The breath caught in my throat when I saw this “Calangute” gown in the color “Sunshine”. The prices at Zaara are quite reasonable for wonderful quality - even the items that aren’t on sale! This dress comes in many other colors, but though I am usually not a big fan of yellow, I thought this one of the most beautiful dresses I had ever seen. I would wear it in real life - you know I like a bit of boho. Wish I had had it while on vacation. The bracelet is a platinum cuff I got ages ago from Simply Spoiled, and I still wear it all the time.

Yet another outfit I wish I had in real life. I love the silk-tied shirt paired with the draw-string pants. This is called Anjuna. It comes in three colors - this is the green, as you can see. Necklace is from Second Mirage, which, I’m afraid, has left SL, but I like it so I wore it. Hey, we aren’t one of those pro fashion blogs - we just do what we feel like!

Ok, though Zaara has gorgeous every day clothing, I just could not resist this traditional design called “Kajra” (no, dear, that is NOT “Kajira” - you should know me better than that!) which is 50% off and will soon be retired.

Dear Shameless:

I was reading Devi’s post about returning from vacation, and I must admit even though I’ve been SL shopping like crazy, I still have the post-vacation blahs. As you know, I’ve returned from the tropics, where everything seemed exotic, colorful and bright. In keeping with the visuals of the flowers, the birds, the lush scenery that surrounded me, I wore bright orange lipsticks, silver sandals and sarongs that seemed spun of of hibiscus and sunshine. I have become used to this exotic color, and although I love my SL wardrobe, I would like to brighten it up a bit. Yet I know I can’t keep wearing my sarong and kebaya about. They are starting to stare at me at the grocery store. I know you usually come to me for fashion advice, but I’m really jet lagged and can use some ideas.

Very truly yours,

Sapphire Jetaime, Got-the-Still-Wanna-Be-In-Bali-Blahs

Dear Got the Blahs,

I say, don’t put away those silver sandals and orange lipstick! Remain bright and sunny wherever you are. The answer is Zaara, where they “blend indian craftsmanship and modern aesthetics.” Yes, you CAN have c olor without looking like you just stepped off the boat from Goa or Rajasthan! Though nothing wrong with that either - this is SL! And you are just in time for a 50% off sale of designs that will soon be retired. But if you do nothing else, join the Zaara Update Group, so you can pick up the group gift at the main store. Though Zaara is known for color, this little number is black and gold, and I have not taken if off since I first felt the silk tickle my skin. I may be buried in it! Hope this helps, Sapphire.

Your friend,

Shameless Gossipgirl

P.S. The group gift, though not colorful, is still exotically beautiful. It has an Indian flair but you could wear it to a Manhattan book party.

Dear Shameless Gossipgirl,

Since I have returned from a long vacation, I am having a hard time getting into the swing of things in SL. Many of my fairy friends are absent from the drum circle; perhaps they are on vacation themselves. What can I do to cheer myself up?

Sincerely yours,

Devi Moonbeam, a Pixie in Peril

Dear Pixie in Peril,

Aww, Devi, if I had known you were having vacation withdrawal, I would have taken you along to Retrology. Gifts all over the sim all week long! I won’t get into particulars, as I’m sure it’s been blogged to death, but get your fairy butt over there. You still have a lot of time.

If that dress from Total Betty and all the other great designer gifts at Retrology don’t cheer you up, head on over to Kuri Style. They are having a $1L sale of some designs that will make your little fairy heart beat faster. Also some that are a real steal at $50L. While you’re there, pick up a free pose and some three-packs of poses priced at $5L and $10L.

Need more? The skins at Crave Designs are still set at $0L. Fly, my little fairy, fly!

Regards,

Shameless Gossipgirl

P.S. I’m enclosing a few pics from Kuri’s so you can see what you can get there. There is a lot more than what I will show. You already KNOW it’s going to be good at Retrology.

Sapphire tells me Kuri had this mini-dress out at $25L several months ago, and she broke a heel dashing over there.

Well now it is only $1L for a few days, and you can also get it in white or black.

Is this cute or what? This is a Kuri outfit called “The Cat’s Pajamas” and it comes with the stockings. It was a steal at $50L.

The shoes are free Mistress heels from The Dominatrix Shop, and the detail on these is killer. Choose the Mistress heels or the Slave heels - I have trouble making choices, so I grabbed both!

The skin I’m wearing in these two photos (in case you didn’t know, the blonde above is Sapphire), is one of the currently free skins from Crave Designs. This one is Glam skin Mistress makeup -Light Skin - the Mistress theme went with the shoes!

Another $50L dress from Kuri. Love it!

