I headed back to Corona Cay this morning to check and see whether I’d actually leased a parcel of virtual real estate or if it had all been a dream. Not only were the RV and campfire exactly where I left them but there was also a lovely pink lawn flamingo planted firmly in the sand. Checking the item’s properties revealed that it was a welcoming gift from one of the area’s managers: Keeme Brown.
Within moments I was joined by Keeme and Itazura Radio who is Corona Cay’s designer and owner. I’ve known both of these guys for more than four years. Even in text chat, they were as warm, friendly and encouraging as I remember them from my previous stints at Corona Cay.
It took me a few minutes to get the voice chat functioning but once I did we really began catching up. I told them my story about getting stuck in the sand on my way to a digital sotrytelling summer camp. I’m not exactly sure what they made of that – Second Life is a place where reality’s borders are both fluid and porous.
But I think I really scrambled Keeme’s feedback when I told him that my main reason for returning to SL was because of my recent discovery of how well it works as a word processor. As I think about it now, this whole methodology does seem a bit peculiar.
The desk I’m seated at is inside an old gypsy wagon I picked up ages ago which itself is on a sky-platform 500 meters above the Winnebago, campfire and pink lawn flamingos. The reel-to-reel tapedeck to my left is one fo the first objects I built in Second Life.
My plan at the time was to have the red light flash and tape reels spin while interviewing other avatars for what would have been part of some sort of podcast or radio project. In fact, it was Itazurra who explained the process about animating the action with a scrpt placed in the object.
It’s pretty weird to think back on all of this stuff now. Even weirder and extremely cool is something Keeme told me. Turns out he and other members of the community are in the midst of embarking on a series of creative media and performance projects. There’s a whole bunch of digital story telling going on here, just as there is at Camp Magic MacGuffin.
And for some reason, I’m suddenly jonesing for a peanut butter cup. I wonder if that means anything….
