valentine's Day at Momma Kita's stage

Saint Valentine's Day will be fun again at Street Whores. When I walked in this morning I saw Momma Kita's stage, that has stuck around since the holidays, sprinkled with rose leafs and there was a bunch of girls dancing on it.

There will be a party with DJ Clau tonight at 1PM SL Time. (Yes, that is tonight for me, as I am not based on the west coast of the USA) The party will be until 3PM. Of course at: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hoogenach/91/184/66

Whotter has been having his share of fun already: Annie has given him a bucket, which is similar tot he beer bucket at No.5 Bar, but gives out dried fish if you buy them for him. Some of the girls have already tried to recycle dried fish in the bins at the bar. To their surprise, fish recycling didn't work...

 

Dancing around the Christmas tree

For the holidays, Momma Kita and Annie had prepared a nice dancing stage, at a square at Street Whores. And this time it didn't look like something that should be inside a building, but it was a piece of actual square decoration. Usually it doesn't make much sense to me to dance in the street, but because of it's looks, I decided to give it a go.

Whotter soon discovered it too, playing on his new musical instrument, a keytar... No one even tried to flee the scene or stop him to play, so I suppose he is making progress. One friendly neighbour even got him an entire bucket of fish.

It seems to be a great team: Kita decorates and Annie scripts. The owners want to keep the stage and adapt it to the seasons, I heard. Let's see how it evolves.

An Adult Oktoberfest for Second Life

 

 

When you teleport (or walk, but who does that?) in at the region where I live and work in Second Life, you will now see a huge tent, for our Oktoberfest. Whotter actually discovered it well before I did, but that is no surprise: unfortunately, drinking has become a new hobby of his. I guess that's the downside of him being an author...
But we both got our traditional dress ready: a dirndl for me and lederhosen for him.

 

The beer is supplied by Fiver of No.5 Bar, the highly succesful cafe in our street. Our street whores who for a large part do nothing else than drinking these days, can recycle the empty mugs too, in the container in the alley behind the bar.

The mugs are going to become a collector's item, she said. I am not so sure: given the amount of glass I had to clean up at my front door, Whotter drank at least 120 pints so far. Should I be concerned?

Of course, not everyone is drinking. Werner, for instance, picked up rollerskating and could be found circling the dancefloor on them. I am not sure that will be safe when all the drunk people show up at one of the music events that will take place in our tent.

A Street Whores Author Meetup

When I walked into the bar earlier this day, I was alerted to the presence of a vertiable author: Nikolaos Sakamoto. He has been there before and been talking about his work, or so I was told. As many authors who once entered Second Life, he stuck around. Maybe to explore the boundaries of imagination, or just the seedier corners of the human mind. Who knows?
Of course we tried encourage him to go to the Second Life Bookclub, to promote his work, but he seems shy to do so.

Well, that is the cultural sector for you I suppose: not too shy to hang around in a bar full of whores, but when it comes to promoting their work...

Whotter picked it up a lot better: he immediately handed Nikolaos a signed copy of 'Fish', his 8-world circular novel. That was much appreciated. We heard Nikolaos laugh about it for a while. But let me do some of his promoting now: there is more to be found on his character and his work on this website.

The 100.000L photo contest

Yes, you read that correctly: there is a photo contest going on and the winner is supposed to get 100.000L! It all feels a bit chaotic, but the contest runs until the 30th of June.The contest is named 'Celebrate a whore photo contest and instructions are to be found at Bar No.5, where the winners will be announced on 2 July at 2PM SL time.

Whotter is confident his fish photo will win him 100.000L

I will show my submissions for the contest later on. Of course I could not take part in it without Whotter getting involved somehow. So here he is, sneaking up on me and posing with his big fish, while I am taking a nap after my photoshoot.

An eagle avatar

I walked into the No.5 Bar the other day and a fan and reader of my blog was there. He sent me this wonderful gift:

He gave me this eagle avatar. In the picture I changed the pattern into a bearded vulture, but that's just as pretty, don't you think?

Sometimes, scouring the street, I can feel like I am an eagle, or a vulture even. Scanning the area for prospects, approaching some, ignoring or even avoiding others. The hunt can be exciting!

Of course, Fiver, the bar's owner, looked at me and then asked around in the room: "Who turned Tsai into a bunch of feathers?"

Virtual Cultures in Pandemic Times premiere

 

For 2 years Second Life film maker Draxtor has been working on a film on virtual cultures during the coronavirus pandemic. Last weekend Whotter and I had the chance to be present at it's premiere. Over a 100 avatars gathered in the in-world cinema. I don't recall having sseen so many avatars in one place in Second Life in many years. Usually regions are limited to 35 or 40 avatars or so.

I will embed the film here, with the first paragraph of it's accompanying text.

 

 

Since March 2020, Draxtor has been following UC Irvine Department of Anthropology researchers Tom Boellstorff, Evan Conaway, Chandra Middleton and Sandy Wenger around Animal Crossing and Second Life to find out how the COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping online interaction. In the film, protagonists from all over the world open up about their anxieties and everyday challenges during the last two years, and share what virtual worlds and social games mean to them in the context of a global health crisis.