I Survived Disco - Again

Saturday morning rolled inexorably toward me, and it was time for another Breakfast in Babbage, with His DJness, the Duke of Argyll, Edward Pearse. Or at least that's what I thought. But he looked...different:

The white suit, wide lapels, shirt open to the waist, large pendant, and all that chest hair could mean only one thing: yes, disco.

My typist was in junior high school during disco's heyday, so I dodged the tsunami of dance-friendly bass lines, cheezy synthesizers, and feel-good lyrics, though I was hit with a few smaller waves. As I commented on Saturday, I owned Rick Dees' "Disco Duck" on cassette tape (and no, not 8-track, as some whippersnapper suggested), along with "A Fifth of Beethoven," by Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band. To this day, I can't hear "dah-dah-dah-daaaaa" without hearing the disco beat kick in afterward. Medication has helped, though.

Below, Miss Bookworm Hienrichs and Miss Grace Toussaint.


Speaking of whippersnappers, Miss Toussaint commented that disco was something else to hold against her parents' generation. Ouch! I certainly felt old!

Mr. Pearse dug deep in his closet to find the musical equivalent of platform shoes and glitter balls to find such classics as the disco Star Wars theme, "Stayin' Alive," "Can't Stop the Music," "Play that Funky Music White Boy," "Dancing Queen," and Hot Butter's "Popcorn."

Below, Mr. Elilka Sieyes and Miss Breezy Carver, looking very Studio 54:


Beyond the, er, classics, Mr. Pearse found some more obscure cuts, including the Hee Bee Gee Bees with "Meaningless Songs (in Very High Voices)," a priceless Bee Gees parody (and apparently big in Australia). And what Breakfast in Babbage would be complete without a Weird Al song; this time the Master graced us with "I Lost on Jeopardy."


I do my best Travolta move:


The 'Fro Twins, Mr. Blackberry Harvey and Mr. Jimmy Branagh, the latter looking like Huey from "The Boondocks," had Huey been born about thirty years earlier.


The era certainly gave us a lot of catchy tunes!


See the entire set of twenty-odd photos from the event here . Miss Hienrichs' photos can be seen here.

New Land for Old

I saw the note from Mr. Maklin Deckard that Deckard and Quinn had reorganized their inventory, so I flew to Caledon Prime in the Steamray.

En route, I saw a fine mansion that I had not before noticed, immediately to the west of Dame Ordinal's former establishment, with a fine view of Steam Sky City. This turned out to be Centre Court, the private home of Miss Victorian Magic, still adorned with red, white, and blue bunting to celebrate the founding of a fictional nation. (Such commemorations are common in the Steamlands; whether this is a shared delusion or a shared joke is unclear to me, as I am not a native Caledonian.) Miss Magic's lands continued to the north, encompassing additional fine views toward Westmoreland, an enclosed gazebo providing shelter from the weather while still affording the opportunity to see a magnificent Caledonian sunset. This land appears to be the site of a ruined church, doubtless an artifact of the earliest days of Caledon.




I was distracted once again in my quest to reach Deckard & Quinn by a sight on the other side of the grassy quadrangle that is the Vannevar Bush Memorial Reading Garden. Near the Caledon Athletic Club and FizzWorks, adjacent to the Welcome Centre, stands a frightening sight, and I am afraid my poor daguerreotype does not do it justice. Owned by a Mr. Grundz Ditko and dubbed Cultus Mechanicus, the store is a paean to the mechanical man.

Indeed, inscribed on a plate on the outside of the store is a poem that reads, in part:

Toll the Great Bell Thrice!
Sing Praise to the
God of All Machines

At last I reached my original destination. I went about my business, then returned to the airship, sitting in a state of readiness on the great lawn of Mr. Drinkwater's library annex. (My apologies for scorching the grass.)