To get this fabulous dress, run on down to the Happy Style Mall at Sokri. The free brown dress is not in the Mayuki Nozaki store, but right there in the mall near where you land. To get it, click the sign on the left of the dress sign to join the HAPPY HAPPY***Update Groupe***. The tag says Happy Happy, so it’s kind of fun to wear. Then click on the sign showing the brown Flower Dress - Mary, and voila!

In my last post I mentioned that while hanging out with Joro she mentioned she was late for Druid class! Honestly, I’m not sure why I’ve been been drawn in lately to the world of fairies, ancient history and mythology, but I have to say I was curious to learn more about a Druid cult. (Yes, I know that Druids were quite real, so don’t fire up the email.) Normally I’m happy in my designer jeans or a Boho skirt dancing on the beach with Hans or attending a fashion sim opening gala. It just goes to show that once you open a door, you may be blasted right through it and into next Sunday.

Needless to say I tagged along to Druid class. We landed at the portal to the ice caves of Avilion Mist, one of the six medieval role play Avilion sims. When you land, turn around and click on the large framed glass that looks like Snow White’s mirror, and you will magically find yourself in the ice caves.

I had not been in the ice caves for some time (Hans and I took a little swan ride there some time ago), and I was amazed how large they are. I’m not sure if they’ve been enlarged or I just missed a lot of it last time I was there. Since she was running late, Joro took off like a shot weaving through paths and skipping over ice flows until we reached this impressive meeting place carved into the ice.

The topic of the day was role playing with herbs. The Druids act as healers when the Avilion sims have combat during their Calls to Arms. Apparently this requires quite a bit of education and ongoing classes. After all, it could be disastrous to administer chamomile when the proper remedy is lavendar! Well, the teacher and head Druid, Osiris LeShelle, very nicely let me participate even though it was obvious I had just sort of wandered in and crashed the party. I have no idea about her healing powers, but you have to admit she knows how to dress for effect. Below you can see at least two of her students, the dragons on the left, have a real appreciation for her sartorial splendor.

They have a sort of hearty, hale fellow well-met attitude over in Avilion, unlike those gorean sims where they all take themselves sooooo seriously. (Yeah, they hate me in Gor. I went on a little self-guided tour once and quickly learned those kneeling women get really pissed off when I offer them a cup of coffee. I mean, I figure if they are so tired they can’t even stand up, they can use a pick-me-up.)

I have to say that I was impressed that the cards Osiris handed out were grounded in real beliefs about the properties of herbs and not just made up for the role play. We were asked to practice healing role play, so below you see Joro and I doing just that. I’m telling her I burned my arm when I got accidentally pushed into the fire while trying to break up a brawl back at the castle. Some of those knights like their mead, and there was no AA in medieval times. She prescribes a poultice of lavendar. (Okay, I admit I have no idea if lavendar is good for burns or not.)

Much as I’ve enjoyed my little foray into this subculture of Second Life, I think it’s time for me to get back to my beach house, slip into a sarong, mix a pitcher of margaritas and turn up the reggae. I’ve enlisted the aid of Joro’s fried, Devi Moonbeam, who is both fae and a Guardian Avilion, to make guest posts from time to time to update us on the life of fairies and other medieval topics.

Here’s a closer photo of the unicorns I mentioned in a previous post. Almost needless to say, my medieval gown is yet another from the free camping chairs at DeFleur .

Joro, who has a fondness for unicorns, popped over briefly and mentioned she had to get to Druid class. DRUID CLASS???! And here I thought I was on the cutting edge by taking Photoshop in Second Life. More next post… `

On the other side are the naysayers who seem to think that Second Life is just a game destination filled with sex and gambling, and not part of a movement of any importance whatsoever. (Well, we all know that SL gambling is under cover these days, but not eradicated.) This, despite evidence that goes beyond subjective anecdotes, evidence that shows people spend most of their time in Second Life shopping and just socializing. For example, a Reuters survey of 657 Second Life residents in 2007 before casinos were banned from SL showed that only 13.6 percent said they “often” practice cybersex, and only 2.2 percent patronized casinos regularly.

But with big brand businesses, universities and conferences holding real time events in Second Life, it’s exciting to watch. Just this week in the Second Life Reuters Auditorium, the interested could sit in on live interviews from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. We heard Richard Edelman, president and CEO of the world’s largest public relations firm, Martin Sorrell, CEO of the world’s second-largest advertising and marketing company, Robert Scoble, well-known tech geek blogger, Linden Labs CEO Phillip Rosedale and others. (Course, Scoble was banned from SL last year for letting his 12 year old son play in Second Life with him, but then he was banned from FaceBook at the beginning of the month too… but I digress.) Here you can see a bit of turn-around as Robert Scoble interviews Phillip Rosedale, which he sent as a live feed via qik.

