Ciudad de Mexico

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

random ransacking

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

1492

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

black and blue ballerina.....

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......

atonement party

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.

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

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.)

i am a very, very, very bad jew.

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