The Steamray has an excellent radar system, and it signalled the presence of a heretofore unknown coastal region (though my records indicate that it was the site of Pangur Ban). I consulted my portable Difference Engine, which had updated the navigational maps before I departed. This, it seemed, was the Coastal Duchy of Caledon Llyr. The Engine went on to report that it is owned by one M. Tao Mistwalker, a shapeshifter by nature, who describes the area as: "A wild and magical land on the western border of Caledon, an explorer's last stop before sailing off into the sunset and the open sea. Llyr offers the occasional traveler a welcome respite from the hectic pace of the more 'civilized' lands to the East."

I landed and explored the area, which is still quite primitive. As I entered the stone circle depicted above, I was assailed by small rockets, most of which exploded in mid-air, raining down upon me small bits of shrapnel. Although this did not seem to be the most economical way of killing me, it seemed it could be effective, so I beat a hasty retreat back to the safety of my ship. It then occurred to me that the display was probably another celebration of the fictional "United States of America," rather than a trap for unsuspecting visitors. Nonetheless, I had overstayed my welcome, and fired my engines to return to the "civilized" East.

Farewell to the Greenies

Wednesday, June 23, was the last day for the Rezzable sim The Greenies.* I had visited eons ago, enjoyed the whimsical sense of humor, and had not been back since. However, I wanted to pay it one last visit.

Upon arriving, once again shrunk down to miniature size, I found that the sim had changed quite a bit in the preceding year and a half. For one thing, the arrival point provided some context as to how these unfortunate creatures found themselves stranded in a house: their spaceship crashed.

When not wreaking havoc, they lived in a dollhouse. Note the "Heritage Key" on the child's letter board, the first (but most certainly not the last) reference to Rezzable's Open Sim creation.


Ah, the joys of Hot Wheels! This one is about to become hotter than usual.


Note the Heritage Key image on the laptop:


And, though it's hard to see, the monitor in the background is showing the Heritage Key web site. Meanwhile, the Greenie who has managed to get the Coke bottle unscrewed is about to enjoy a sticky treat.


Even the purse holds a Heritage Key-related book. I wonder what the Greenie is listening to on the iPod? Aimee Mann's "Lost in Space"?


Ah, the triumph of ingenuity!


* At least, it was supposed to be the last day. As of this writing, it's still on the map, populated with plenty of green dots. An encore performance, perhaps?

Austral: A Rival on the Border?

Billboards went up in Caledon, followed by advertisements in The Steamlander: land for sale in a place named Austral. The notices were signed by one Alix Stoanes, who styled himself Governor-General of Austral. A warlord, masquerading as a benign leader?* This bore further scrutiny.**

I walked briskly to the Downs airfield, took the Steamray out of the hangar, and took off due south, toward SouthEnd. After skirting Kintyre and flying through Caer Firnas, I found myself in Austral Tasman, the western of the two Austral lands.

Few structures were evident, though signs of construction were all around me. The fine bridge depicted below connected two land masses.

The clock tower served as a landmark for miles around.

As the sky darkened, an automated trolley passed though. I matched speeds with it, flying dangerously low to the ground.


At least the Governor-General appears to be a religious man, as one of the first structures was this chapel.


Still, what is the purpose of claiming this body of land so close to Caledon? If something such as this naval vessel should appear in the harbor, my suspicion will be heightened that the Governor-General has grander designs on an empire. Rest assured that I shall keep a watchful eye on this part of the world, and I implore the RCAF to do the same.

*Mr. Stoanes also mysteriously fashions himself the "Archduke of Piers." Never trust an Archduke, as they think they're one step above a run-of-the-mill Duke.

**I hope this goes without saying, but Mr. Stoanes should not take this post personally. It's meant to be in character, and in good fun. 'Kay?

The Great Race

A motley collection of riders assembled for the start of the Great Race on Saturday, to benefit RFL. By land, sea, and air, they raced for bragging rights, to say they beat the best. (Why, that would be lag, of course.)

I decided that the safest spot would be in an airship, hovering above the start line in Eyre.

Mrs. Fogwoman Gray-Volare started the race.


Mr. Garth Goode considered racing on a pachyderm, though he later switched to a more traditional horse.

Miss Soliel Snook (below, center), