merveilleuse

xipe totec, or juana has a bad hangover

2010-10-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

the first thing i thought of when i saw the new skins from MadScience Labs was the flayed god, xipe totec. of course, i don't expect the rest of the world to be as pre-columbian addled as i am. the next thing i wanted immediately was a human skin ballgown (in second life of course) to go with the xipe totec theme. for those who do not know, the priests used to wear the flayed skins of sacrificial victims till they rotted off. besides, if you were skinless it seems that would be the perfect material to wear.

sadly, there were no human skin gowns that i could locate in sl. however amusingly enough i came upon a company in the real world that makes faux human skin garments. after some searching, i found an acceptable substitute, the cute zombie bloom dress from Rotten Toe. it is not a new release but i couldn't resist the human heart ornament and blood spatters on the dress. juana decided to get all julio cortazar as a tourist, and it was intensely hilarious to be at the Visit Mexico sim in this getup, bumping into honeymooning avatars on horses.

juana "jose cuervo you are a friend of mine" wears:

zombie bloom and visions of death eyes by rotten toe
mia hair by ploom
mad science [[skinnned]] skin by Rev Eponym
thigh high boots by j's
paperdoll necklace by i love 13
p bouc piercing by female paradox & alpha
skull mask by punkerella summers
bloody bonehead bracelets by retox

at Visit Mexico sim & the Moreau Institute

and she's buying a stairway to juana

2010-08-30T16:25:00.000-07:00

yes. i am into the big dresses. perhaps it is the residue of the elizabethan gowns i used to wear in the SCA. this is a pretty excessive dress. whoa. paging mr. beardsley. it looks like the peacock tendrils threaten to engulf juana and any other unfortunate avatar that might be nearby. however, that's beside the point. i think i am kind of in love with the house of beningborough now, because they seem to specialize in that kind of dress, you know, the showstopper dress that has its own zipcode and upstages all the other people at the party.

i have to say that i really was at a loss where to go in this ultimate statement gown, and was completely surprised at how fabulous the chouchou xvi (the babel) sim was. i have visited a few of the chouchou sims before, but hadn't seen this one yet. i still don't know exactly what it means, or what the boxes are supposed to do, and for the life of me at first i imagined some sort of jacob's ladder with angelic fashionistas floating up and down (but the funky alpha effect kept messing up my dress) and then i wanted to pull out a lighter and sing "stairway to heaven" because i realized how hilarious it was. this whole dream/hallucination of ours has an economy, and juana just happens to be one of the materialistic bottom-feeding shopping heaux that makes sl run. that is, never a producer, always a consumer....

slairway to juana wears:

dancing peacocks dress by house of benington
delilah stockings and glovesby nightshade designs
aztec goddess 2 tattoo by ink blots
tilly (night) hair by truth
nose piercing by avz
rose hairpin suede wine by gfield
abbadon torc by tekeli'li
antracite skull earrings by DECO
thigh high boots by j's
devon 3a skin and visions of death eyes
by rotten toe

Eshishoegasm (kinda not safe for work)

2010-07-31T11:42:00.000-07:00

I fervently love Eshi Otawara's clothes, even tho I've never met her in person. She is one the deities in my revered personal SL fashion trinity (the other divine pair being Cutea Benelli and Alpha Auer). Her new releases lately have just made me squeal with delight. Which brings me to the subject of this installment--I was going to pretend to have a screaming shoegasm in her store, (and indeed she said via IM it would be alright) but you know I can't do that sort of thing without laughing. Enter the immensely talented Miss Lillian Shippe, who so graciously provided a genuine sample on request (a rather impertinent request I suppose) and even remixed it! I must thank her again and express my deep gratitude for such a beautiful gesture and her beautiful voice.

On a related note, why the hell are sex animations in SL so stupid? I mean, poor Juana is a virgin and all, and I've literally never had a reason to use them (just imagine me trying to explain that I needed it to pretend to have a shoegasm in a store) but I swear I was so annoyed with how idiotic it made Juana look that I really wanted to tie that stupid prim genitalia to a prim brick and throw it through an *unnamed* prim plate glass window.

100% Genuine Orgasm performed and mixed by Miss Lillian Shippe, Vocal Orgasm Model.

Juana wears:

Aria Pompadour gown, hat, gloves, and facial tattoo
Mayan Dream tattoo by Garden of Ku (tinted)
Bloody BoneHead Bracelets by ReTox
Thigh High boots by J's
Abbadon torc by Tekeli'li
RUI306 Hair by Boon
Xcite genitalia
Bone queen skin by Cutea Benelli
Visions of Death eyes by Rotten Toe

Special thanks to Miss Lillian Shippe and Eshi Otawara

pyongyang traffic girls make the world go round...

2010-06-08T22:27:00.000-07:00

Pyongyang Traffic Girls are (perhaps with the exception of the mao suit) the chi-chiest of all fashion influences originating from dour totalitarian communist nations. These hot uniformed patriotic creatures stand in their impossibly cute outfits (who doesn't love white ankle socks and little brown heeled oxfords) at intersections performing impossibly robotic movements (as only crazy goose stepping bankrupt communist nations with brilliant athletic teams and starving populaces devise) directing non-existent traffic on pyongyang's mean streets.

They even function as advanced military technology. And now thanks to the ubercoolness (yes, i am a little biased) of Rev Eponym, proprietor of Mad Science Laboratories, all of the deserted intersections in Second Life will be populated with hot traffic girls by the end of the next 5 year plan.

airborne traffic girl juana wears:

Pyongyang Traffic Girl set & custom platform
by Mad Science Laboratories (Rev Eponym)

Ichigo Claret skin by Pixel Dolls
Nephilim hair by Tohru
Skull nosering by AVZ
High Oxfords by Tesla
Visions of death eyes by Rotten Toe

taken at various undisclosed locations
listening to "ode to kim il sung"

special thanks to Rev Eponym,
who is the coolest boyfriend evar
*fangirl*

this is what it sounds like.....when gothloli robots cry.

2010-05-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

i have to start this post with a shout out to marisol koencamp of the blog some strangeness in the proportion. i saw her fabulous last post featuring the chrome goddess skins by Terra Cioc and started drooling uncontrollably despite my somewhat semi-serious aversion to gynoids. then i invited my two friends Dimitri Rizooto and Circe Timtam, and guess what happened.............

it just goes to show what terrible role models fashion bloggers can be, no? :D

juana manuel as the gothloli doll wears:

duck shoot mustache by katatonik
triquetra posture collar by lolapop!
aura top hat
and chiroptera bloomers by violent seduction
black dancer vinyl gloves
and replicant eyes by rotten toe
poe corset and panties by nightshade designs
broken crinoline skirt by weird designs
enigma bracelets by loulou&co
ailith hair grafite by wasabi pills
j's thigh high boots
chrome goddess v02 skin by terra cioc

Special thanks to Brad Murphy for permission
to use his cover of "When Doves Cry"

vibrator sound effect from
freesounds.org

Circe Timtam as the Girl wears:

Skin - Nomine Sylvan Ultralight-glam goblin
Hair - ZF-Tickles Hair-Frost Marshmallow
Eyes - Slick-Blink Rumpleteazer-New Growth
Ears & Tail - Urban Dare Neko Ears w/rings and
Urban Dare Neko Straight Tail- Long/Slim w/dagger
Piercings - Slick-Triple Erl and
Slick-Triple Lip Piercing w/Triple Round Dangles
Tattoos - Aitui Cherry Blossoms (red) undie & bra layer
Bra - Artilleri Deanna Bra *cherry black*
Sweater - Pixel Mode Twist Sweater-Black
Skirt - Blow-Up MiniSkirt Zipped-WhiteTartan
Panties - Blow Up-Black Panties Low
Pearls - Shiny Things-Knotted Bead Strand
in Mother of Pearl
Boots - Pixel Mode-Viv Boots-Jet w/Silver
Stockings - Sheer Torn Fishnets in black

Dimitry Rizooto as the Boy wears:

Skin - Daniel Peach 04 - LAQ,
Hair - Caught - Shag,
Pants - Deconstructed Blue - Nomine
Wife Beater - Plain White Tank - Mechanism ,
Shirt - Sinnerman Smoker - Nomine,
Sunglasses - Recon - Role Optic,
Tattoo - Viva La Zapata by garden of Ku

Special Thanks to Dimitry for the use
of his house and also
his excellent poseball wrangling

...is now the two hours' traffic of our stage...

2010-04-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

how does the saying go? all the world is a stage? i like to think so. i was in a re-enactment society for about 10ish years in my previous existence, and i have been lucky enough to have visited the reproduction elizabethan theater in austin at castleton. i loved the contrast of the simplicity of it with the garb people were wearing. and so when i put on this most theatrical of outfits i immediately thought of my old real life garb, and of the absence of scenery that would distract from the magnificence of juana's attire. i like the illusory nature of it all. that and cross-dressing boys. it is kind of like second life, no?

ok, that's a stretch. but i do have a bit of an affinity or a soft spot at least for that sort of thing. when i was ain the SCA i wore ruffs and an awful lot of black. which is why when i saw this outfit from grim bros/cutea benelli i flipped out.

it is most definitely a gothic lolita dress but when i first saw it, especially the way she styled it, the delicate looking filigree-like collar immediately reminded of a ruff supportasse, along with the general spanish saya alta looking high neck and the cage crinoline skirt. And the incredibly detailed optional spine attachment reminded me very much of a standing wired veil. i was in raging mad love with this dress just based on the sheer deathly exuberance of the details and the decidedly elizabethan flavor. every item on the gown is incredible. and as always there are optional pieces to mix and match. the spine attachment and bustle skirt were my favorites. i did modify the gown a little with other pieces from different designers for the first look.

juana dramatica wears:
pensees noires gown set by grim bros/cutea benelli
steampunk'd cloisonne corset, bone collector collar, and mourna skin by nomine
gloves by sweetest goodbye
mad lilly hair ebony by i love 13
lucy hair by magika
37 hair by W&Y
thigh high boots by j's
aura parasol by violent seduction
to live and to die tattoos by bakersfield kidd
skull nose ring by avz
hair rose by gfield

at blackfriars theater http://slurl.com/secondlife/Shakespeare/20/63/45 listening to too much sand on headphones by mobster download at: http://www.jamendo.com/

my necro-nomine valentine

2010-02-07T18:59:00.000-08:00

i just had to have the new nomine milkmaid dress...it is so gorgeous and sexy and it comes in several colors. juana has gotten several compliments wearing it, and i would highly recommend going out and buying all of them myself. amusingly enough when i donned the dress, it put me in a bit of a valentine's day mood, but in my case that means laughing at necrophilia. it did remind me a little of what a lonely girl working at a morgue might wear. or at least my idea of what a lonely girl working at a morgue might wear.

i was encouraged/joined/enabled in this jollity by the ever fabulous recidivist sideways, who volunteered to play the dead guy. we were also supervised very carefully by the diabolically fashionable Rev Eponym (who was observing off camera). i have mentioned before that Liqueur Felix has the coolest images and flickr site for browsing for new places, and it is there that i found the slurl to Ben's Morgue in the Wastelands.

special guest star recidivist sideways wears:
custom skin and accessories
by munchflower zaius of nomine

necrophilia valentine juana wears:
peach milkmaid dress, primrose virgin tart skin,
& heart repaired necklace female by nomine
latex gloves from dark dancer set by rotten toe
black boots (high) by j's boots
skull nose ring by avz
kitty eyes blood black by yukis devin
new 47 hair by W&Y

at ben's morgue, wastelands
http://mixoom.com/map/The%20Wastelands/96/250/76

"how deep is your love cover" by david choi (thanks to david choi for permission)
download at:
http://davidchoimusic.com/downloads/covers/

special thanks to Rev Eponym
for ensuring no corpses
or small animals were harmed in the
making of this fashion machinima.

j'ai reveille d'un reve

2010-01-31T11:02:00.000-08:00

if life is a dream, then second life is probably more a hallucination or delerium. it was very hard for me at first to describe this dream-like quality in second life properly, but my dear friend magenta bleac, who is australian, told me a little of the concept of the dreaming, or the dreamtime. i know it does not have the same connotation or the exact same meaning but i find the term "the dreaming" to give a good sense of what i encounter daily in second life.

the most fascinating thing for me is that like a dream, second life lets people create these amazing environments, completely free of all the pesky constraints in real life, like gravity, etc. and when i visit some of these places i very often feel as if i am stumbling into someone's dream. this is very much the case with the sim known as 03. it consists of a gorgeous desolate desert at ground level, with a kind of arena, like ancient ruins, and also a huge chain that tethers a floating object high above. if you ascend to the floating island, you will find an improbably beautiful scene of a snowy wood and a little cottage. in all it is splendidly beautiful.

as usual it was a kind of happy accident that i seemed to be wearing something that matched up very well with my surroundings. i have an unabashed love of i love 13, and this is one of their new releases, the moon dress (night). i am a great fan of that new look i see emerging, a kind of wispy broken doll gothy look, that seems to be a kind of merging of goth loli, and regular goth, and horror, and god knows what. the leading designers in this style seem to be i love 13, violent seduction, rotten toe, and aura falta of tacky star. the hair is from W&Y, which is now my new hair obsession. the skin is from rotten toe, and i'd like to mention it as it is very much one of my favorites, being a dollskin but one that is decayed, and comes with three distinct stages of rottenness, and also a set of pus eyes, though i am wearing the gazing ball eyes from miasnow.

the dreaming juana wears:

i love 13 perfect moon dress (night)
j's boots black
immaculate heart by tekeli'li
neck corset by ru
w&y hair new36
may buried pus stage 2 skin by rotten toe
hair rose by gfield
gazing ball eyes by miasnow
at 03
http://slurl.com/secondlife/REZ/130/9...

listening to absense--good love
download at:
http://site.echodub.co.uk/downloads/

in the ruins of nexus

2010-01-16T21:30:00.000-08:00

it is interesting that in second life there is not always the chance to make a sentimental journey--so often things vanish without a trace, without warning. there are some places that seem to be imbued with a kind of eternal specialness, even when they are broken beyond repair. i would say that the city of nexus prime is one of those places. two years ago it was lost, in a kind of uniquely second life catastrophe.

roaming the city now, watching it rebuild, is kind of like seeing it heal, and also a bit like visiting ancient ruins. the idea of the place still remains though. for many people this second life city had a very profound impact on their lives. i can't say that i was one of the people who knew it well, but i did love the place, and it carries a fateful significance for me.

normally i would be dressed in some sort of commemorative attire but i was summoned there by a very dear friend, and i arrived in what i was wearing, which was the new rottenesque outfit by rotten toe (and various other rotten toe items) plus my habitual j's boots and tattoos and eyes from Tacky Star's charity (Haiti) offering. i admit i feel somewhat facetious relating what i wore in these circumstances, but i suppose life must go on, even in a pretend world.

juana wears:

vika hair, jane skin, visions of death eyes,
rottenesque outfit, and neck ruff by rotten toe
spiderfae sleeves and gloves by nomine
thigh high boots by j's
birdie bye bye and satin button eyes by tacky star
skull nose piercing by avz
the nexus haiku by grady echegaray

listening to owl and pussycat by saluki regicide
http://www.archive.org/details/wh007

drunken snow white

2010-01-04T09:45:00.000-08:00

there are some days that have unexpected good fortune. and so it was today, while shopping in grim bros, which of course is the brand of one of my very favorite designers ever, cutea bennelli. and guess what???!!! she dropped a few boxes on me!

and omg the dresses! this is the first one. i put it on and was completely in love. cutea is doing a set of dresses based on the original grimm brothers fairy tales, and so this is her interpretation of schneewitchen, or snow white. i had no idea that snow white was getting drunk on apple schnapps to deal living with OCD dwarves in a commune! (thanks cutea for this splendid interpretation) and the skirt with the attached dwarves is all kinds of terrible funny.

i went and wandered around in chakryn forest a bit, which is bettina tizzy's lovely sim. while i was there i met a charming group of people who were very amused at my dress. but then again, how often do you teleport into a forest and find a vast naked woman and a drunk snow white stumbling around with dwarves all over her skirt?

drunken snow white juana wears:

schneewitchen outfit and la vie en rose blanc et jaune shoes by cutea bennelli/grim bros (OMG thanks cutea!!!!!!!!!!!)
primrose virgin tart black skin by nomine
heaven's tears eyes by tohru

at chakryn forest, listening to sukdabeat vastik http://www.crazy-language.de

Ciudad de Mexico

2009-12-28T17:43:00.000-08:00

i've not been to Mexico, DF. it is one of my dreams to visit, someday. it seems so interesting--apart from the sheer intensity of such a crowded place, there is the unusual geographic situation, and also the weight of history. the residents there are supposed to even have a special character, and have a charming (and from what I read, perhaps derogatory in some contexts) nickname (Chilango). btw, as a completely off-topic aside, i keep up with a particularly hilarious blog called "effective swearing in d.f." which should help me a great deal should i ever get to visit the real Mexico, D.F.

so i thought it very interesting then when i was looking at Liqueur Felix's flickr stream (always the most gorgeous amazing finds and pictures of different places to visit btw) and saw this image of the ciudad de mexico sim, which is apparently a roleplaying sim run by brasilians. upon visiting it in person, i found it really quite lovely, though the observer tag is distinctly hideous to wear (it looks like a fishbowl over your avatar's head). when i was walking there parts of the city reminded me vaguely of nexus prime in 07, and a little of hangar liquides before it moved to insilico. there are three levels to the city, with interesting and mostly empty buildings to look at, but take care. while i was doing my research and exploring the sim, i happened to touch a transport button and it teleported me into an arena on the upper level, into what i think was a beauty pageant that was in progress while i was there. sadly there is no photographic evidence of this caper, as i was so completely flustered i ran across the room and jumped off the building. ah well next time. and now you know this amusing little anecdote.

i was really at a loss what to wear--however there are shops when you first teleport in, and i found a really unusual outfit from rfyre, called providence. of course i pared it down a little to suit my purposes. its really quite striking on its own, but i liked very much how it seemed to combine so well with the deconstructed trenchcoat from nomine. i had also found the amazing mirror hair from paradox and alpha, along with their interesting facial piercings in my earlier travels. as it is this outfit turned out to be a collection of new things and my favorite standbys, as you might recognize the rest of what juana is wearing from other posts.

juana the wannabe cyber chilango wears:

providence house of rfyre
deconstructed trenchcoat by nomine
aztec sample bracelets and armlets by otaku designs (group gift)
bone queen bonus skin cutea benelli
mirror c14 hair and P_Stras piercings by Paradox & Alpha
ving boots by shiny things
mayan dream tattoos by garden of kuu (tinted red)
cybermacahuitl by cortech enterprises

glamazona

2009-12-23T19:50:00.000-08:00

i am very very fond of horses, i am lucky that my parents have them and i get to go ride occasionally. i must say that with my overactive fashion mania that i have never really liked most of the riding habits out there, and always wanted to devise a kind of private personal riding habit according to my tastes. women's riding habits and equestriennes are rather charmingly called "amazona" in spanish, and so of course i would want to call my version of a riding habit (and an equestrienne styled avatar) a "glamazona."

i have always wanted to learn to ride aside, and so in my mind the glamazona prototype would definitely have a skirt. i love spanish-style habits, and the magnificent Yuki-Hime ensemble from The Black Canary has that kind of severe yet graceful flavor, though it is more properly described as a sort of neo-victorian-kimono mashup. it is a very distinctive and ladylike outfit, which i totally fell in love with as soon as i saw it. and the sleeves would look gorgeous hanging down from the horse. the Yuki hime outfit is part of a hunt though, check the Black Canary store for details. i chose a spanish-style hat to go with it, and of course if i was riding through the wastelands i would want to take a katana to use against snakes and other such hazards. perhaps this is purely fancy on my part but this area is strongly reminiscent of deep south texas (near the border), and i half expect to see a coyote or two.

and this is why i was listening to narcocorridos while writing up this post. i must say that the horse is nice though a bit complicated. i have yet to find a horse maker in second life who makes peruvian pasos, which are the horses that i ride. someday perhaps. this particular horse is from AKK Horses, and it is interesting. i have always wanted to have an arabian, so why not. it is however a trifle expensive. it is my very first second life horse. i am so pleased i don't have to clean his feet.

juana la glamazona tejana wears:

Yuki hime by the Black Canary (winter hunt gift)
Andalusian hat by Daini Ken
Miriel Granny boots by Siyu Suen
Cortech Katana by Beezle Warburton
Bone Collector collar by Nomine
Yanzi wave hair by DrLife
Raine cream Dolly tears red by popfuzz
Heavens Tear eyes by Tohru

Arabian Horse by AKK Horses (Kristivon Kolache)

at las animas, ashvasta
listening to contrabando y traicion cover by
maldito bajo

at siyu suen's masque of the dead.....

2009-10-31T17:32:00.000-07:00

....a special merveilleuse report. :)

Siyu Suen has the most insanely fabulous parties. not only does she dj divinely but she also has hit on a very brilliant method to keep lag down--when you attend one of her parties (masked and in formal clothes) you must keep your prim count at 200 prims or less. it sounds mad, but i do believe it causes unbelievable creativity in the ensembles that are worn. and trust me, the people who go (myself not included) are fierce slfashion titans!

i tried to get a few little films in of the remarkable scene--every single person looked unique and distinctive. truly there were too many to count. but at the end of the fray, the ball had its king in carthalis rossini, who did a splendid interpretation of baron samedi in a nomine sugar skull skin, and also the three queens, who were mabb dilwegg, who looked amazing carrying her decapitated head as a zombie marie antoinette, and the incredible twin duo of mourna biziou and achariya maktoum, who were twin creepy broken dolls.

i think the brilliance of the company speaks for itself, i only hope i was able to catch a bit of the amazing scene that unfolded last night.....

i only wish to add here at the end, what i wore. i found a somewhat expensive but really innovative store, called violator. i suspect people already know about it, but when i saw this dress i knew i must have it. and so i must show it to you, because i love it.....

juana's masquerade gown:
(abridged) @192 prims:
death of the black swan dress by violator
aztec gold bracelets by otaku designs
skull mask
hair rose by gfield
mary jane shoes by violent seduction
burnt bones skin by nomine
skull ear spikes by mad about
visions of death eyes by rotten toe
hair by deviant kitties

(unabridged version, which what is pictured above):
death of the black swan dress by violator
aztec gold bracelets by otaku designs
hair rose by gfield
bonus cruelty skin by cutea benelli
mayan dream tats by garden of kuu (tinted red)
skull ear spikes by mad about
visions of death eyes by rotten toe
bax boots
hair by deviant kitties

la llorona

2009-10-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

when i was small i was scared half to death by tales of la llorona, a spectral crying woman who roamed the banks of the river (supposedly the one in our town of course), creeping up and snatching children. i spent an awful lot of time at my grandparents' house and they lived a few blocks from the river.....

it wasn't till later that i learned that la llorona is a folk legend that is pretty widespread....and she is apparently all over the place. it doesn't lessen the uncomfortable feeling i get when i have to pass by the water at night, or hear distant sounds of women crying.....

however it is an excellent excuse to blog the uberfabuloso dia de los muertos jewelry set made by the lovely lola79 heinrichs of otaku designs!!!! <333!!!! and i love how the main pendant has a lovely purple flame too!

la llorona juana wears:

dia de los muertos necklace & bracelets by otaku designs
maya hair by mirja mills
jasmine dress set by fumiwo
immortal dreamer skin by miasnow
carpe noctem ivory boots by nightshade designs
visions of death eyes by rotten toe

at innu sim
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Innu/209/...
listening to walking shadow (doboide) from freesound

when mythologies collide.....

2009-10-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

occasionally it makes me laugh to imagine juana as being a dark and sinister fashionista follower of the old gods, prowling the landscapes of second life looking for noobs to sacrifice, to keep up her outfit juju. hey, stranger things have happened. so juana got dressed to kill in one of the new nomine sugar skull skins (throws self on ground in manic abasement and worship of the divine munchflower z.) and went out to look for sacrificial victims for her obscene and deadly fashion rites.

but there is a slight problem with this ho-hum rummaging for sacrificial noobs. this creepy little town......is inhabited by an inescapable horrendous terrible horror the likes of which nobody has ever seen! (and if they did see it they'd go mad!) now, at this point i am thinking that if this little scenario wasn't ever made as a santo film, then it really should have been. (i did google santo vs. the great old ones just to be sure) though actually i would rather have masked takenouchi from cromartie high school in the movie. or at least dress poor juana like him.

apart from these little technical difficulties, now is the time on merveilleuse where we gush about the fashion. and i admit to falling in love with sangre noir, though i first was introduced to this designer when i bought the most adorable dia de los muertos neko set from subtle submission. i love the way this outfit moves. also i can't say enough how much i adore bakersfield kidd's tattoos (they aren't for sale anymore which is why i love them even more). also, cutea benelli, in her infinite goddesslike wisdom has made the most perfect set of sacrificial shoes ever. they are literally stiletto blades impaling severed hearts. <3<3<3!

sugar skull in innsmouth juana wears:

sugar skull skin 3 by nomine
to live and to die tattoos by bakersfield kidd
sangre noir 2 by sangre noir
skull choker and earrings by mad about
bloody bonehead bracelets by retox
obsidian blade by cortech
heartsnatcher stillettos by grim bros/cutea benelli
anzu kuromame hair by ay.line
hair rose wine by gfield
visions of death eyes by rotten toe

in innsmouth sim
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Innsmouth/128/130/25
listening to
Krios- Illa Tiðandi (Burzum cover)

the undead quinceanera

2009-10-10T23:08:00.000-07:00

it's october....and therefore the obsession with the dead continues. as i was trying on the new Skinny Winnie Zombie Bride dress by Grim Bros/Cutea Benelli, i started laughing for a moment. i didn't laugh at the dress--far from it. this dress is by far my favorite of the bone dresses Cutea Benelli makes--i love how it is bony but also very gauzy and light looking too. what made me laugh was it reminded me very much of the dress i wore for my quinceanera.

the idea of a pre hispanic death goddess as a quinceanera struck me as insanely funny, and i thought it might be hilarious to go to one of those romantic smooth jazz ballrooms and hang out. and so i did. the people there at the ballroom were actually quite kind, and didn't seem to notice my attire. i was wondering if i was being teased because someone was addressing another person as "skull" but that ended up being one of the avatars' first name.

even so, nobody wanted to dance with me. *sniffs*.

skinny winnie the zombie's bride & belle morte shoes by grim bros/cutea benelli
wild woman hair by miasnow
mayan dream (tinted) by garden of kuu
crossed out clown skin
skull ear spikes by mad about
hair rose wine by gfield
necromantic crown by violent seduction

at sweethearts jazz club

listening to smooth jazz all stars "heart of a woman (r. kelly cover and tribute)" *snicker*

in nomine munchflower......

2009-10-05T19:47:00.000-07:00

i went to get a new dollskin from nomine. :) its freaking amazing of course (does the i am not worthy dance), and while i was at it i decided to have a mini nomine hommage...wearing the annis dress and the necklace from the bone collector set.

i went exploring in la cimitiere--very charming sim. it seemed at first glance to be new orleans-ish. there was a kind of house there that had all manner of poses, and it amused me very much because try as i might to be a dainty little doll, i ended up making poor juana look like a gothic sex doll. and it made me scream with laughter. also because my poor little shape had a bit of a peachfuzz frida kahloish mustache going, so to prevent my embarassment i just added a faux mustache to cover it up.

apparently there are people who like this sort of thing, because i looked up from taking pictures and there was an avatar there on the bed somewhat disrobed and cheerfully asking me the standard questions. i just about died laughing.

annis dress, white dollskin seamed vamp skin,
& bone collector necklace by nomine
necromantic bloomers & elegant gloves by violent seduction
gazing balls eyes silver by miasnow
mustache from duckshoot dress by katatonic
yangzi hair by drl
platform dia de los muertos shoes by grim bros/cutea benelli

at la cimitiere

listening to
Eläkeläiset - Juon ja Humppaan (Sex Bomb)

mi novia

2009-10-01T01:16:00.000-07:00

it is the first day of october. and it begins my most favorite time of the year.....that lasts till nov 3rd. by now you all know that i am obsessed with pre-hispanic culture, and at this time of year i am even more obsessed by la catrina, the female dandy skeleton and symbol of the day of the dead. to me she is more than just a symbol, but also in my opinion a living link to ancient mesoamerican death goddesses. she has been called many names, this "lady of the land of the dead," and i strongly suspect that she is still being worshiped in the modern cult of santa muerte.

it made me wonder....if jose guadalupe posada improbably came back from the dead and managed to break into the dreamworld of second life, (maybe as a skeleton avatar), he'd probably have a ton of things to lampoon. and in this same spirit i thought to myself, if la catrina was going to be in second life and ultra fashionable, she might very well come back incarnated as a goth loli.

i was aided in this little exercise in vanity and clothes-madness by the *cue screaming fangirls* ever magnificent munchflower zaius, who made this incredible skin and gave it to me as a gift (stops typing to throw myself to the ground grovelling). i also went mad when i saw this incredible dress, the Aura dress from Violent Seduction. likewise the shoes from Cutea Benelli/Grim bros are freaking amazing....

gothloli la catrina juana wears:

Sugar Skulls & Roses Upper & Lower Body tattoos (black and white)
Aura set by Violent Seduction
Charmant Raven sleeves, top, and pantaloons by Nightshade Blacklist
lollo estremista ballet heels by Grim Bros
Alice black hair by Deviant Kitties
Trophy hat no. 2- The SkullCake by i love 13
Gypsy hoop earrings and Sugar Skull necklace by Kunstkammer
fascinator paris 1 hat by Nonna Hedges
Sylvan China White sugar skull skin (custom--a gift from munchflower <3 *fangirl* ) by Nomine

vampyr circus acrobat

2009-09-24T07:02:00.000-07:00

it has been a while since i have posted. there are times when the wheel of fortune spins out of control, up and down and all around in a dizzying manner....and so it has seemed the past few days.

i'd had a spectacular binge at rotten toe, which is fast becoming one of my favorite stores. the whole guro loli thing i think is beginning to grow on me. i also went crazy over the magnificent skin there. today i wore the black dancer dress. it has wonderful variations, and this is just one way to wear it. i was wandering around as always and stumbled on a kind of vampire opera house. but with a trapeze.....it just seemed so very fitting.

vampyr circus acrobat juana wears:

Black dancer set & Clownish f1 skin by Rotten Toe
lollo estremista shoes &
full frontal spike choker by Grim Brothers
enigma bracelet by loulou&co
natsumi by diversity hairskull nose piercing by AVZ
Sugar Skulls & Roses tattoo by Otaku Designs
Ghoul fest eyes &
Silver Nail brooch by Tacky Star

at asunder sim
listening to
la vie d'un poisson dans l'eau by
Circus Marcus

rubaiyat

2009-09-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

This Universal wheel, this merry-go-round
In our imagination we have found
The sun a flame, in the Cosmic lantern bound
We are mere ghosts, revolving, the flame surround.
(by omar khayyam, translated by shahriar shahriari)

when i am feeling sad and out of sorts, and am home-bound, i often find comfort and solace wandering the landscapes of this dreamworld. And more often than not i stumble on a place that either heightens my mood, or perhaps softens it a bit.

another one of my vices is the irresponsible reading of poetry. :) when in a mood such as this i like to read khayyam because even if it is bleak it is beautiful, and sometimes we need a whiff of corruption in this hyperreal perfect dreamworld. Amusingly enough apparently sometimes people use these poems to tell fortunes--you simply open the book to a random passage and wherever your finger falls will fortell your future supposedly. Unfortunately I don't have Wordpress because there is a random rubaiyat generator you can install.

An old potter at his wheel
Clay and dirt mould and deal
My inner eye would reveal
My father’s dust bears his seal.
(by omar khayyam, translated by shahriar shahriari)

Hmm. not sure what to make of that for today's fortune. :)

the pixel clay juana wears:

antie eyes silent brown by artilleri
hiding in trees sunrise set and monochrome shirt by i love 13
hair rose and ankle straps by gfield
dia de los muertos earrings by violet voltaire
magnolia bracelets and necklace by loulou&co
mary janes by violent seduction
stockings by rotten toe
ratty armwarmers and glam chinstripe skin by nomine
nobara hair by ay.line

at the miasnow store
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hwang/105...
listening to:
oud play by asoliman

...will be the death of me...

2009-09-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

in sl, as in rl, i have a terrible love of boots and shoes. maybe it's not an addiction of say, imelda marcos magnitude. (that poor woman, will we be joking about her hundreds of years from now) It is somewhat pronounced though, this shoe mania that afflicts me.

and so i have decided to confess my unholy love of all things boot and shoes....while wearing an impossibly cute and tough pair that i found at an interesting shop that i like. and i am very lazy, wearing a dress i bought last friday for 50 linden at katatonik.

bored and boot mania juana (like barbie parody, no?) wears:

dark pink s & s dress by katatonik
cyberpunk combat boots by self expressions
necromantic bloomers and opheliac skin by violent seduction
skulls and roses tattoo by otaku designs
trophy hat and necklace (the name eludes me) by i <3 thirteen
alice hair by deviant kitties
antie loud brown eyes by artilleri
bloodybones bracelets by retox

the great tyrant

2009-08-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

i have been obsessing lately over the character of the great tyrant/black queen of sogo, in barbarella, played (but not voiced) by the wonderfully evil anita pallenberg. i can't help it, she has the most fabulous clothes (and looks so oddly like an avatar) in that film.

so when i saw this hair by alpha and paradox, worn in a joint post by achariya and mourna, i thought it so very reminiscent of the black queen, that i knew i must buy it at once. fast forward a bit.....while messing around in my inventory i somehow managed to put something together from various things that i'd seen in posts i loved, which incidentally i wore last night at TriNala's last show.

the plastik strappybodysuit i'd seen and loved, but had no idea what to wear it with. in one of those happy coincidences, i was standing trying on all the things marked "skirt" in my inventory, and the cellular skirt from avz bizarrely seemed to match almost perfectly. add to this the magic circle sigils (though i suppose more accurately they go over the chakras), which are not new, but i encountered on another shopping expedition....and voila. fear my diana ross fury minions!!!!

the great tyrant of sogo juana wears:

C10 hair by paradox and alpha
shiva (creator) skin by gauze
strappybodysuit obsidian by plastik
cellular skirt by avz
boots by j's
magic circles set (woahglo) by dark eden
machina eyes (unknown)
red hair rose by g field

using ikaru's preset, in pteron sim

bona lolita drag

2009-08-27T21:50:00.001-07:00

i <3 drag queens. i mean, really. i respect and admire them tons, and cherish the fond thought that if i had been born male, with my same personality, then i'd actually try to be a drag queen.
that being said...

...i'd been shopping and stopped by one of my fave places, nightshade designs. they had the Charmant/Charmante set, a girl and a boy outfit. being the perverse person i am i thought to put girl juana in the boy outfit and boy juana in the girl dress. besides which, the girl's outfit is lolita, and who is the most uber lolita of them all? mana of course.....so i just ended up getting sidetracked with leandro in drag, so juana's debut in man drag will have to be in another post. :)


charmante juana wears: charmante set raven by nightshade designs trophy hat by i <3 thirteen opheliac skin & necromantic bloomers by violent seduction alice hair by deviant kitties lollo estremista ballet heels by grim bros sugar skulls & roses tattoos by otaku designs loud brown eyes by artilleri	charmant leandro wears: charmante set raven by nightshade designs scorpio revelation skin by lower lip spike punk by PopFuzz buddy glasses by Gudshu glasses trophy hat by i <3 thirteen necromantic bloomers by violent seduction alice hair by deviant kitties sugar skulls & roses tattoos by otaku designs gothico boots by grim bros loud brown eyes by artilleri

hanging around.

2009-08-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

while exploring the other day I bumped into a friend. It's always cool when you and your friends share the same interests. Or at least tolerate them enough to humor you occasionally.

I've posted elsewhere about my friend Rev, who IMHO is one of the rare people whose RL appearance surpasses his avatar. But this doesn't mean his avatar is any less striking. On the contrary, he looks always really interesting. somewhat magnetic, i'd say.

i did enjoy the visit, and i would have offered him some tea, as is only hospitable, but my neck was broken i'm afraid.

on rev eponym:
Hair: .::MADesigns Hair::. ~ ANDY ~ Silver Tones
Artilleri 'Buddy Glasses'
Redgrave Black V-Neck sweater
Nightshade 'Obscurities' black pants
Blitzed 'Brutal' cuffs

on juana:
devil dress by queenqueen
rosenkavalier hat by rozoregalia
yanzi wave hair by drl
clockwork skin by nomine
carpe noctem boots and apneatic embrace stockings by nightshade designs
magnolia bracelet and necklace set by loulou
fascinator hat by raven pennyfeather/nonna hedges

happy moody bunny

2009-08-21T00:36:00.000-07:00

i love second life. its so freaking peculiar. like where else can you sit on a representation of a squishy mammary gland?(may be NSFW) and have splendidly dressed women ask you seriously why you are in the art?

i went to wait on a friend in the amusingly named "happy mood" sim.....there are bunnies there. gigantic happy ones. i couldn't resist. as far as my ensemble goes, i am still in the throes of a queen queen addiction......so sue me. :)

happy mood purple juana wears:

dark dress by queenqueen
magnolia bracelets and necklace by loulou
hyasynth shoes by shiny things
yanzi wave hair by DrL
glam chin stripe skin by nomine
kunstkammer sugar skull necklace and roma style earrings (also malice set by tekeli'li)
antie eyes loud purple by artilleri

at happy mood sim, an anonymous rice paddy, and the grande odalisque statue at black swan.....

teddy bears have nightmares, too.

2009-08-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

i have always wondered if wicked teddy bears dream....apparently they do, in a sort of funky movieish kind of way.

i'd been to troy vogel's cool rezday party, at odaesan house...in my beloved (and on sale i think) eshi otawara monarch dress and mrs. schmidt liquid boots.

rigor mortis juana wears:

monarch dress in taupe by eshi otawara
yanzi wave hair by drl
rise of lolita opheliac skin by violent seduction
skull nosepiercing by avz
mrs schmidt liquid boots by mrs schmidt
803 ~ Autopsy Table with Anims by mercy cazalet
tedi wears loco pocos avatar.

somewhere in odaesan house
listening to "glasgow smile" by InnocentzRaptor
http://www.sendspace.com/file/vghxzx

on the slab

2009-08-16T00:21:00.001-07:00

my infatuation with queenqueen rages on, unabated. i just can't help it, they are so lovely, and detailed, and just crazy. and they have a sort of goth thing going, though its not what you'd normally classify as "goth" necessarily.

like this ensemble, called very simply "blood dress." its not exactly gothy per se--except for the blood spatters, and when you cam in closer you realize the pattern on the dress is like veins....it was hard to figure out where to go to take a picture for this outfit. first i went to a rice paddy (leeches) then i found a funny morgue store, and jumped in a "body filing cabinet."

i have gotten up on a real morgue autopsy table at a museum once, but that's another story. :)

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

cold cuts juana wears:

blood dress by queenqueen
gawth tears skin by nomine
splash hair by c hair
liah boots crimson by jaywalk
blood beads set by spica
red hair rose by gfield
skull nose piercing by avz

midway

2009-08-12T18:58:00.000-07:00

one of my favorite things about second life is that you never know who or what you will encounter in your daily travels/routine...in this case i arrived somewhere with a specific purpose in mind, to make fun of someone, and ended up feeling too awed and moved to do anything but stare and wonder.

The sim owner and builder, MASAKADO Allen, was incredibly kind and gracious. Even though translation programs can be awkward at best, she was so patient and taught me a few japanese words. i regret not knowing japanese, i would have liked to have been able to extend her the same courtesy. it was so amazing to me to think of us both chatting nicely, the two of us, though our countries had once been bitter enemies.

i think the most moving part came near the end. she had explained to me that the Akagi was sunk during the battle of Midway, (***correction: Yamato was sunk, but much later. Many thanks to Grady Echegaray who kindly pointed this out to me, along with the correct spelling of Akagi***) and i asked her if both ships still remained on the ocean floor. She told me that they sleep in the ocean.

i hope they and the bodies of the men that they still entomb, slumber peacefully.

pseudo-cher juana wears:

corvus dress, WL goth skin by nomine
abbadon bracers by tekeli'li
big bomb hair by bp
u-sha fantasie necklace by husky gfx
hathor goddess diadem by eyecandy
paradisis armlets by cat-i-mimi
neck corset by RU
fallen disgrace boots by nightshade designs

listening to audio from the
movie "Midway" (1976)
At Masakado Allen's sim
YAMATO of Japan

rest in peace
Yamato and Akegi

queenqueen makes me brokebroke.....

2009-08-08T23:24:00.000-07:00

...not to mention eshi otawara's post mortem sale, which makes me crazy. i will probably be reduced to begging in the virtual streets for lindens.

the bandage mermaid dress totally blew me away yesterday. and so i had to investigate this new-to-me store, and when i arrived there i totally and utterly fell in love. and i found a few cool and interesting facts-- QueenQueen is apparently a RL brand designed by a RL designer, Koji Toyoda. And they had a cool youtube channel too.

this dress has face bandages that go with it too. i'm impatient and my avatar is difficult to fit, so i just dispensed with the scarf and lower face mask....the armlets too were giving me issues.

while shopping at eshi otawara's store, i spied these interesting shoes, and so had to have them.....

brokeback juana wears:
dark bandage dress by queenqueen
usa hair black, hair flowers, and armwarmers by gauze
neck corset by ru
glam skins vice versa deux pale by lessthanthree
pointed bridge boot by schmidt
creepy eyes by negriposi

bandage mermaid

2009-08-07T01:03:00.000-07:00

there are times when we must work with what fate and fortune have given us. a strange convulsion of luck while looking for something else, and finding the perfect outfit unintentionally....is priceless.

in this case i was wandering the channel island asylum, which is a really creepy place btw, all haunted sounding and with strange quirks, and it made me think of juana going off to bulgaria for cheap plastic surgery and ending up committed in the mental ward for "exhaustion."

and while looking for a suitable costume, found the most amazing outfit, from a new to me designer, queenqueen. it is literally a mermaid outfit composed of bloody bandages...and despite the fact that a mermaid floating in the halls of a mental institution might be odd, i did it anyway.

crazy juana wears:

bandage white mermaid 2 by queen queen
wild woman hair by mia
dollhouse skin 14 by lionskins
cigarette by primitive design
neko geta by dirty lynx
mermaid ao by kami-hitoe

at the channel island asylum
listening to end titles by atrium carceri

requiem.

2009-08-02T00:06:00.000-07:00

dancien had a benefit at his club. it was totally goth, and many interesting people attended.

i also enjoyed a dance with the lovely mourna biziou. she was very kind and during the course of the party i was quite happy to win the little tophat bearing her name.

doomed love (mexigoth mismash)

2009-08-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

so, i have been quite insane for the past few days, working on an article for a sl fashion magazine. i could totally get into the OCD but i won't. needless to say in the course of obsessing, i have decided i love this outfit.

a friend of mine told me that "it looked gothic but not gothic, that it looked just like me, and that i was able to carry myself over into the avatar" (a paraphrase). i thought this was a compliment, and so that is why i am recording it here.

the uber-juana mexi-goth doomed outfit consists of:

cenobite outfit by falln
alice hair by deviant kitties
cruelty skin by cutea benelli (part of cruelty set)
nose piercing by avz
los muertos sugar skull attachments by i love 13
cenobite's claws by tekeli'li
mayan dream tattoos tinted red by garden of ku
black widow boots by nighshade designs
creepy eyes white by negriposi

fraulein gigolo

2009-07-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

ah, the romance of berlin between the wars. so decadent. i like to imagine what i might be like, to live that sort of way, in abject poverty but with memories of greatness and a few trinkets of the past to keep up a sort of appearance of gentility.

and there is a magnificent sim, that recreates it. so i can be just as pretend unhappy, and then go off back into my regular comfortable middle class existence.

weimar fraulein gigolo juana wears:

Swansong blackflame outfit &
twisted Swiss stockings from RFyre
Vamp Blood Red ultralight skin by Nomine
CReepy Eyes by Negriposi
Clara bow hair by Helena Stringer
Shooting star pet cemetery hat by split pea
corded neck corset by ru
Anthracite skull earrings by deco
bloody bonehead bracelet by retox
allicagor pumps by stilletto moody
cigarette holder by Mika

at the 1920s Weimar berlin sim
listening to
Schoner Gigolo by Dajos Bela tanzorchestra
&
Kannst Du pfeifen Johanna? by Harry Hardins
tanzorchestra

graveyard heart

2009-07-28T00:31:00.000-07:00

ah, cutea benelli...she just totally makes the most amazing things...

now perhaps if i can bribe her to make a tiny one to put in the forehead? a la frida kahlo?

the bereaved juana wears:

dollarbie pet cemetery hat by split pea (in the new elliott sim)
peppa hair by diversity hair
cruelty skin and inner graveyard heart by cutea benelli/grim bros
avalost dress by nomine
corded neck corset by ru
murder ballet gloves by snatch
skull ear spikes by mad about
hair rose wine by gfield
mayan dream tattoos (tinted red) by garden of ku
creepy eyes by negriposi

fashion sadhvi

2009-07-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

i have always wanted to leave the world behind. the figure of the saddhu i have found somewhat fascinating. i was once very close to a friend of mine, rakesh. he told me a funny story about being on the way somewhere and encountering a saddhu, who scared him by stopping him and telling him what he'd eaten for lunch (chicken biryani) and other things. as much as i'd like a transcendent wisdom such as that, i don't think i could give up my love of things of the flesh....

and so if i really were a sadhvi (female saddhu) then i suppose this is the closest i would ever be. i dont know what happened to kesh, except that he is back in india and happy too i think. i have a vast collection of nicknames--he is the one who gave me my nickname of "indrani" and he is probably the only person in the world who actually called me that regularly.

the fashion sadhvi juana wears:

metal runes silks set top and pants by alpha tribe
machina eyes sky by negriposi
female shiva destroyer skin by illuminati
royal rajput gold ruby parure by mashooka
dread hair by bp

in an unknown buddhist sim
listening to
svetasvatara upanisad performed by
The Phillipe Eidel Mahabharata Group

julnar the mermaid

2009-07-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

i was reminded of the story of julnar the mermaid in the thousand and one nights while visiting alpha auer's magnificent syncretia sim. its totally changed since i saw it last, or maybe i was in a different spot. but still.

and am very fond of tekeli'li though my lovecraftian knowledge is not up to par. this dagon parure is scripted to squirm. how cool is that? i know very little of dagon except from the story of samson and delilah. but i guess this means if i am a devotee of dagon i am now technically a philistine?

human juana julnar wears:

dagon hair, nautilus parure by tekeli'li
teal gloves and ma cher seadust by mimikri
dance of the manatee skin by lessthan3
creepy eyes by negaposi
boots by BAX

juana julnar the mermaid wears:

dagon hair, parure, belt and top by tekeli'li
teal gloves by mimikri
dance of the manatee skin by lessthan3
creepy eyes by negaposi
japanese mermaid black ash tail, ao,
and dance by kami-hitoe

at alpha auer's syncretia sim,
listening to mecca 1 and 2 from
the secret garden project

random ransacking

2009-07-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

sigh. i totally need to find a better hobby. today, unaccustomed to having so much spare time, became very bored and started digging through the untamed (and uncataloged) inventory.....

i didn't realize i had this...its very courtesanish...from un jour, a place i really like.

la belle manuel wears:
la vie n'es qu'une comedie outfit (with chair) by un jour
autumn chignon coffee by bp
the rise of lolita ophelia skin by violent seduction
nose piercing by avz
sugar skulls and roses tattoos by otaku designs
carpe noctem boots by nightshade designs

violent seduction

2009-07-20T22:24:00.000-07:00

this little industrious fit is due to my unaccustomed leisure....while bored and circling flickr i came across the proprietress of a place called violent seduction. naturally i am like the last person to know about it. but still.

she was wearing an outfit featuring a version of an anatomical cameo corset. this of course is a quite famously done piece, with examples in real life, and in mourna biziou's iconic blog post. but i like it precisely because it is a different spin, and the bone cage crinoline skirt is really a fabulous idea.

i was also sold on the bone tiara as well. and oddly enough when i changed the red tinted tattoos and cutea benelli's cruelty skin carried over, and they seemed to look just fine. so i just left it like that.

anatomical juana wears:

necromantic dress (tiara too) by violent seduction
cruelty skin and dia de los muertos platforms by cutea benelli/grim bros
peppa hair black by diversity hair
skull nose piercing by avz
his embrace gloves by self expressions
bloody rawbones bracelets by retox
mayan dream tattoos by garden of ku (tinted red)

the sim where the store is located is absolutely adorable. its creepy yes, but lolita creepy. which means childishly bloodthirstily kawaii.

it is made to shop, with inviting little areas full of gorgeous stuff. i wanted to buy everything of course but i restrained myself. i did get a different outfit, and a skin.

i am very fond of cage crinolines. i have worn hoopskirts many a time in my earlier SCA days, and to me the caged ones are like the skeletons of hoopskirts. and so it makes me giggle to be wearing their remains.

i did however pass on the top. and while fiddling around for accessories stumbled on a cool outfit by un jour that seemed to go pretty well with this ensemble. another plus--the skin came with a notecard that had a preset specifically for the skin. oooo. chichi.

ero loli juana wears:

ero loli outfit and the rise of lolita ophelia skin by violent seduction
la vie n'es qu'une comedie hat, gloves, stockings, and choker by un jour
murder ballet top by snatch
autumn chignon by bp
mayan dream tattoos (tinted red) by garden of ku
skull nose piercing by avz
boots by j's boots

perhaps next time i will pay more attention and actually accessorize a little better. :)

cruelty

2009-07-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

i am on vacation....and of course this means i am just doing what i want...all day :)

and so today i indulged myself a little. not to mention the fact that one of my fave designers had this amazing dress and skin out. its so freaking majestic....she had quoted les liaisons dangereuses as captions to her images of the dress. it reminded me of what a medici queen might wear...that and coupled with the amusing conversation i had with m. lippmann about a village of homicidal hungarian wives made me die laughing. and so i looked for a palace, because although its bone, it is a very regal outfit.

to my amusement the palace i found had a wedding chapel. i won't go off what i think of SL "marriage" but suffice to say i was in a very entertained state the whole time i was there.

the remorseful juana borgia wears:

cruelty set (and skin) & belle mort shoes by cutea benelli/grim bros
his embrace burgundy gloves and stockings by self expressions
dreads purple by bp
skull nose piercing by avz
mayan dream tattoos (tinted red) by garden of ku

in an unknown french wedding chapel sim listening to
"hildegarde on ice" from the secret garden project

abney park concert.

2009-07-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

....starring.....the band abney park

and appearing as spectators:
dancien graves, rev eponym, and moi.

so my exhaustive study of steampunk fashion culminated in the abney park concert in dallas, at the venerable goth club, the church. seeing as i had never had the chance to study these creatures in situ, i was of course intensely interested. and the proceedings were even more enhanced because i had the pleasure to meet in real life, two very interesting people of my second life acquaintance.

dancien graves is a very well known and influential second life fashion blogger. he was in "steampunk jihad."

he wore a shemagh (i totally had no idea what that was till he posted it on plurk) with british aviator goggles. (this provoked probably the most hilarious comment i have ever seen in flickr, composed by grady echegaray: "Smiteth the anti-fashionista unbelievers and ye shall have 72 supermodels in paradise!") in the days leading up to the concert, dancien advised me to go to a military surplus store. pretty good advice. i think it gave us a very orientalist flavor, especially when we were holed up in the patio smoking my hookah.

i didn't ask but his shirt appeared to be handmade, or perhaps a poet shirt. (and what happens when my friend poet wears a poet shirt? but i digress) and his boots were very cool as well. i thought he looked very dancien of arabia, ready to lead some rebels. :) and i will say here that in person he is very charming, very considerate, and quite the gentleman, and i was very impressed by him.

rev eponym is a former member of the legendary second citizen forum, and also a builder/libertine/inventor/mad scientist/forumist.

Rev appears in the "Punchcard Networking Engineer"ensemble. the provenance of these things he is wearing is unknown, but he did tell me he was going to a second hand shop to look for something to wear a few days before the event.

i thought it very wonderful, and to me it gave him a very dashing dangerous sort of "strelnikov the revolutionary" kind of look. and of course that soul patch...what can i say....tremendo! in fact i think rev seems to have that whole bad boy cool thing down pat.

but, that is just my opinion, you know.

and then there was me, in the final version of the steampunk nilufer outfit.

although i had vowed not to wear a top hat, a calamitous attempt at a tarpush convinced me otherwise. luckily there were goggles at the bazaar and so i bought them and some seamed hose and fishnet gloves. i wore my spanish mantilla as a hat band, and wore laboriously braided false hair. interesting factoid but the hair added a little bit of bulk to my head and helped the hat stay on better, though rev did his part and assisted me in achieving a rakish angle that had previously eluded me.

as i dressed myself in the hotel room i wondered what people would say or do, as i was in the fairmount, a swanky hotel. but they didn't notice, or at least the bellboys did but they told me i looked "crazy" and "wild." upon further reflection i realize that i probably looked like a hideous mashup/collision of early madonna and generic romance novel cover vague victoriana. but vanity was satisfied because i was complimented a few times, and photographed too. the oddest comment was from a very drunk woman in the elevator as i was returning to my room. she told me i looked very unique.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

at times the profusion of creatively dressed people was staggering to me, a condition probably aggravated by my advanced state of inebriation. and where else do you get into a conversation with a girl about corsets, and end up feeling each other's corset bones????

one word. HOT.

interesting.

rev noted her different interpretation

steampunky nilufer?

2009-07-14T21:11:00.000-07:00

so, i am going to see abney park in dallas. i had to have a steampunk outfit. this is not a style dialect that i am familiar with. in fact, i spent tons of time in the SCA *avoiding* victorian-era gear.

after tons of hair-pulling, i think i know what i will wear. and refreshingly it won't entail all that much, just some alterations i think.

btw, please be amused at my highly charming bathroom--i have mirrors in this place but they are in the weirdest places. :)

i am thinking the aggresive gloves might look nicer, and i do have a fishnet shrug that goes with it perhaps. but i think this is what i am going to go with, give or take a few things. its funny, i'd made myself nuts making another jacket, which i tried on today with corset and i was completely swimming in it.

it would look sharp, but its vast. as it is the yelek i am wearing is also way too big. (i have it pinned up in the back) its gratifying but sort of annoying too. the choli just fits, though i broke a few beads on the fringe yesterday while trying it on. i am thinking that it will be more like a rom-ish look. i have a white coin hip scarf somewhere, if not i might buy one. not sure for the hair. i have a long length of uzbeki silk, perhaps i can tie a little turban with it?

or go more with the turkish and wear a little fez and wrap the silk around it?

pre-columbian neko

2009-07-12T16:31:00.000-07:00

i have never been a neko before. until now. and naturally i wanted to be a pre-columbian styled neko too.

i actually would never have bothered but i was looking for something else and found the los muertos neko set--roses and skulls, totally up my alley. and the hybrid prod waspoid skin is one of my very faves, though i don't wear it as often as i should.

pre-colombian neko juana wears:

his embrace black by self expressions
hybrid prod waspoid skin female by hybrid productions
los muertos neko set by subtle submission
realia hair by gauze
skull nose piercing by avz
dead doll eyes by deviant kitties
cenobitie's claws by tekeli'li
rivet kitteh boots by dv8
mayan dream tattoos (modded white) by garden of ku
skull collar by mad about...

at temple of bubastis at lyre @ lyre sim
listening to "mass for four voices" from
secretgardenproject.com

juana a la turque

2009-07-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

i love hammams. ever since my adventure at the grand mosquee de paris i have loved them. imagine my surprise then when i found one in second life. i was so amused i had to tell troy and he teleported right over.

while we were amusing ourselves, a very bewildered looking romanian guy in speedos showed up. naturally this semi-soap operaish kind of spectacle appealed to me.

i'd been shopping at nomine, because a certain blog post excited my interest in the new rom themed clothing that was out. (giggle)

while i was there i was trying things on and i realized that some of the items reminded me very very much of turkish clothing. and so i started rummaging in my inventory and found a few little accessories.

and voila. juana a la turque. or at least, juana in a fantastically lame ass orientalist version of a turkish woman's outfit. this is the danger, although i thought it looked pretty, i have no earthly clue what i am saying with this outfit, to those who know.

i mean, maybe it makes me look like a kurdish cleaning lady.

and a la turque is a euphemism for....

but i digress.

second life is infamous for having forms of "ethnicity tourism" where people can pick and choose their ethnicity and race and gender...and i suppose i can count myself one of the major criminals committing this particular sim.

and cleaning lady or no, tedi still pushed me in the bosphorus.....

nilufur juana a la turque wears:

skin, mala vida yelek, skirt by nomine
woman's fes plus hair and coin necklace from folklor set (unknown)
top from egyptian black dress set by fumi
babuchas (moroccan slippers) by unknown
nautilus belt by tekeli'li
zydratic complication eyes by aura falta
yoru lingo ring by nonko (that was accidental)

at the second life hammam, and at mission home store.

fortuitous steampunk cinderella

2009-07-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

it is amazing when a series of perfectly timed coincidences happen in a series...i suppose technically the word for this is synchronicity...

right now its my mania, and i have just gotten tickets to see abney park in dallas. and how eerily the sim seemed to match, though it was mostly brazilians there, and unfortunately i could only very faintly understand the outrageous flirting that seemed to be taking place.

steampunk cinderjuana wears:

eyepiece and shoulder piece from the
cuprum copperbot avatar set, copper rose tophat,
fusty rusty bangles, archaic choker,
& ironspine steampunk
by cutea benelli/grim bros
dreadlock purple hair by BP
rusted caged dress, coffin ring,
& boots by schadenfreude
egyptian black dress by fumi
doll house skin 25 by lionskins
mayan dream tatoos by garden of ku
apneatic embrace stockings by blacklist

at tepura sim
listening to Wieniawski Mazurka
by Eugene Ysaye
using the chouchou hud

we'll make castanets out of your testicles already

2009-07-06T23:01:00.000-07:00

if i had half a brain i would have busted out the flamenco dance instead. mais non.

my excuse is that i was too overcome by the hilarity of the scene to be witty. i didn't really expect to be pirouetting with the bloody remains of discarded meat puppets.

music box dismembered meat puppet ballet dancer juana wears:

cuprum copperbot avatar, copper rose tophat,
singing saw pants, ironspine steampunk by
cutea benelli/grim bros
stoli nekomi hair nekomi &
rusted caged dress by schadenfreude

at mismera county sim
listening to delayed motet from
secretgardenproject.com
using the chouchou hud

private eye

2009-07-03T23:16:00.000-07:00

i am very fond of koinup....they have the most interestingly cool things there. i rely on it most to find new and interesting sims. and by extension i end up learning new and ever more obscure factoids. like enka, a style of japanese music.

this sim is apparently a kind of red light district prevalent in japan before wwii. i was wearing a newly acquired accessory from a designer i like but who has appeared to be inactive for nearly 2 years. its apparently for photographing ghosts. if there are any in second life, i can't say i have seen them, but it made me think of private eyes snooping around. and i wandered around but found no ghosts to speak of.

juana p.i. wears:

egyptian dress by fumi
peppa hair by diversity hair
trophy skulls hat by i love 13
neck corset by ru
hair rose wine by gfield
skull pendant, coffee bangles, & armlets by grim bros
apneatic embrace corset & stockings by blacklist
carpe noctem shoes by nightshade designs
dollhouse skin 25 by lionskins
camera obscura, heaven's tears eyes, and pose by tohru

in the akesan sim
listening to Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss auf Liebe engestelt
sung by marlene dietrich

1492

2009-06-28T22:43:00.000-07:00

i find myself here, in the second life alhambra, having seen with my own eyes the beauty of the real thing, yet at the time of my visit little knowing its deeper significance. i hope i may be forgiven for it.

i think i realize now the events of 1492 and this place have a deeper dimension that i never really understood fully before. i knew columbus met with the catholic kings in the alhambra before he left on his voyage....in the same room where boabdil surrendered his kingdom. and also in this same palace in the same year was issued the infamous alhambra decree expelling the jews.

this catastrophe remembered, (among others) on tisha b'av. it is early, yet. still too early for tisha b'av this year. the saddest day of the year that i never celebrate...but its the reason i have chosen this place to roam, dressed as an old testament angel of affliction......for the laments and exile and destruction for the moslems and jews. and also the destruction and conquest and visited on the indigenous people in the americas. because i guess the energies that were expended to retake this fortress, never dissipated, perhaps just redirected into different parts of the world...

and so i visit the replica of a place that i have come to regard as the womb of our world. i like to think that all of us, the children of the new world, are the products of the scenes that took place in this magnificent jewel of a palace composed and created in equal measures of beauty and filth, violence and piety, and dreams of paradise....

al-zahra wears:

corvinus hair black by gauze
kaballah skin by nikita friede
cernwn horns by siyu suen
corded neck corset by RU
skull pendant by grim bros
u-sha fantasie outfit & boots by husky gfx

in al-Andalus Alhambra
listening to "todos los bienes del mundo"
a villancico by juan del encina

ghost court lady

2009-06-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

Kenko Yoshida says that the beginnings and ends of things are much more interesting.(p.379)

it is a useful thing to know, when one is on a quest to be a proper heian court lady, in these degenerate and insensitive times. likewise the whole concept of appreciating that which is broken and ugly and commonplace is so hard when we live surrounded in a world of pixel perfection.

with this in mind, reading my battered copy of lady nijo's diary, and even leafing through the pages of my own diary, i am struck at how the words of a long dead anonymous woman, could touch me so deeply, enough that i oftentimes think of her in familiar terms, almost like i know her personally.

second life exists for us to live our dreams, whatever they may be. and so i dressed my little pixel soul-mannikin in the garb of a court lady, and teleported to the kyoto sanjo (the name sanjo, third avenue, is a title she carried when in disgrace) sim, to become her, in a way.

except she never drowned herself, choosing exile instead. and i killed off my avatar, because i loved the outfit so much...and the only way to wear it was as a ghost...

dressed as a ghost, she roamed, this neo-lady sanjo, in the magnificent ishiko kimono made by yukio ishida (he even included red hakama in the outfit) and also wearing the hakama from the splendid ghost hakama set from selos dae, she haunted an empty room, dancing alone. a poem by ariwara no narihira, the heian superpoet/don juan/hero, came to mind:

tuki ya aranu
Faru ya mukasi no
Faru naranu
wa ga mi Fitotu Fa
moto no mi ni site

Is this not that moon?
And Spring: is as the Spring of old
Is it not?
Only this body of mine
Is as it ever was...

Ariwara no Narihira (KKS XV: 747)

and i felt those ancient words sink in so deeply, though i do not mourn those aspects of my life which have died, and those things which i sense even now are passing from my life at this moment. what i do feel is the certain inescapable onslaught of aging and death approaching, a contrast to the ever youthful pixel creature that is a surrogate container for my soul, the little doll who i incarnate and inhabit in this dreamworld.

and as if in an answer, like the long ago legend of ono no komachi's skull reciting poetry to ariwara no narihira as he rode past her grave, i was drawn to one of komachi's poems:

Fana no iro Fa
uturi ni keri na
itadura ni
waga mi yo ni Furu
nagame sesi ma ni

The colour of this flower
Has already faded away,
While in idle thoughts
My life goes by,
As I watch the long rains fall.

Ono no Komachi (KKS II: 113)

the ghost lady sanjo wears:
(dead)
ishiko kimono by gauze
hakama from ghost hakama set by trap
aisha hair silver by penumbra
geisha skin 07 by penumbra
miko tiara by rumi

(living)
aisha hair black by penumbra
juni-hitoe top by CTK kimono
miko hakama by kami hitoe
uchikake (oiran) by i dont know.

the poems (and their background stories) from the 2001 Waka for Japan 2001 site.

unintended explorer

2009-06-21T21:54:00.001-07:00

necessity is the mother of invention? or perhaps exploration? i don't know. but today while shopping i found myself marooned on the dirty lynx sim and while there, unable to teleport, i decided to make the best of it and explore.

there were a few places that amused me some. a scary hobo place....but a little further on i noticed the gleaming of something, and upon closer inspection realized it was a large steampunk submarine, just casually laying out on the ground.

i had no idea what it was meant to be, but i had to explore.

i used to love reading jules verne as a younger person, and although i have forgotten most of it, the flavor of the adventures that i had read about--and this seemed so wonderfully made, and textured. it had such a gilded age ambiance to it--heavy wood and glistening metal.

i was only trapped here a relatively short time....but i expect i might return, if only to visit.

sailor juana wears:

trophy skull hat, paper doll dress set, emo bird boots by i love 13
niela coffee hair by philotic energy
beads and willow smokey skin by eat rice!
coffee skull bangles by grim bros
red planet earrings by spica
cinema shirt purple rotten toe
purple striped stockings by katatonik
zydratic complication eyes by tacky star

in an abandoned steampunk submarine, somewhere in the dirty lynx sim.

peregrinations

2009-06-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

one of the most comforting things about sl i think, is the endless wandering. it seems stupid but for a woman, it is priceless to walk unafraid of physical violence.

and also likewise, in the dead of night, when sleeplessness takes its toll, and in the grip of emotions, unable to release them, there is a kind of comfort in letting the avatar soul wander.

for me it is like descending into the depths of the unfeeling dingy world, a way to give in to the feelings that upset me so.

i went to hangars liquides, a place so very permeated with memories in my own personal geography of second life. it has changed in the time since i was introduced to it.

i used to call it the whispering city, and indeed the sounds there are very much like the vanished nexus. they are not soothing, but more like ambient noises, like the soft whine of a person breathing....like the city itself is sleeping and whispering and calling out in its nightmares.

all what i once knew is gone, and a new face of the city presented itself to me to explore. and soon it will be part of insilico, that wondrous place.

but in the meantime i meant to explore, and i did, finding a peculiar place. the owner was there, and i sat next to him for a good 5 minutes without a response. but he looked very much like a denizen of this place, post cyberpunk....and indeed there is a newness, a different sort of look to the people i encountered here.

mecha juana wears:

sunday out set, paper doll necklace, mad lilly ebony hair, skulls tattoo, and trophy hat skull cake by i love 13
beads and willow smokey skin by eat rice
red planet earrings by spica
64 flour and virgen tattoo by i dont remember
eskimo legwarmers by deviant kitties
synth boots by lazy places
akemi fetish fishnet hose by gauze
flea market bracelets by cake
zydratic complication eyes by tacky star

asylum street spanker

2009-06-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

i swear to god that is the name of a real band in austin. and funny too because yesterday as i drove up to the sex shop where i take my pole dancing lessons i noticed the scraggly little graveyard alongside the road. if i am correct in my suspicion, it is the (state hospital) aka. asylum graveyard....

...the same grounds where roses bloom, and that sheltered a friend of mine for a short period of time. but i digress.

i was bored and exploring and tonight felt like going to an SL asylum. for the most part they are sort of boring. this one place i landed "the rubberdoll asylum" sounded weird and then i realized it was a fetish club for people who like their slaves encased in layers of latex.

i can't help myself. it makes me laugh. and i don't mean to offend the lovers of saran-wrapped slaves-american community, but it just cracks me up.

this place was so interesting because it was done up all scary white and black and shiny, and there were these odd little padded latex cells on one floor.

the most hilarious part was the "slave gymnasium" area...they had the most hilariously bizarre contraptions there...they pretty much put me in mind of extreme versions of pilates machines. and said machines were amply equipped with wonderfully stupid facial expressions....

ooh! those shoes make me so happy! juana wears:

bird's nest outfit by un jour
amaya posture collar, fetish stockings, and arm belts by gauze
graphite skin by cutea benelli
triple ice hair by bp
dragonfly gloves by i totally can't figure it out.
carpe noctem boots by blacklist
zydratic complication eyes by aura falta

psychokiller...qu'est-ce que c'est?

2009-06-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

i am always so late. i saw the coolest machinima i have ever seen today, and the even cooler part is that the person who made it, posted his settings on flickr.

so i had to go mess around at the carnival of doom. it isn't the rides that i love there, but the creepy outbuildings. there's a barn (a real sort of non red texas-ish barn) that has blood and veves on the walls and floors....and a house that looks so ed geinish.

psycho killer juana wears:
singing saw top, graphite skin, black wireweb monocle, coffee skull bangles, bone element piercing, separate skull pendant,bullet arm band all by grim bros/cutea benelli
tribal hair 2 by avz
assassin high heels by dirty lynx
obsidian blade by cortech
antie eyes silent brown by artilleri
couture separates chaps brown/black digit darkes
corded neck corset by RU
suicide earrings by spica
fumi gset gloves by i dont remember

at carnival of doom
listening to psycho killer by the talking heads.

death and the minigolf maiden

2009-06-11T20:04:00.001-07:00

minigolf is so stupid. i mean, it's just sort of campy anyway to begin with, sort of shabby fading chipped idiotic silly overgrown lawn ornaments strewn around. and then hordes of people with their putters, the ironic, the deadly serious, and the bored with nothing else to do.

i thought it was so hilarious that there are minigolf courses in second life. i mean, it's a bizarre place already. i was half expecting some sort of gor or bondage mini golf decor or something. sadly no.

the death goddess of mini golf wears:

black bat wing wire web set, ring, &
bone dress graphite hat & armlets by cutea benelli
apneatic collar, corset, gloves & carpe noctem shoes
by blacklist
fluff hair by jet dolls
skull ear spikes by mad about
sugar skull necklace by kunstkammer
dollskin 25 by lionskins
hair rose wine by gfield

playing mini golf in KublaConia
listening to the ABC Sports Golf theme

grande horizontale

2009-06-09T22:55:00.000-07:00

i am so into steampunk stuff again today. i want to go to an abney park concert next month........apparently they will be in dallas. and so i am all in a tizzy, what in the world should i wear? troy says no he won't go. so i will just have to be alone.

i already ordered these cool boots: http://www.goodgoth.com/whimsey.gif and am in a bit of a happy tizzy. i have a wickedly fierce corset, so no worries there.....and am amusing myself looking at images of grandes horizontales and actresses...i love la belle otero. its interesting too, a totally different clothes language. in the SCA it was always the period police and looking a certain way, it amuses me to be looking at this other style, and how different it is, sort of the opposite. ive never worn a bustle either....hoops yes, bustles no.

i already thought how fun it might be to replicate one of my favorite skins' make up.....

its cool too in second life you can try things on, before you even bother in real life....i was messing with what i would wear on my poor guinea pig av. and then i ended up at grim bros and totally bought the black version of the wireweb dress that i love so much....

ms. macbeth

2009-06-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

will wonders never cease? i finally roused myself to try using youtube...i didn't realize it had annotations. hahahahaha. so you can have SL fashion popup videos if you want....what a hilarious concept. i was laughing the entire time.

if anybody else wants to comment, they apparently can.

ok back to being serious. several people have visited this place, and so i had to do it too....mas modern gypsy yumminess............

ms. juana macbeth wears:

garden collection rose dress by modern gypsy
katkota hair by catwa
hair rose wine by gfield
akemi arm bands and posture collar by gauze
dollhouse 25 skin by lionskins
star tiara by elvehjem
incarnadine gloves by ookami ningen
blood bead earrings by spica
kunstkammer sugar skull necklace
sugar skulls and roses tattoo by otaku designs
candy heart tattoo by miasnow
liah boots crimson by lyra muse
skull nose ring by avz
sacrificial knife by gruff grutt

in the macbeth sim
listening to tool--schism (lustmord remix)

black and blue ballerina.....

2009-06-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

i love lionskins. and they are having a contest too. when you go to their place they have a photo thingy set up because that is part of the rules--you have to use THEIR photo thingy.

i have never used a photo thingy and so i have been going there and playing in it. now i understand why people get so freaking excited about it. being stupid i have no clue how this thing works, every time i go there it's different and i have pushed all the buttons.

its sort of fun though.

i had a massive binge in lionskins and in modern gypsy too. this is another modern gypsy dress i found that i liked. black and blue go together so well it seems.

even though i don't wear the most recent things i suppose i can be forgiven in this one respect. its also so fun when you finally find a dress that you can wear with the invariably weird and hard to match pieces that occasionally crop up. these gloves are from a bizarre and ugly outfit but i have been wanting to wear them for ages......

and i love love love tattoos, and i really love these, from otaku designs......and the hair makes me scream. i mean, being a librarian you'd think i would have a sort of affinity for buns but i swear i hate them normally, but this one is so towering and wobbly and just so generally goofy looking that i thought i had to have it just for the irony factor.

black and blue ballerina juana wears:

Pers bracers by Deviant Kitties
Dollhouse 25 skin by LionSkins
tripleicecream hair by BP
gloves from dragonfly set by i don't know who
sugar skull necklace by kunstkammer
caged bird crown by silent sparrow
blue bird of happiness earrings by i don't know
akemi posture collar, fetish stockings, and arm belts by gauze
zydratic complication eyes by tacky star
hair rose pink by gfield
sugar skull and roses tattoos by otaku designs
dancer dress by modern gypsy
boots with platform addons by sinistyle
skull nose ring by avz

in the lionskins store messing with their photo thingy......

i heart lionskins........

2009-06-04T22:28:00.000-07:00

i adore LionSkins. i love them so much i went and bought two of the new dollhouse skins....i love them so, because they are so unusual and interesting, and different. when i went both times recently there was a very nice shopgirl who was very attentive.

and then i was fiddling around and found a store i liked very much, called "modern gypsy." what a binge i had. and so i have been messing with my new acquisitions for the past few days.

i just moved and so i am still really scatterbrained. but obviously obsessed enough to still be messing around with it even though i am dead tired and really really ought to be unpacking everything......................

starlet juana wears:

dollhouse 14 by LionSkins
statement jewelry pride gold earrings and necklace & heart of gold outfit by modern gypsy
kyoto boots by armidi
orient indian wedding saree bracelets
sugar skulls and roses tattoos top and bottom by otaku
antie eyes silent brown by artilleri (they were free)

the girlfriend experience

2009-05-31T01:57:00.001-07:00

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

i am moving, and i really should be sleeping and not messing around in SL. but i am compelled to do it anyhow.

i visited perriwinkle waves' club...a naughty one. but oh so fun. when i clapped eyes on this dress that was the first locale that came to mind, to accessorize. i visited both her places....this one is so beautiful, and the other one, is too. it amazes me how someone's build becomes so like them. while visiting the new place, she arrived. and we had a lovely and funny conversation about various objects. she has sharp eyes, but i should have known that already. she saw a face in the train of the gown....sent me a picture to show me. amazingly it looked like a theater mask. perhaps a portent? :)

i never wear white hair like this. but i tried black and red, and they both looked terrible. it sort of seemed more kabuki-ish to wear white hair...both the hair and the bone headpiece are from gauze. i haven't ever found anything to wear with that headdress, and so it was a happy acccident.

there was no way in hell i was going to say all those names correctly. and so i found this intriguing dark ambient song....

miss chrysanthemum juana wears:

moroi dress by eshi otawara
corvinus gunmetal hair and dragon's embrace headdress by gauze
kiseru and geta by sweetaholic.
geisha pinch fish skin by trap
skull nose piercing by avz

at perri's cool place, listening to a dark ambient song called chatak.

la vida galante

2009-05-28T21:04:00.001-07:00

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

moving is hateful. and so i haven't been quite my usual self. it is at times like these that i wish i could just have nothing, live simply, and travel in a wonderfully appointed vardo.

with this in mind i went searching high and low in second life looking for a vardo to call my own. but the one i ended up taking home was free, by tooter claxton, with the most wildly hilarious poses, and amazingly funny textures.

as i spun through i was reminded of the colonias, the shantytowns on the border, where people live in school buses and shacks without running water or any sort of convenience.

and of course, being me, i was reminded of the boystown whores in nuevo laredo.....

laredo rose juana wears:

dahlia skin 8 by miasnow
infected shirt by rotten toe
bachelorette skirt by blue blood
dark betrothal stockings by rfyre
carpe noctem boots by nightshade designs
kunstkammer skull necklace and earrings (i saw it on achariya's blog!!! ^^)
schadenfreude coffin ring
gloves and hair rose by gfield
eyes human 21 by primitive design
relia hair by gauze

in a free hobo vardo by tooter claxton
listening to "laredo rose"
performed by the mario escovedo experience

i am going to have tedi's love child.....

2009-05-24T04:01:00.000-07:00

omg. i went to one of those stupid maternity clinics in second life, because i had never seen one before. i was dying with laughter. of all the things in the world to want to replicate here, especially since it doesn't hurt and there is no risk of stretch marks or unsightly varicose veins....

the look on the avatar's face on teh exam table animation was insanely funny. especially since this is supposed to be a "serious" place, but the animations in the exam table were so not serious at all. in fact they were such that i totally wondered how these prim babies were getting made.

and i am sorry but omg the sight of my poor little avatar in stirrups was just way too much for me to handle with a straight face.

on the bright side, i think it did show off these new boots fairly nicely, i mean, if the "doctor" was like paying attention or something.

you know the whole thing is wretched and undignified. in real life it's horrifying, in second life it's just plain retarded. why in the world do they make women get in that freaking position? it's the most uncomfortable thing ever.

and i was also miffed, in this second life clinic they didn't even bother to put posters on the ceiling, so you have something to stare at while being poked and prodded.

this place comes equipped with all manner of things. there is a lamaze room......i can't understand why in the hell somebody would want to pretend to have lamaze classes. and what is the deal with the freaking doughnuts?????

by the way i just have to note that all the cutesy pictures are so intensely stupid. like they are bad in the real hospital, but this one in second life is like a third world hospital or something.....

the labor animations are even funnier. there was a water birthing room, with stupid facial expressions for screaming woman, clueless partner, and vaguely interested in a salacious way doctor/doula/midwife. the same thing was to be had in the regular delivery room.

one thing that totally struck me, is no matter if its real life or not, this whole business is so undignified, so very much like whelping puppies or something.

and the animations have unbelievably stupid and lame facial expressions. it's sort of like the sex ones, utterly ridiculous and completely bogus.

the most amusing part by far was in the waiting area. next to one of those stupid baby pictures was a condom machine. and it even dispenses them too, though i didn't bother to get one.

i wonder if avatar stds are preventable? and how in the world do you put one on the SL detachable penii?

but really, what is the freaking point of having prim babies? i mean, i have never seen one, though i have met a child avatar once, and i just don't get that particular translation of a distinctly messy, animalistic, gross, secretion laden, disgusting but necessary process into second life.

unwed tedi momma juana wears:

fatal rose boots and hair bows by self expressions
dogwitch bra, corset, fishnet gloves and tops, vamp red ultralight by nomine
raven death skirt by needful things
leather pants by digit darkes
aural black hair by gauze
coffee skull bangles and jolly roger arm bracelt by grim bros
skull nose piercing by avz
wild rose necklace by gfield
calavera no llora tattoo by i forgot

at the tender care maternity clinic.

dulce et decorum est...

2009-05-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

...pro patria mori. so they say. and as we celebrate our 6th wartime memorial day, i will take the liberty of travelling through time, so to speak, because blogs let you do that.

i visited the second life vietnam memorial actually in the middle of april. which is why i think the cherry trees are all in bloom.

i have never been to the real memorial. i went to arlington national cemetery, and tried to find it, but got hung up on the WW2 memorial and so got sidetracked and never made it to the smooth black wound in the green park, inscribed with the names of the fallen.

it must suck, maybe be a cold comfort, in heaven, to be part of a war that is now turned into a cliche'd metaphor--such and such war is the next vietnam, etc. and i hope that in real life, the cherry trees' blossoms flutter over the cold stone monument in the spring...........

GI juana wears:

divine right set the black canary
xishi drl hair
sleeps with butterflies set attachments by gauze
crossed out clown skin from carnival of doom
carpe noctem boots by nightshade designs
misa set by sugar
oshun collar midnight by dark eden
dreams by red queen
forbidden 14 by lionskins

omega music box dancer

2009-05-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

carthalis is sort of a bad influence on me i think. he travels to the most interesting places, and his flickr photostream is like a travelogue, but of the most interesting, picturesque, and fairly dark and magical kind.

so following in his footsteps i went to the omega point sim. i don't quite get the backstory but it appears to be a kind of dark horror semi fantasy maybe futuristic kind of place, with cyber touches. it's amazingly beautiful too.
there are many little nooks and crannies there--decadent and sinister places hinting at dark rituals and bloodsucking creatures.

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

some spots seem just unabashedly off. like the dance floor, which has a glowing green dance pole with a skull on top, among other things. and floating gogo dancer boxes. i didn't hear music but it amused me to float around upside down, in the admittedly beautiful ballroom area.

i found a strange cage, in a lovely pavillion facing the sea. it was set up with cushions for spectators. i was curious so jumped inside, thinking it was for dancing. but no. it was full of gorean type poses, so i guess this is some sort of local naughty hangout place. it seems too beautiful to be anything really all that bad.

music box dancer juana wears:
dahlia skin 8 and candy heart tattoo by miasnow
infected black satin shirt by rotten toe
skull nose piercing by avz
tutu from murder ballet set by snatch
crimson betrothal stockings by rfyre
chichi collar by cutea benelli
coffin ring by schadenfreude
thigh high boots black by j's
dia de los muertos earrings by violet voltaire
relia hair by gauze
gamine girl stockings by unknown
hair rose wine by gfield

at the omega point sim

crime scene tourist

2009-05-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

maybe i am the only person in the world to like to visit famous crime/death scenes? probably not but as i thumb through my copy of hollywood babylon (with a lovely picture of jayne mansfield's dead chihuahua)i am curious what amusing recreations there might be in second life.

i haven't ever been to new york so i thought to go to the chelsea hotel sim. it's atmospheric, and interesting though there was a party downstairs when i visited and it's annoying to have people "HOOO"-ing when you are attempting to be properly worshipful.

thank god for wikipedia. i had no idea there were so many other people there, and so many other famous expirations that took place there.....

juana ferocious wears:
sugar skull skin by nomine (a gift from munch)
Aural black hair & Akemi posture collar by Gauze
Rain set by Blue Blood
Wired Bracers by CT
Arrmlets from Skinny Puppy mask by M&F
Spotted Tattoo by artilleri
Hair rose wine by G Field
Black Widow boots by Nightshade Designs
Skull ear spikes by Mad About
Mana pose 3 by The Black Canary

at the Chelsea Hotel sim.
listening to belsen was a gas performed by sid vicious, live

to live and to die....again

2009-05-15T13:12:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

i went to visit bakersfield kidd's pictures. i thought it most appropriate to go half naked, adorned in his splendid tattoos.

i am glad i went, though i was alone, and it was deserted. i didn't wear anything new, only in one of my cihuateotl outfits.

it felt right to be clothed in them, surrounded by his things.

lucifer gave me a title this last week which suprised me, but i was honored by it too. and so this i think i would choose to accessorize with this title, mictlancacihuatl....the lady of the land of the dead.

winter's party

2009-05-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

it was fun, though there were some technical difficulties that caused our poor host to be a little stressed, though he was the picture of graciousness and fun too.

it was held in the king tut sim, which i have visited before. it was meant to be a historical ball, and so there were various people in different garb.

unfortunately achariya left early, she looked really extraordinary as a modern day oscar wilde, quite the dandy. she danced very gracefully with momo, who was dressed in an outfit reminiscent of silks, and a natural sort of flax-ish color.

munch looked really amazing too. she was totally cast against type, as marilyn monroe and in white too. i would not have recognized her at first.

there was a contest. dove won in her funny rendition of ben franklin, and malkavyn won as a spartan. i was dressed like charlotte corday, and i was very surprised because i did get runner up and so i was given a gift card to a store. so all in all a good time..........
as a postscript, i was looking for pictures of the real charlotte corday, when i came across an extremely funny picture by Hitomi Mokusei from Second Life. so naturally i had to go to this place....(there's even a flickr group too)

charlotte corday is wearing:

18c Redingote by le grenier du chateau
hair rose wine by gfield
sacrificial knife by ronin stormwind
snow bunny skin by katatonik
captain hook hair by siyu suen
mme de renal shoes by cutea benelli

at Bettina Tizzy's Old Chakryn Forest, in AM Radio's Marat replica

plague doctor

2009-05-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

a retrovirus retropost. :)

the swine flu is coming to kill us all, you know. i was wandering the wastelands, a place that i haven't explored much, but where i feel a bit at home, because it reminds me so much of the ranch. this latest pandemic originated in mexico, and so its effects are being felt on the border.

it's also much on my mind, since i remember the stories my grandfather told of the last great influenza, of 1917, of the burning bodies of the dead, and his little sister who died.

with these cheerful thoughts, i'd just gone and bought the aztec outfit from nomine and was fiddling around, and started to think plague doctor.....i forgot i had this extraordinary skinny puppy mask, a replica of one worn by ogre in real life. i had removed the ears because they were sticking out of the hat. it was so interesting to me how it seemed to go together. the blood seemed so fitting too--my earliest memories of the ranch are of butchering animals, of torn flesh dripping blood, and hacked up body parts lying around the kitchen in a scene of casual carnage.

i chose the hat too because it carries tarot cards in the brim. this one has the devil card, which generally means materiality, being bound or trapped, and also more or less temptation and things having to do with the body.

as i wandered the wastes in this get up, i was mentally transported to the sands of the desert, the bleakness and relentless sun in the deep blue sky of the ranch.

there one must go with a head covering and longsleeves, pants, and boots in summer, to protect against the horrid sun and heat, which sometimes touches 11oF, and also the rattlesnakes, ants, killer bees, and other nasty critters that can kill you. i particularly was reminded by the bones on the coat, of the bleached bones of the unfortunates who die crossing, and whose bodies are quickly devoured by animals till there is nothing left but shiny white bones. this has happened occasionally, the most famous example being the poor nearsighted priest, who was riding to a mission in the late 18th century, who became lost, and died of exposure. his bleached bones were found in his tattered cassock. because the desert is funny like that--the flesh is eaten but the clothes stay preserved.

influenza juana wears:

skinny puppy mask by M&F masks
Aztec outfit and Rabid skin by Nomine
Gothic Cowboy hat by Ken Daini
Standard boots by Urban Dare
Brown jeans by Canimal

wandering the wastelands, and in falcon, at least in spirit......................................

hazmat club girl at the meat market

2009-05-08T14:50:00.001-07:00

i am very fond of dance music, and the clubs in second life have good music but they also look so cool. and even if there are annoying people it's nicer than feigning interest when a drunk person screams idiotic pickup lines in your ear, flavored with their beer breath.
i went to kitu lounge, which was amusing because they had dance platforms that move up and down with the music. if that was for real i would totally be vomiting and fall off too. but in second life it is no big deal, and you can even look as odd as you want to.......

because I sort of can't take it seriously dressed like this....in a frat boy meat market kind of club....

the juana the club girl wears:

dedalo set by blue blood
black widow boots by nightshade designs
forbidden 19 skin by lionskins
amaya kimono arm belts and posture collar by gauze
riddle multi by magika (guilty for wearing it but oh well)
skull bracers by ct
finga gloves by snatch

the fifth sun

2009-05-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

mesoamerican myths say that the world has lived through 5 epochs, or suns. we are currently in the fifth sun. the previous suns ended in horrible calamities, and the people who inhabited those older suns were imperfect. in this sun, quetzacoatl mixed up bones of the ancients with his blood and with corn, to create humans. but there needed to be a god to sacrifice to create the new sun.

the gods assembled, but nobody really wanted to do it. one brash young and handsome god, Tecciztecatl, could not summon the courage to throw himself into the flames.

one of the gods offered himself for the sacrifice-nanauatl, an old, ugly, emaciated old man. as he burned he rose in the sky and became the sun.

tecciztecatl was ashamed and jumped in the fire next, and he became the moon, shining but paler.

this was what i was thinking as i shopped at grim bros and seeing a floating fire, could not resist. because after all, according to the mayan calendar, this fifth sun is set to end in 2012....who will sacrifice themselves to create the sixth sun?

nenetlxochil wears:

c+c kadath hair
burnt bones skin and hearst dress by nomine
bloody rawbones bracelets by retox
dia de los muertos shoes and archaic skull choker by grim bros
to live and to die tattoos by bakersfield kidd
skull ear spike by mad about
skull nose ring avz
hair and tail feathers by i sort of forgot at the moment.

achariya's birthday party

2009-05-05T22:48:00.001-07:00

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

it is not every day that a party like this happens. i'd also never really been to a full on japanese themed party, at least not with fashion folk. i was really beside myself with what to wear. i nearly wore my meiji schoolgirl outfit, but at the last minute decided to wear my gothic oiran outfit instead.

the garden itself is quite lovely. we appeared to be dancing on water. i knew very few people there, though everyone was quite kind to me.

achariya wore a sweetaholic wa-loli, with what looked like sinistyle boots and bp hair. her obi was a spotted leopard skin.

momo did the honors as dj, and she wore a nonko kimono, i think the cage one i believe. it is a long black furisode with white images of a young girl. she was wearing a really distinctive hairstyle with it as well, without the bow.

diana wore i think a latex kimono by ookami ningen. i just missed munchflower, who looked so cool--she was wearing mickey mouse ears and looked so dark.

there were others who looked really distinctive. i think it was sakuradawn who was wearing a very unusual outfit, very cool and different. kat was so very nice to me as always, and she wore an adorable pink outfift.

i do not know hya very well at all, but she was impressively elegant, and so i admired her from afar.

it is trying at these things because i never know whether to say hello even if i have never met them before.....

but all in all it was something to remember....

teddy bear hotel....and shiny innards

2009-05-03T15:54:00.000-07:00

all work and no play makes juana a dull girl. so i had to rectify the situation, wandering in SL.

i visited poetik velvets, and found myself highly amused at one of teh doorways in the hotel. one of them opened into a large gullet leading into various stomachs. you pass through steaming puddles of digestive juices, with the most evocative background noises, and at the end of it all is a vast room with prim noobs being digested. most amusingly one was labeled "phillip linden".

of course i had to pose with such an important personage.

my amusement with entrails goes back quite into the mists of my personal history. sadly they were often a part of our daily lives, as tripe is considered a delicacy among my peeps. it's so gross, but i remember very distinctly seeing goats slaughtered and their intestines removed, cleaned, and cooked.

later in life i had another little brush with entrail-dom. i think i must be one of the few people who has ever been complimented on their intestines. during my caesarean an unnamed person remarked very amused, that my guts were very pretty, all pink and shiny. i was conscious at the time (heavily drugged) and not amused at all. but now that it's past it makes me laugh because it is sort of funny, in a peculiar sort of way. its not every day that one's entrails get complimented on their beauty.

which brings us to the other doorway....

it was full of teddy bears. apparently there's a 50s children's book featuring teddy bears and dolls in subversively naughty scenarios...i could not resist.

i could hear tedi's voice saying the vilest of things as i wandered through the dollhouse doing semi-questionable things with the teddy bears most thoughtfully provided by the hotel.

the naughty doll juana wears:

sleeps with butterflies gown set by gauze
harajuku streetwalker shoes by the black canary
Xia hair by DrL
forbidden 14 skin by LionSkins
cut gloves from brood set, KC designs
curlicue undershirt, chichi set, cutea benelli
stockings from Misa set by sugar
cigarette by primitive design.

in the hotel at poetik velvets.....down the hallway, left and right doors.

atonement party

2009-05-02T00:09:00.000-07:00

tonight there was a party to open atonement.
i recognized a few people but otherwise they were all gorgeous strangers to me....

i wore my usual insilico gynoid about the town outfit.

ganguro

2009-04-30T00:19:00.000-07:00

i have never ever worn this style before. it's called ganguro, a look that's past its time already. according to the all-knowing wikipedia, it peaked around 2004. it makes me think of a character that would get killed in a horror flick, so i visited the carnival of doom. while i was wandering around i met a few carnies dancing in a barn, all blood soaked, and i laughed at the utter contrast of it all. they were nice though, and i promptly changed into something more gruesome looking.

i think it's an interesting style even if it's already dead and in its grave, because this is what japanese schoolgirl rebellion looks like apparently. it consists of a deep tan, with white lipstick and eyeliner, bleached blonde hair, and loud bright colors.

i have to admit it took me a moment to adjust, because it looks weirdly like a kind of racist blackface at first. i did love the face gems, and this was the first time i have worn false eyelashes in SL. it's funny, just like RL i had to shorten them and adjust them to fit my tiny eyes.

the loud clashy colors took some getting used to. i hardly ever wear this kind of thing in SL. i searched all the images i could find and i was unable to really implement it on my SL body farther than this. but the skin is very lovely, and the eye jewels too, both from Gauze, which is one of the holy trinity of my favorite visual kei-ish stores--those being Gauze, The Black Canary, and Blue Blood.

the rebelliously attired juana-ko sports:

ganguro ginger skin, Corvinus hair, and heart face gems by Gauze
eyelashes by DrL
Frog tee by Meriken
Skull mini skirt by amplify
Flour corsage from 64 set by KS
tropicana hair flower by artilleri
purple legwarmers by BP
blackstripe leg socks by LaynieWear
jeweled satin cuffs from murder ballet set by snatch
absynthe oshun collar by dark eden
ving boots by shiny things

at the carnival of doom, and the china sim

dream of the crimson chamber

2009-04-27T21:56:00.000-07:00

i have never read the dream of the red chamber, but i want to someday. i visited the land of illusion sim, not knowing what it was, and the little i know now is that at least some of it is based on this novel, but it's actually by two people named lily and honglei, and it's something like her memories superimposed on the grounds of the house from the book. so interesting...almost like wandering in someone's memories.....

i wandered the house and grounds, laid out in the traditional manner, each wing representing the seasons. and as i wandered i listened to guqin, because i think it pretty, and it seemed fitting for my mood. there were strange little surprises, images visible on one side and not the other......

i'd been shopping at blue blood that evening too, and it happened that the outfit i wore was called crimson. i apparated there, in the store, and a disembodied chat voice behind me told me i looked gorgeous. i turned and it was ghanima uriza herself, a beautiful green loli fairy perched on a chair. she was sweet to me, and gave me several skins to go with the gowns i had bought.....this one seemed very fitting though as it is with all things, i ended up changing what i was wearing midway.

the crimson dreaming juana wears:

crimson outfit and skin by blue blood (ghanima uriza)
collar and curlicue undershirt chichi set by cutea benelli
dreams noir hair by red queen
black widow and carpe noctem boots by nightshade designs
studded leather pants by digit darkes
forbidden 19 skin by lionskins

in land of illusion sim, listening to the guqin.........

to live and to die....tattoos by bakersfield kidd

2009-04-26T21:38:00.001-07:00

today (april 26th) i talked to bakersfield kidd, who made the glorious "to live and to die" tattoos. it's a tiny world, i recognized his name because i saw his picture on achariya's flickr photostream. so i saw he had a flickr account and left him a note. he was really nice, and told me something interesting--he hadn't sold very many of those sets. which i can't imagine, because they look so freaking cool.

they are my very favorite tattoos as i said, and have significant memories associated with them too. i was wearing them in the strange citizens post on strange pixels, that grady made, which was a very very huge honor for me.

bakersfield left a really nice comment on this outfit. it was one of the ones i wore for dia de los muertos, which is really like my christmas. i was standing outside the katatonik store, having just bought her dia de los muertos dress, with the matching jewelry by violet voltaire, a custom burnt bones skin made by munchflower of nomine, shoes by gfield, hair by deviant kitties, raven pennyflower hat by nonna hodges, and mask by i forgot right at this second.

another notable event where i also wore them was when i was being sacrificed at my dia de los muertos party, but that's another story. (both these pictures were taken by my friend zorena deckard.)

the reigning cyprian

2009-04-25T00:18:00.000-07:00

it makes me laugh, because maybe people forget that "actress" meant also "courtesan" for most of history, and so our modern idol worship of them is sort of funny considering.

second life exists to make the impossible happen, and so for an hour or two my little alter ego was transformed into the celebrated (and most probably unwashed) mrs. juana baddeley, actress and reigning cyprian. it sounds demented but i love reading about the lives and times of these grandes horizontales and so i spent my few hours flitting from 18th century sim to 18th century sim just being mrs. baddeley.

but without the leeches, purges, bloodletting, surgery without painkillers, and useless visits to the baths. oh and without blackmailing feminine companions. mrs. baddeley of course would have to go rehearse her play, and so she did. but sadly nobody was there. it's just as well because it was getting way too histrionic i think. perhaps she'd fight about her salary or something. and avoid her pimp of an ex-husband.

being short of money she might pay a little visit to charlotte hayes' nunnery to moonlight for some pocket change. but very discreet of course....wouldn't want to end up on the list of covent garden ladies.

i must confess, one thing really confounds me. how the hell can you pursue this line of work without getting your heavily pomaded and half rotten 'do from getting irretrievably wrecked in the course of discharging your duties? (yeah i said discharge lol) i mean, it just doesn't make sense. perhaps they knew something special that we don't know anymore about having your hair did so that it lasts.

maybe having exerted herself maybe she might eat something, somewhere fashionable, and then speed off to a very august address, for a very private visit to meet one of her benefactors.

another incredulous modern interjection here: all this without antibiotics? and all sorts of omg disgusting venereal disease floating around everywhere? ewww. ewww. not to mention the whole pregnancy and childbirth without painkillers and aieee back alley abortions from hell. i guess these ladies were just made of sterner stuff that we pitiful cossetted modern girls.

sigh. now time to go home and drink a pint of gin and laudanum, and sleep till noon.

the notorious mrs. juana baddeley wears:

jabot, cuffs, jacket, pants (i made them breeches) and tails valerian suit, and caged bird gloves and stockings by silent sparrow
curlicue undershirt from chichi set , shoes mme renaud by cutea bennelli
black pompadour and mourning tricorne by nonna hedges
snow white skin by i forgot.
giltterati earrings by violet voltaire

death card.

2009-04-20T23:17:00.000-07:00

sometimes when i am upset and unhappy, and find the world futile and the future uncertain, i put on my finest clothes, put on fresh makeup, and smooth my hair. sometimes i go out to dance and to drink, and to flirt.

but sometimes i just want to be alone, struggling in the grip of a strong emotion. i often find myself suddenly far from home.

then i just wander around in a daze, walking through darkened streets, staring at people.

in second life nobody sees your rumpled hair or runny nose, and the clothing that you wear can be as insane as you want it to be. and nobody notices or cares either if you wander around. you will meet all sorts of people in all sorts of conditions and it might be a fleeting thing or it might be a messenger fated to meet you in that moment.

i don't know why but to me this is a dress to be angry in. it is so very furious and standoffish, all prickly like a porcupine and sticking out on all sides like a personal force field, keeping everyone away. how lovely it looks in the dreamworld, where prickles don't sting.

the only pain you feel here is mental.

the shoes do not come with the dress, but are from the same designer. they totally feel like they are possessed with a murderous spirit, with daggers for heels and barbed wire decorations and anklestraps. in second life you can look daggers at someone with your feet.

this is the only way to meet destiny, to defy the death card and not feel that you are its slave, no?

grumpy juana wears:

chichi dress and platform dagger shoes by cutea benelli
zydratic complication eyes by tacky star
misa stockings by sugar
forbidden 19 skin by lionskins
dreams noir by red queen
rose hairpin wine by gfield
skull nose piercing by avz
candybleeding heart tat by mia
black gauze armwarmer by gauze

atonement in insilico and at tunnel of light haze club

la tour juana

2009-04-18T23:44:00.000-07:00

it may be time for me to flee the palace. but it doesn't matter, i have my compulsions and they make me happy, even if all i have is a blank wall to sing to. and so afterwards i fled, still in my party dress, to the dreamworld eiffel, and stood there, architectural and alone.

and still later, after having been in the sun, and the air, i entered the dreaming again, to the mysterious cathedral, to find atonement. nexus is gone, and hangar liquides is gone, and yet insilico is there. and in her streets i will set my wandering soul.

la tour juana wears:

dress: a matter of truss by grim bros/cutea benelli
skin: forbidden 14 by lionskins
hair: torn noir by red queen
tattoo: artilleri
stockings: misa set by sugar
shoes: carpe noctem by nightshade designs

in sl eiffel tour and atonement cathedral in insilico,
listening to petit blonde de boulevard brune by manu chao.

meiji schoolgirl

2009-04-16T22:42:00.001-07:00

LONG HAIRED AND PREGNANT --
Mixing Elements of Seasonal Fashion
in Japan
Originally uploaded by Okinawa Soba

i have been making myself crazy looking for images of meiji-era schoolgirls. and i have only succeeded in finding this one image, and she is pregnant lol. so tomorrow i will try to find another.

it makes me laugh because apparently the meiji-era schoolgirl was considered pretty wild and naughty in their little hakama. from what i understand too, this type of uniform is sometimes worn for graduation in japan. (blogged from flickr:LONG HAIRED AND PREGNANT --Mixing Elements of Seasonal Fashion in Japan Originally uploaded by Okinawa Soba)

i like the mixture of western and japanese elements too.

i am very fond of nonko romankan kimono. they seem to have a sort of antique vibe going. i am still pretty shaky as to what differentiates meiji from taisho, but these antique style elements seem to be pretty influential in today's fashion.

the brash schoolgirl juana-ko wears:

skin: willow pale smokey by eat rice!
hair: yuuki by zero style
hakama set: Nonko Hakama set 01 by Nonko Romankan
hair ribbon: TAISYOU_HAKAMA A Ribbon by tesuya volmar
april hair ornament: april kanzashi by mameha's
shoes: miriel granny boots by illusions (siyu suen)

at any rate, i own several outfits from nonko, but the one i wanted to wear today was the hakama set. i have an affinity for hakama anyway, since i like heian era clothing, and hakama (i guess more properly nagabakama) started out as heian era women's underclothing.

and the lure of the cherry blossoms is to strong to be ignored.

stay beautiful

2009-04-14T22:33:00.000-07:00

i wandered the dreaming this evening in this gown. it elicited several comments from people i like and respect. but the most trenchant came predictably from a complete stranger, in a place so strongly imbued with of memory and meaning. i was in the jeweled garden, in the ruins of nexus, the city that i sort of regard as the omphalos of my second life personal geography.

and in my pixel hands i held the city's tombstone and epitaph, my most treasured possession in this world.

she apparated suddenly, falling right in front of me, and in the brusque way of the noob told me that my av was amazing. and then asked for a landmark. her parting words to me were, "stay beautiful." and then disappeared.

if only it was so easy as that, no?

the pensive juana wears:

disturbia gloves, stockings by catwa
audrey gown and hat by alb
blood beads earrings by spica
midnight oshun collar by dark eden
amaya armwarmers and arm belt by gauze
skull nose piercing by avz
dreams noir by red queen
Whispers of Night Deathly F Lost Gloom Stalker

alice in wonderland/strange girls

2009-04-12T20:55:00.000-07:00

i was bored and went to the alice in wonderland ride. it was odd but not creepy.

i was bad and jumped off the ride and wandered in the display. while there i met an avatar named avril bosshart. she was nice, and gave me a radioactive cookie. this is the first time in recorded history that i have worn a cookie like that. but it seemed fitting.

there were other very interesting displays. i wished though that you could be shrunk or be turned into a giant, when you passed the "eat me" and "drink me" signs. it reminded me too much of the disney cartoon version, in the end.

juana in wonderland wears:

sade dress set & carpe noctem boots by nightshade designs
dream hair by red queen
forbidden 14 skin by lionskins

it seemed the sort of place to wear this outfit. it reminds me a little of the RL alice and the pirates label that i see often in the gothloli bible.

and then this is where it gets a bit odder. i found a big top circus stage set up. it seemed the thing to do, to put on a saloon outfit, and do a little dance. i was in the middle of something and then i realized that avril was there. she'd found me, and so i asked her if she wanted to be in the machinima. she changed into a really lovely deadly clown outfit, and then we did our little strange girls thing in the big top.

the strange girls wear:
on juana:

midnight victorian and amaya kimono cuffs by Gauze
rose suede hairpin (wine) by G Field
black coffin ring by Schadenfreude
goth hat by unknown
aDiva couture temptress hat by aDiva
platform dia de los muertos shoes by Grim Bros
susie leather choker
june hair style by Catwa
forbidden 14 by LionSkins

on avril bosshart:

shoes, dress, hat, parasol, and skin from Carnival of Doom
Machette hair by Deviant Kitties

i am a very, very, very bad jew.

2009-04-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

it's passover, and it occured to me to dress juana up like the angel of destruction, and roam an ancient egyptian themed sim.

i am not normally so bloodthirsty but found a really cool new skin called "kaballah" on xstreet by Nikita Fride.

it has various kabbalistic symbols, but my fave is the huge hamsa on the back. i wear hamsas in real life, pretty much keep them everywhere, and found it funny that the second life logo is a modified hamsa.

i was making an outfit to go with this splendid new skin when the hilarity of this idea struck me, and i just had to do it.

in lieu of a seder, the ritual meal where all the foodstuffs have a meaning, i purposely included a few things to serve as a kind of visual/clothing seder. so i suppose this is my utterly vain, profane, and probably semi-sacriligious passover observance this year.

the bands are symbols of slavery
amusingly enough the belt of the skirt has an anhk on it, a reminder that we must mourn the egyptians, because they were suffering too.
the bones and skulls on my shoes reference both the bones of the slaves that were crushed to make mortar for the pyramids, and also the scorched lamb bone of the seder plate.
the horns are for the common misconception/mistranslation that jews have horns.
the bracers and torc are from the "abbadon" set. "abbadon" supposedly means destruction in hebrew.

michal the second life angel of destruction wears:

skin: Kaballah by Nikita Friede
horns: i don't remember, by Siyu Suen (illusions)
hair: fluff by jet doll
bracers, earrings, torc: abbadon set by tekeli'li
armbands: from amaya set by gauze
belt, silks, legbands: naughty isis set by nightshade designs
shoes: Dia de los Muertos platforms by grim bros
top and bottom: murder ballerina set by snatch

murderous ballerina

2009-04-06T23:22:00.000-07:00

everything old is new again.

at least it seems that way. but my infatuation with visual kei continues unabated. this is an old dress, and an old outfit, remixed.

though this reminds me more of what juana might throw on in the middle of the night to run to the drugstore to buy razors and tampons.

despite the expression of despair, it was a happy occasion, being a shopping excursion to a new place i'd not been before.....made in hell.

the disheveled midnight ballerina wears:

skin: forbidden 20 by lionskins
hair: rQ Coy Noir
Collar from Ouka Saki Some ni Keri, armbands from the Amaya set and gloves from Gauze set by Gauze
Immaculate heart necklace by Tekeli'li
Candy tattoo MiaSnow
Murder Ballerina tutu, pants, and top by Snatch
Cut Stockings Brood Set by KC Fashions
Black Widow boots by Nightshade designs
Coffin ring by Schadenfreude

badass

2009-04-06T20:50:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

grady wore this incredibly badass outfit at club baby seals.

:)

not to mention the other luminaries in attendance, such as momo and isa.

incroyable

2009-04-05T23:47:00.000-07:00

i have always loved the crazy clashy mad exaggerated styles of the incroyables and merveilleuses of the directoire.

but then again when i was younger and more impressionable i had a mild obsession with the french revolution and napoleon too.

i really love visual kei. sometimes i think that the people who wear that style are like the modern versions of the incroyables (and merveilleuses, in drag).

in the dreamworld, where one can dress as madly and as improbably as one wishes with impunity, some of the meaning of this style i think is lost in translation. it is nothing to go shopping and toss together a vague facsimilie of incroyable fashion.

in particular i hate frock coats and tail coats in second life because they never fit my stumpy little avatar. and ditto with the jabots. on the bright side this is a style that requires one to look exaggerated.

so i did as best i could, and found a funny napoleonic sim to play around in. it was literally named "napoleon's empire" and had a profusion of mostly empty little palaces to loot, ships in the harbor and also circling the waters of the surrounding sea.

there was even a little guillotine in the little fortress, and a rustic looking in, complete with a little rat that would crawl around the floor in an endless loop.

it amuses me too. the real incroyables were rebelling against the revolution--they were royalists, and therefore really expressing themselves quite dangerously with their crazy clothes.

it's sad that in this insipid second life version, there is no political subtext. i suppose if i were wearing a bush/cheney button instead of a cockade it might come close, but i'd rather not. i fear that this outfit is way too restrained for proper 18th century incroyable-ness, but it's only second life, and we must make allowances for that.

jeanne the second life incroyable wears:

napoleonic bicorne hat ( i totally love the cockade) by illusions
coat, jabot, cuffs, from Pearl set & Lovebound tails by the black canary
rQ Torn Noir by Red Queen
Copper Sand Pants fall front pantaloons by Ravenswood Regency (To a T)
forbidden 20 by LionSkins
stockings (harajuku doll) and fallen disgrace boots by nightshade designs
napoleonic hussar saber by Moyer's Military

i couldn't leave that sim without trying out the guillotine. sadly there is a bit of a predjudice apparently against short avatars, because it rather inhumanely would mean that only the top half of jeanne's head would get chopped off.

but i'd rather have half my head chopped off than suffer a bush restoration.

dj tedi sound and the furry ^^

2009-04-02T21:17:00.001-07:00

dj tedi sound and the furry ^^
Originally uploaded by al-zahra

tedi had another show tonight. it was a furry themed one. i am not a furry, and so it was hard to start from scratch, but i didn't want to look like everyone else. After searching i managed to find a vampire chihuahua AV by Shaduhka Druart on Xstreet. sadly it's not mod so the wretched hair had to stay and i was in a total hurry so ended up wearing a men's Rfyre outfit--a gothy toreador thing, that made juana look vaguely eastern european. it was such a horror finding boots for this av. I had no idea what it takes to dress a furry. It's hard! but i had an ugly pair of boots i found in one of those scary little fleamarket-like malls that sort of worked. and I added a tekel'li torc and bracers.

troy looked really scary, he wore a very intense little bunny av. I daresay he looked *crazed*. it was interesting to see all the different furry avatars too--a variety of them were there. But you can totally spot the "born furry" from the poseur furries.

black and white

2009-03-30T22:09:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

i was silly and posted this on the show your style thread.

black and white stats:
by gauze (formerly illuminati):
akemi (white)
amaya (black)
myaku stomps (white)
illuminati eclipse boots (black)

nightshade designs: dark jester skin
hair: magika geisha black and white a
naughty cat: goth hat
aDiva: hair ruffle from temptress set
GField: Lady Rose Hairpin (wine)

sexy-land hitman pranker

2009-03-29T01:00:00.001-07:00

i can't help it. i just like to prank people. there is just something so infinitely amusing about it. i was dressed as la virgen de los sicarios, and after wandering in midian city for a while, realizing I looked too much like I belonged there, i decided it might be more fun to go somewhere totally unexpected.

i ended up at a place i'd already been, a naughty voyeur motel in SL. i don't cyber, and i think the notion of "sex" in SL is pretty silly (a personal opinion)...and i had been there before to laugh and take a machinima of juana dancing in the peepshow and mostly to gawk at the set up.

i was not disappointed in terms of the silliness factor. there were people wandering about in various states of undress, and after trying out the poses (alone) and screaming with laughter at the simulated avatar sex faces, I went to pose in the peepshow room. to my great amusement someone arrived to watch me though i was only using a bellydance animation. he seemed insensitive to my obvious surprise and joking because i kept asking him if he was serious, how could such an improbable display be so interesting?

i got bored and left the wildly upholstered peepshow room because he horrified me with his susequent chafing of the bish.

as I fled i didn't realize there was an upper level to this build, and so i ascended to investigate. in SL everyone is a peeping tom anyway, with your camera being able to cross walls. and i spied a guy waiting on a bed in one of the rooms.

so i did what came naturally, which is to say i busted in on him with guns drawn pretending to be a hitman.

i forgot in my innocence that this might be construed as a sort of game. i think this what the poor befuddled gentleman thought. he was sending me politely worded yet insistent IMs offering various services. i just laughed and laughed. The whole scene was made even more risible by the sudden arrival of an audience. they were drawn i suppose by the lure of two green dots together on the mini map.
avatars have a very vacant slack jawed look to them that seemed quite appopriate given the circumstances.

i did get bored though and announced to the assembly that i was not there for games, booty, and fun, just playing a prank. and walked back into the downstairs.

the downstairs is incidentally furnished with a naughty cinema. i didn't bother to activate the screen. i was wandering around liking the way the red interior looked with my outfit when several people arrived and sat down in the seats. for the most part they were clothed. but one person felt very moved to remove his clothes in my presence. he had a hilariously impossibly large appendage too. he worked it up and down a few times presumably to get my attention.

i ignored him. and he sat down beside me, with his avatar periodically breaking into an idiotic grin. for some reason he also felt that decorum would be violated if he removed his shoes, and so they stayed on.

i finally became bored and left, presumably never to return. :)

ay POPI

2009-03-29T00:20:00.000-07:00

i thought it would be funny to go somewhere where my dress didn't match the surroundings. first off i went to some trashy "666" horror sim in my beloved new POPI dress by Eshi Otawara.

so far so good right? no. i was wandering around looking impossibly pert and perky in the stereotypically gloomy satanic lite lame ass sim (with two big ass pistols i may add) and clicked on some sort of animated scene type things.
some were merely incomprehensible, mostly they were silly.

but then again, how i can i say they are silly if i myself am there too?

it's only cuz i am being ironic. (yeah right)

while on my little tour of the premises, i got trapped in a spider cage thingy. i didn't mind though, because this is sort of what i think a deranged fashionista would look like, after having to keep up with everyone for so long.

but we can chalk this up to hallucinations and exhaustion right? which means a stint in rehab or a hospital.....................................

so i looked around for lunatic asylums. this one appears to be a clubhouse for a group of people who like to put mildly pronish pics of their avatars all over the place. i decided to stay because the bear at this lunatic asylum reminds me of tedi........

the crazy wannabe fashionista is clad in:

POPI by Eshi Otawara
Skin Ultralight Vamp red (Nomine)
Pearls (i can't remember)
GField Lady Rose Shoes in Pale Pink
Katonka hair by Catwa

shopping binge

2009-03-24T20:02:00.000-07:00

i am always the last person in the world to find out things.

i found a sl visual kei fashion blog i loved, and zeroed into a store i hadn't been to yet. and pretty much went crazy in there. then i took myself to club baby seals and saw dancien and momo. momo was wearing the dogwitch set from nomine. i didn't recognize what dancien wore save the burnt bones skin from Nomine. it was funny because momo naturally knew all about the store i had visited, and even chided me very gently, with her astounding encyclopedic knowledge of sl fashion. i also had no idea either about the hair boycott, and got a rundown on it. it was a really interesting hour or so visit--i tried out my new computer, and dancien and momo talked a little about the things they did when they make their poems in the language of images. it was really fascinating to hear, like having the curtain drawn back and seeing the gears moving behind the scenes.

stats:

skin: dark jester; latex top, skirt, leg bands: isis silks; boots: black widow; all by Nightshade Designs
skulls chest ornament, gloves, stockings, and underpants: Dogwitch by Nomine
tattoos: Mayan Dream by Garden of Ku
bracelets: Bloody rawbones by Retox
skull nose ring: AVZ
Jolly roger armband: Grim Bros
hair: Riddle by Magika
wings: Cobweb by Material Squirrel
badass obsidian sword: Cortech cyber Macahuitl by Beezle Warburton

it was interesting, and i left soon after. i wanted to try on the rest of the things i had bought, and bored, went to odaesan house. i tried on one of the dresses i had found, a black EGL, and to amuse myself listened to malice mizer's song "baroque" while i wandered around. i am curious if since it is all black, that means it qualifies as a kuro loli dress?

stats:

skin: dark jester; dress, stockings, gloves: Sade; leg bands: isis silks; boots: black widow; by Nightshade Designs
tattoos: Mayan Dream by Garden of Ku
parasol: Reien set by Sweetaholic
skull nose ring: AVZ
Immaculate heart necklace: Tekel'li
hair: Lucy by Magika
Skull Ear Spikes: Mad About
Raven Pennyfeather hat: Nonna Hedges

i got some more dresses and boots but i will have to wait for another day to fiddle with them.

sxsw part two (interesting bands and their outfits)

2009-03-22T22:31:00.001-07:00

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

it's a pity i didn't get more funny pictures, but it's hard to sneak up on people and take pictures with the phone when you are doubled over laughing. i mean, i just can't stop myself from laughing. it was bad enough with troy because we'd look at each other and make faces. i did however get this one pic of jrockers outside elysium. it was a pain in the ass to try to stand behind them, because their hair blocked the view of everything. i have absolutely no idea who they are or if they are famous.

these are few crackberry pics of the bands that i saw. they ranged from the pretty charming and aggressively stylish to the insane.

the japanese show is a useful starting point, because the (admittedly few) bands i saw there were interestingly dressed, as were the spectators. pictured to the left is the band "the emeralds" who wore leather pants and jackets with polyester shirts. they also wore big ugly plastic sunglasses, as part of a pseudo elvis tribute.

the fans wore a wide range of things, with minis, legwarmers, etc. it was very much like second life becoming real life.....people were wearing whatever, like anime characters or covered in tatts and piercings.

the band "mad juana" was very interesting. this is the violin player. the rest of the band wore an intriguing meld of roma, spanish, mexican, and hipster outfits. this guy scared the freaking hell out of me because i bumped into him in the hallway not noticing and i just wasn't expecting to meet death so soon. he was also wearing halloween spectacles that distorted his eyes in addition to the heavy make up and improbable combo of mariachi suit and afghan hat. i liked the black polka dot skirt-velvet corset plus piano shawl and tophat that the accordion player wore, and the lead singer looked like the greaser girlfriend in the movie grease--with plaid capris, a satin 50s letter jacket, and a rose in her hair.

the most austerely stylish were the moog, from budapest. they had us laughing because they were so into their style and appearance that the band members would duck into the bathroom at least every 15 minutes to make sure their hair was utterly perfect. the lead guy especially was very chichi, with uber tight black jeans, pointy toed shoes, red shirt, vest and jacket and ascot.
it was hard not to stare at him when he was off stage because he was just so easy on the eyes.

======================================================================

honorable mention: monareta

they are zany, but it takes balls to wear a silver helmet with a bicycle wheel mounted on top of it. that and dancing energetically around, and climbing balconies........i mean it's not really an outfit, but i thought it was hilarious.

i also saw a band of street performers, half furry, who were a type of brass band with trombones and things. they weren't entirely furry, only partly, but wore bits and pieces of marching band uniforms....the one human was dressed sort of like a sweet little country rodeo clown.........

reien kimono confusion

2009-03-19T21:24:00.001-07:00

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

at the Sweetaholic sim, in their back garden, listening to Shiina Ringo by Anna Tsuchiya.

i love sweetaholic kimonos, it is a terrible obsession. they are gorgeous and i love the blend of modern and gothic elements with traditional ones. that being said, i think that the way juana is wearing this outfit, is grammatically improper in kimono-ese. for one thing, the very low nape of the neck, and the three toed geta with no socks, scream oiran, though the obi is tied in the back like a geisha's and the hair is pretty restrained like a geisha's too. its funny because i had to modify the obi to fit juana. she is very short for an avatar, and so fitting obis for her is a particularly odious chore. it started off with the obi scarf pretty high up, which would indicate youth, but because juana has such a short torso, to make it fit her an i had to push the obi scarf so down that it is nearly invisible, which means juana is wearing her obi more like a very very old woman would.

i am sure the kimono police will show up and beat her up for her kimono insolence, and for all the other terrible crimes against kimono that she is committing.

stats:
kimono, obi, neck adornment, geta, fan and parasol Reien set by Sweetaholic
geisha hair black a by Magika
Mourna skin black by Nomine

urban tribes

2009-03-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by al-zahra, who appears to be from the pseudo hipster tribe

the language of clothes is a way to encode all sorts of things...one of the most fascinating things to me is to "read" people in a crowd, to learn about them and understand them in the context of the world by the things that they are announcing and saying about themselves in their dress.

sxsw has been fun to stare at all the urban tribes, because the streets are literally thronged with all nationalities, ages, conditions....all the different little groups we belong to, because we believe or we want to be a certain style or way of living.....

i often feel that as i get older i am losing my handle for the language of the urban tribes, that perhaps i can't get the finer nuances of why tight jeans plus pointy toed shoes and glasses=hipster and whatnot. i never really felt an allegiance to a tribe, other than the weirdo-american community, and so tend to freely mix things up. i wonder though what it is that these little whims translate to, what i am really telling people with the way i dress.

right now i am totally in love with miniskirt plus leggings plus goofy tshirt plus chucks. but i saw very few people wearing this combo. instead there were tons of women wearing miniskirts and boots. it being texas, naturally the cowboy boot predominated, but the 80s-ish slouch boots and those weird flat heeled boots were very much in evidence.

i didn't go to any goth, punk, or major subculture bars so i didn't get any firsthand observations on those tribes. i think one of the funniest things about the bleed through of SL into RL is the skewed perspective on fashion. maybe it is just me but it seems that because i am used to seeing the most bizarre things on an avatar, that i have come to regard that as normal even for RL....which can be funny.

i notice too, in my limited forays into sl fashion, that there seem to be tribes in SL. maybe they mirror the urban tribes i see in the real world. it seems to me that there is a group of sl fashion types who seek to replicate real life fashion very closely, and those that seem to embrace the unrealistic possibilities of SL.

i was too much into everything to take major notes but i also tend to really scrutinize the noticeably foreign because they always seem to be the ones who are wearing the freshest styles..........

sugar skull catrina, remixed

2009-03-15T22:11:00.001-07:00

in hangars liquides...........

music is dj tiesto's remix of binary finary's 1998.

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

the theme of this ensemble is la catrina, the other manifestation of mictlancacihuatl...who is famous as a symbol of the day of the dead. i wore a version of this outfit for my dia de los muertos party, but i unearthed it again after getting a fabulous skin from munchflower zaius of nomine. it was an unexpected gift, and i literally wanted (and still want to) thank her every day because it is an amazingly detailed beautiful skin, with a sugar skull face.

i love this dress anyway--there is something so off-kilter but beautiful about it, and i love how it exposes one side of the body. originally i wore a custom version of nomine's burnt bones skin, and the "to live and die" tattoo set, so the visible parts had visible bones. but with this new skin, i wore the "mayan dream" tattoos by garden of ku, because the placement of those tats is very complimentary to the gown. and that hat--it amazes me how it goes so well with the gown.

OMG hilarious--it's a look that goes from streetwalker to amateur sniper, too.

skin: Sylvan Sugar Skull by Nomine (a gift from Munch)<3 <3
hair: KatKota hair by Catwa
hat: Eliza's Ascot hat by Illusions Dress: White Shadow by Sweetest Goodbye
Kashu boa and Mei panties by Dirty Lynx
Hair rose, lace gloves, rose ring, and ruffle by G Field
Ouka Saki collar by Illuminati Ring: Yoru lingo by Nonko
Bax Ankle boots by Max Coen
Upper arm belt by Sweetaholic
Wilted Wednesday vest by Kyoot Army OnePiece64 Stockings by Kuri Style Tattoos: Mayan Dream by Garden of Ku

life in death (catch up) or zombie sabbath bride

2009-03-11T21:23:00.001-07:00

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

i am lazy and never keep up. and so i often retro-post, when i have the leisure and inclination. and this is one egregious example. (i am writing this in march)

this is an old outfit, that i wore actually several places. one was zorena's halloween party, which would make this my "official" halloween outfit.

i also wore it on an evening visiting, in the whispering city of hangar liquides, where i saw angels walking, and was under the spell of wings of desire.........

this is one i chose pretty carefully, and i meant it to speak for me. the tophat and skin are a pretty clear reference to baron samedi, the profane and oh so aztec (though not) voudoun god, who has that particular blend of death and fecundity. the snake bracelets too, reference voudoun but also they are a symbol of rebirth. the necklace is an exact version of the kabbalistic tree of life. if i remember correctly i wore this on a friday, which was amusing.

and that is where my symbolism ends really.

the zombie sabbath bride wears:
voodoo skin by Deviant Kitties
tophat by Illusions
Tree of Life, Medusa armlets, Cenobite's Claws by Tekel'li
Remains of the Night dress by Ookami Ningen
Checkered stockings by Amplify
Harajuku stomps boots by Dark Eden
Kristin hair by Zero Style

cihuateotl

2009-03-06T19:09:00.000-08:00

cihuateotl: in aztec belief, the souls of women who died in childbirth accompanied the souls of dead warriors and followed the sun as it journeyed across the sky. they also became hummingbirds, after a certain period of time.
i am mildly obsessed with mesoamerican culture. there are lots of little survivals of it in the present day here and there--for example while pregnant my mother called me in a panic because there would be a lunar eclipse and she begged me to tie a bunch of keys to my waist to protect the child.

and i have quite a fixation on the the cihuateteo. it's a personal reason mostly--i had a post partum hemorrhage and almost died when my daughter was born.
so i like to think that if i had died i would have been a hummingbird, or perhaps even now escorting the souls of the dead soldiers who died in iraq.......but i digress.

this is one thing about second life--you can be whatever you want, and encode however many layers of meaning you wish, in the choices of the clothes you wear. and so the whole cihuateotl thing is one fashion tic i keep i coming back to over and over.

grady honored me much by photographing me dressed as a cihuateotl in a strange citizens post on strange pixels. for that one i wore the outfit on the right, which was sort of showgirlish. indeed, i wore a feather headdress and tailfeathers from a showgirl outfit, along with an aztec styled crown, loincloth and top from the Oshun set (more on that later) and Eris boots by Dark Eden, tinted ghungroo (ankle bells, like what yaqui deer dancers wear) by Zaara, and skull choker and earspikes by Mad about. I wore the Lost Gloom Stalker skin that i adore.

i have since worn several versions of the cihuateotl outfit. the elements though are the same:

To Live and To Die Dia de los Muertos themed tats, which are brilliant, and my personal faves or the Mayan Dream tats by Garden of Ku
the burnt bones skin by nomine, though later i was able to get a custom modification of that skin so that the face was less skull-like, with black lipstick
Skull nose ring by AVZ
Cenobite bracers by Tekel'li
a hummingbird emitter, which i thought was so brilliant and cool
Cortech Macahuitl and dagger, in obsidian and cyber versions. (by the freaking brilliant Beezle Warburton)
sometimes i wear a cyberheart, which would have replaced the one i lost via sacrifice. [B] the Heart
Needful Things Death Raven skirt

There are tons more of things that i have worn in my capacity of cihuateotl, but i suppose i will list them separately....................................

Uncredited items of clothing:
hair: Chill by AVZ, Anabel by Deviant Kitties
mekahooves and cellular pants by AVZ
Vampire trick pants and goth boots by Susie
Camisole from the Gamine girl set
Fishnet shirt from .....
Leeloo noir shirt from Nocturnal threads

all that we percieve.........

2009-03-05T20:04:00.000-08:00

i was in the jewelled garden, and feeling pretty sad and lonely. and so while i was listening to my fave thievery corporation song, i decided to record my outfit.....

the sad gynoid wears:
skin: Whispers of Night Deathly F Lost Gloom Stalker
Gynoid eyes and body attachments: Servo Unit by Stygian Avatars
hair: Azaria by C + C
nose piercing: AVZ Skull Nose Piercing
jacket, skirt, pants, jacket, gloves : Brood outfit (cut) by KC Fashions
boots: Armidi Gisaci Kyoto Boot Black/Black
badass obsidian dagger & sheath: Cortech Cyber Dagger 3.0
pose: Body Language by SLC Haruka Modeling Poses set.

i am listening to "all that we percieve" by thievery corporation......

gynoid

2009-03-02T20:16:00.000-08:00

I was still feeling the gynoid vibe and so i went to insilico, because it is sort of blue and very cyberpunk. in fact it reminds me much of Ghost in the Shell.

i got lost and managed to find myself in some forgotten corner. in my present state of undress i felt it prudent to be somewhat reclusive, and stumbled upon this strange room. it seemed the perfect accessory.

for i see now that the surroundings are important, to accentuate and harmonize with one's attire........

the gynoid wears:

skin: Whispers of Night Deathly F Lost Gloom Stalker
Gynoid eyes, gloves, and body attachments: Servo-Unit by Stygian Avatars
hair: Riddle by Magika
nose piercing: AVZ Skull Nose Piercing
boots: from the Heroine set by Slick
pose: Body Language by SLC Haruka Modeling Poses set.

a fly on the wall

2009-02-28T20:23:00.000-08:00

it is not every day that one witnesses the titans of sl fashion blogging all together.

i can't really say much that hasn't been said already. and the pictures and posts are there to prove it. all i will say is that it was an immense honor to be an extra in this stellar shoot. grady thought it all up herself, and i was lucky to be present with her when she met the creator of the kubrick rooms, who was very nice. for the uninitiated, the kubrick rooms are literally sl replicas of kubrick movie sets. the korova milkbar set is utterly amazing. as far as what to wear, grady gave me very broad direction, just to wear something skimpy, that she would assemble the sl fashion droogs and i was going to be a milkmaid. (each droog would choose their milkmaid).

of course being myself i had to read up and look at the movie stills to figure out what to wear. i spent a day looking for a smooth dead white skin, that would make me look statue-like. i found one skin, but was not happy, and by accident stumbled on a perfect shiny white skin, which was part of a droid set. it looked really interesting because it also had nipple covers and a groin attachment. and boots and gloves. i remember reading somewhere that the milkmaids and the furniture were influenced by the marquis de sade, and indeed when i tried this avatar on it had a distinct S&M flavor. and so i kept the gloves and the nipple covers and groin (which close up had a cool spinning clockwork gear action). i also added the collar, because it looked s&m-ish but it wasn't at all when you looked at it closely, it was more like a decapitation.

i was worried because i didn't know if it would be sufficient. when at last the day arrived, i was wandering troy's place looking at houses, in my semi naked state. i was hailed by grady and tried to get there. the rooms are distressingly hard to navigate and i was in the john of the overlook hotel, till i cut throught the wall.

the droogs were already there. i was directed to take up position. the milkmaid opposite me was wearing a meat bikini. and green hair. the boots i was wearing didn't work with the kneeling posture nor the hair, so i put on a shorter hair and added the latex ballerina boots. it was such an interesting thing to watch. what i found intense was the droogs. they all looked very different but also uniform.....in each outfit there was a heavy dose of their individual personalities.

all the posts and pictures it has spawned as well has been amazing for me to see....it just reminds me that for every event, everyone has their own view of things......

reinha da bateria/xica da silva/queen of mardi gras

2009-02-23T18:51:00.001-08:00

at siyu suen's mardi gras 2009 ball masquerade....

it amuses me much that in my dual world, i have attended carnival in the real world and once in the dreaming, and the difference between my corporeal flesh and the pixel container of my soul is quite striking i think. it is one of my dreams to be reborn in a future life as a samba queen, a rainha da bateria, dancing at the head of a samba school, in full regalia. and so i resolved on wearing a brazilian style outfit. i was very fortunate that the first place i landed had such lovely costumes. the one that struck my eye was a bahia-style outfit. apparently the revelers in bahia wear costumes influenced by native american outfits. when i put it on the first thing that came to mind was xica da silva, the famous/notorious 18 century slave, who was the commander's mistress. i admire her and further more love the actress who played her on brazilian tv (tais araujo). it suited me very well, and so i got to work cutting it down.

siyu's parties are quite exclusive--she only lets 50 people attend for the first two hours, and to reduce lag she requires attendees to limit their ensembles to 200 prims or less. so i had to ask the maker to reduce the back piece by half, and i had to skip wearing hair, because the headpiece alone was 84 prims. all in all i was right at 200 prims. i was lucky because i had a skin with an afro on it already, so i wore that. the gown was not part of the outfit, the original being very skimpy indeed. the ball was meant to be formal, so i wore pieces from the Nicky Ree Mui dress, which magically seemed to match perfectly. my avatar eyes are very small and so i wore blue robot eyes to make them stand out of the mask a little better.

i could not take pictures as i was crashing constantly, at one point crashing during the voting. but it was quite the carnival of beauty. its probably better to look at the pictures, but there were several i thought breathtaking. one of the highlights of the evening was watching acha and momo dance. acha underwent a slight metamorphosis, but she ended in a green skin, with a flowing green skirt, and a black corset, masked and bald. momo wore gold thigh high boots, a flowing purple silk with a pattern on it and a gold belt, her purple skin and purple tipped hair. i voted for the both of them. carthalis wore an 18th century gentleman's outfit, complete with wig and cane and mask. morrigan was amazing, a swirling dryad in deep emerald silks and long black hair. north wore an amazing peacock outfit, full of feathers. there were a group of three evils, long thin women, elegantly attired in black, and looking like they were from an edward gorey book. imagine my utter surprise when the winner was announced and i had been voted queen of mardi gras. it literally never entered my head and so i was caught off guard. the evils shared the prize as an honorable mention, as was only just...i stayed on a little longer but my computer was slow and crashing and it hindered my enjoyment. so i left.

and the next day like a ghost i visited the hall where we had danced the night before, and whirled and spun in a lonely dance of my own.....................

stats:

Gloves, Top, and Skirt: DNR (Nicky Ree) Mui Magic set gold

Headpiece, necklace, shoes, hose, bracelets, tail feathers, earrings, and back piece: MF Bahia Fogo

Skin: Zulu Maiden (afro) Brazen Women Skins

Leg silks: Ronjas Golden Snake set

gothic oiran part two

2009-02-13T21:32:00.000-08:00

wandering the grimy streets of sick..........

this is one of those outfits, that one must keep picking at like a scab. it is probably among my most favorite outfits. in the intervening days i had bought an Oiran outfit from Sweetaholic, my most favored kimono vendors. I put it on and loved it, but still the gothic oiran wanted to come out. so i went to Sick, a lovely dingy japanese-esque cyberpunk sim, and hung out in a seedy bar......in the interests of hiding ugly prim feet i wore dark tabi, which i hear is a total no-no. but to hell with it, i hate SL feet. And the adorable toothed geta from Sweetaholic--utterly charming...........

the bored and weary oiran wears:

gothic oiran kimono: Illuminati Ouka Saki Some ni Keri
other clothes: Susie Armwarmers barbed wire, trick pants
hair: Sweetaholic Oiran set (comes with combs)
skin: Clown skin (Crossed out)
pipe: (kiseru) Sweetaholic Oiran set
Geta: Sweetaholic Oiran set