A lot of real life businesses are in Second Life, but to a large degree as an effort to position themselves as on the edge, rather than due to any expectations of driving immediate sales. I for one would love to hold conferences in Second Life for my real life clients, but it’s still a bit early to use Second Life to market to consumers not already Second Life residents or to use Second Life as a replacement for WebEx. However, as the technology becomes more stable, and Second Life and similar, future applications become easier to use, it will be fascinating to watch how the Web evolves.

Not long ago people were rolling their eyes at social media sites like YouTube, FaceBook and Twitter. (Well, let’s face it, businesses are still figuring out how to interact with their customers in this new world of consumer generated content and social networking.) But like today’s Internet (and any other media format you want to name for that matter), the future Web is bound to run the gamut of human interests - and savvy entrepreneurs will find opportunities around all of them.

I’m not sure what this obsession with wings is lately, but Joro IM’d me last night to join her over in Vision of Mountains to see a place I had not heard of that carries nice wings. I landed in a mystical garden, with unicorns wandering around like house dogs! We were in Fairy Pearls. Joro pulled a unicorn out of her inventory to ride, so I pulled out my AKK horse, the strawberry roan Hans gave me for Christmas 2006. It was a perfect, thoughtful gift, you see, because I had told him once I had always dreamed of riding a horse along the beach.

Now Joro is one heck of a builder, and she finds it hard to leave well enough alone. So she was soon changing her unicorn’s colors willy-nilly. Not to be outdone, I decided to change my strawberry roan to a dapple grey for the day. Well, of course I ended up messing up my horse’s eyes. So far I have not been able to get any help with returning them to normal from the creator, other than the suggestion I buy the new and better model. But Hans gave me Buttercup, and I’ll never sell her to the virtual glue factory. In all fairness it was 4 a.m. in the AKK lady’s part of the world when I talked to her. I should send her some chamomile tea. Poor girl may have insomnia.

Joro and I headed for my place so I could rez Buttercup for Joro to try to edit. (Yes, that’s the front of my place above. And yes, I know that it looks like I just came from a frat house toga party.) At 2 am. my time I gave up and went to bed. I guess I could get some dark glasses and a seeing eye dog for my poor blind horse, but I think I’ll pop over to Textures R Us or similar for eye textures before Hans finds out.

Below is Buttercup in better days.

Hmm, now that I look at this photo, I can see I can improve on the original eyes! Time for a Buttercup make-over!

I popped over to Avilion today wearing another DeFleur camping dress called Gilda. (See below.) You don’t exactly wander around Avilion in your capri pants and a tube top, after all. The hair below is Seibsa in the color Sunset from Curl Up and Dye, a great place to go for period hairstyles.

So anyway, I was heading for the little shops - not the ones in the castle, but the ones in the village. On my way there I came upon a clearing where I found a small gathering of fairies and dragons.

I had wandered awhile so I sat down for snack, and what do I find but Vegemite. Well, this is SL, so why not?

Thus sustained, I continued to explore and I was pleased to find Indonesian gamelan instruments on the other side of the clearing. I actually took a real life lesson or two on some of these musical instruments when I lived in Bali, but I guarantee you that I play the set at my Second Life beach house much better. Below is a photo of friends and I playing gamelan at Hans’ and my place about a year ago.

When I made mention (without breaking character) of how wonderful it was to find a gamelan orchestra in Avilion, a passing, nosey gentleman I was not addressing looked completely aghast and very heatedly informed me that not one of them was a gamelan instrument, rather all of them were “elven” instruments. I told him I would be sure to inform the Balinese and Javanese gamelan composers, musicians and dancers of my acquaintance of this fact. After all, who are they? They only spend their very real lives playing, dancing to and caring for such instruments, often in service to their gods.

Here is a photo of gamelan in Avilion.

Role play is great - each to their own in SL. But don’t steal sacred items from someone’s real culture and pretend you invented them. In Bali (and some other islands) each gamelan instrument is believed to be imbued with a spirit. So should someone in Second Life comment upon an “exotic” item, such as a gamelan instrument, perhaps the Second Life role player could work the instrument’s heritage into the story - the elves brought it across the ocean on a magic cloud from the Spice Islands (Indonesia) - or whatever. Or just don’t comment at all. Whatever floats your boat. But blatantly and loudly denying someone else’s history is much worse than offensive. It’s just wrong. The Balinese believe in karma, and they believe in the spirits of their instruments. So think twice before denying an important aspect of a culture’s identity. Or the universe may bite you in the butt.