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

ghost court lady

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

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

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

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?

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

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