Burning Life: Coming to SL, Sept. 27-Oct. 5, 2008

Can’t make it to Burning Man this year? No need to despair. Burning Life is your answer, without the travelling and expense. Now in its sixth year, Burning Life is the virtual version of Burning Man. According to the SL Blog, Burning Man is where Philip Rosedale (AKA Philip Linden) got a lot of his inspiration for Second Life. 

The call is out for volunteers and for participants. Check Burning Life: A call for volunteers  for details on volunteer positions and/or the Theme Camp page to submit a proposal for a camp space. Deadline is August 31. 

 

SL Shakespeare Company: Twelfth Night Readings

Wow! Where does the time go? Much has happened since early May. CSI: NY in SL has kicked the bit bucket, Nexeus Fatale is still DJing in various venues, in fact, this weekend as part of SL’s fifth anniversary celebrations (5 years!!), and Cue the Penguin! is almost at the halfway point.

The SL Shakespeare Company is also doing very well. I caught their staged reading today of Twelfth Night, Act II at The Globe Theatre in SL. Interestingly enough, I saw the whole Twelfth Night on Friday night at Bard-on-the Beach (one of the best Shakespeare productions I have ever seen, btw). So, it was nice to hear the words once more. Also found out that classes in performing Shakespeare will be available in the Fall in SL. Details should be available on the website later on. Check out the site as well for the schedule of upcoming readings.

Also, as pointed out by the director before the show, today is the anniversary of the burning of the Globe Theatre. From Wikipedia:

On June 29, 1613 the Globe Theatre went up in flames during a performance of Henry the Eighth. A theatrical cannon, set off during the performance, misfired, igniting the wooden beams and thatching. According to one of the few surviving documents of the event, no one was hurt except a man whose burning breeches were put out with a bottle of ale.^[6]

We, the Residents…

Stumbled across through an interesting project on New World Notes tonight. There’s a flag design contest now underway, hosted by Laetizia Coronet. This project came about following the recent changes implemented by Linden Lab® regarding the use of the SL logo. As Laetizia puts it:

“Let’s face it. We never had a flag – that was a logo on a stick and it would look good outside a Linden Lab office, but it was hardly what you’d call a real flag. And now even the name of the famous logo is copyrighted, so use of it as a symbol for all of us is right out. It’s “theirs” now…”

Details on the contest can be found on her blog, Virtual Village Voice. Considering the technology that can be used, I think we can look forward to more than mere flat 3-D designs.

SL Shakespeare Company: Hamlet, Act. I, Sc. 2, April 23rd

Now that I’m back to working full-time, blog writing has become a bit of a luxury. While Cue The Penguin! still provides my self-imposed daily escape, I haven’t had much time to roam around SL, save to grab some shots for Cue. Nonetheless, much is still happening in SL. A new CSI:NY mystery is afoot (watch this space for details coming soon) and I received the following notice in my inbox yesterday.
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Group Notice From: Ina Centaur

Bard’s Birthday 4/23 Special Performance…

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have finally settled the chaos of having to schedule a large international cast for a simultaneous live performance.

Join us at 6 PM SL Time, one week from today, at the SL Globe Theatre for a special advance showing of our second miniproduction — Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 2, a.k.a., The Mousetrap.

Thank you,
SL Shakespeare Company

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I don’t think I’ll be able to catch this preview, unfortunately, but will be on the look out for any video clip on this new production.

CSI:NY in SL: Trying to solve the latest case…

A new case came afoot on CSI: NY Island last March 21st. As usual, I went to the site, downloaded the latest tool bar, collected the evidence and went back to the lab. For some reason, this time around, the audio clips do not seem to work. The text version will appear for each piece of evidence analyzed, but for some reason, the list of suspects does not appear. So I’m stuck. I thought it was perhaps lag. Tried to listen to the clips on my home turf, which is pretty lag-free, still no luck. Asked one of the CSI managers, who suggested I check my Audio/video settings. Everything was setup as it should be. I’m stumped. Wow! A mystery within a mystery. I’ll keep trying. Stay tuned.

SL Shakespeare Company Open Auditions: March 30/08

Received the following notecard in- world today from Ina Centaur, founder of the Company.

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The SL Shakespeare Company will be holding a round of open auditions for our upcoming Hamlet productions, the earliest of which opens on 4/23, with rehearsals beginning in early April. (In addition, we may also be performing a non-Hamlet scene in May. More details to come.)

Play: Hamlet

Time: Sunday, 3/30 at high noon SLT

Order:  on a “first come, first act” basis.

(Location: Globe Theatre: SLURL)

Directions: Please be prepared to read a passage of your choice of the character you wish to perform, a passage of our choice of the same character, and possibly, an unrelated scene of our choice. (In addition, you may also show us a passage from another Shakespearean play.)

Criteria: Quality, availability, and SL Voice/mic clarity (sorry!). Evidence that you’ve practiced your lines a bit and are familiar enough with your character to do well on our “pop quiz” may help .

Technical Help: Please arrive an hour early (11 AM, SL Time) if you need help setting up, tweaking, or configuring your microphone for SL voice performances.

Also: Please email production@SLshakespeare.com with your availability for rehearsals beginning in early April. We will automatically add you to our repertory cast list, but that does not necessarily mean you get a role. (For those on the repertory cast, we will contact you prior to each production.)

We currently use a repertory cast system, where we will contact actors on a list prior to rehearsals for each production. Please note that the auditions are public, and we do hope to keep your voice on file (unless you specifically opt out) on a public “SL Theatre Open Audition Database”:

http://STOAD.SLshakespeare.com

—SLSC Casting Director

http://SLshakespeare.com

(Photo: Ina Centaur)

There’s a second life for disgraced politicians

Another interesting video surfaced during today’s meeting at the CNN Amphitheater in SL. We were encouraged last week to start filing video reports. Hugo did just that, while offering a possible new work avenue for Eliot Spitzer, the now ex-Governor of New York state.

See story & video: NY Governor Spitzer to retire in Second Life

Shakespeare in SL: Also on YouTube

I caught the opening of the mini-production of Hamlet in SL on February 28th. The theatre was packed, which was great for the actors, but not so great for lag. I reported on this experience on the CNN iReport in SL blog.

In today’s meeting at the CNN Amphitheater, Henry iReport pointed out that a video clip of the same scene was available on YouTube. Although it’s not a clip of the actual production, it is the same scene, in the same location. At least, the costumes are visible. Thanks to Inacentaur for posting it.

Playing Live in SL: [insert up-and-coming musician name here]

Thinking back to when I joined SL in October of 2005, the abundance of activities now present was negligible. Point-to-point teleporting (TP) was non-existant, and half the fun getting anywhere was flying from the teleport hub to the actual location, indicated by a red beam of light. There were clubs you could dance in, new lands to explore and people to meet. SL was definitely in building mode. However, even back then, live music was rapidly gaining a foothold. Today, you can find pretty much any genre of music played live, from folk to jazz, blues, rock and bluegrass, it’s there for the listenin’.

A couple of months ago I tumbled upon a musician who goes by the name of Hep Shepherd. Actually, I stumbled upon a free download offer of one of his songs through SL: Last Goodbye. Not one to pass up free music, I downloaded the song and liked what I heard: Acoustic guitar, for a nice blend of soft rock and folk. His MySpace profile highlight Cat Stevens, Paul Simon, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Pearl jam, Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews as his influences.

I dug deeper and found out that Hep in RL is New York musician, Jeff Kranz. I signed up for his newsletter and his SL group. I was thrilled a couple of weeks ago when he announced he would be playing live in SL at The Vibe. I’ve caught two of his shows now and look forward to the next show. Jeff/Hep is currently working on his first album. I don’t know when the album will be released, but I’m looking forward to that. If you’re in Austin next week for SXSW, you can hear Jeff on March 14th at 7 pm.

More info on  Jeff can be found on MySpace and Facebook.

You can listen to a couple of his songs through his website at: jeffkrantzmusic.com.

Are you a musician interested in reaching a worldwide audience? Check out the Second Life Blog here on what you need to stream on SL. To perform at The Vibe, contact Bratt Lunasea or Dior Flanagan in-world or through The Vibe website.

CSI:NY in SL: The mysteries keep comin’

One of the advantages of hanging out at Club Random, late at night, is you pick up some valuable info from project managers. Many of them hang out at the club as well. On one of those nights, I learnt there would be more mysteries appearing in late February, early March. Though this news was already on the CSI:NY News website, none were live yet. However, a week later they became active and I jumped right in for not one, but two new cases to solve.

The first one, Frozen Margarita read as follows:

The highly-publicized “Still Lifes” exhibit at the Museum of Art in SL just got an unexpected addition. Among the perfectly preserved corpses lies Margarita Vanderville, the sole patron of the show — preserved just like her beloved exhibition pieces.

Like the others, this one involved collecting the evidence, questioning the suspects (the young nephew of the victim, the owner of the museum, who was having an affair with Margarita, and the wife of the owner). I proceeded a little too quickly with this one and ended up guessing the wrong culprit. Still, I managed to upgrade my status one notch.

The second one, was a new multi-dimensional blog mystery by Zuiker, titled Wheel of Misfortune. Unlike the other mysteries, this type presents all the evidence, visual & audio, and you have to determine what happened. There are no hints, no analysis of evidence. You’re on your own. Once you think you’ve figured it out, you can post your theory on the CSI:NY blog, where a winning entry is chosen every week. I call this multidimensional because some of the actions are not in SL. There are websites to go to, and in this case, a phone number to call. Though it was long distance (212, New York exchange, natch), I did call it and got a recorded message by Anthony Zuiker. The cool thing about this number is that it is referenced in an earlier episode of CSI:NY, notably part of the 333 storyline.

This mystery looks at the puzzling death of a couple who have fallen off a ferris wheel cabin at the newly opened Linden Park.  You get to use your flying skills once more as you examine the cabin from which the couple fell. Thankfully, for us, a platform is located right next to the cabin. That platform, though, might be where the marksman was. If there was a marksman. Looking through the blog submissions, recurrent themes occur, pretty much in line with what I thought happened, though I’m more in favour of an accident than a murder. The key words leading me this way: metal projectile. Doesn’t mean a bullet…

The next mystery is scheduled for Friday March 21. It hope this is an indication this project will continue. There is a healthy crowd at Club Random every Thursday night, when Nexeus Fatale DJ’s live, and you can find some people every other night as well, dancing and chatting the night away. There are weekly photo contests to keep everyone busy, and winning entries are posted on the CSI sim and on the CSI:NY News site. Check out the results on Flickr, here.

New episodes of CSI:NY are scheduled for the beginning of April. I hope we see a conclusion to the Venus case, though not a conclusion to CSI:NY in SL.

MaxieM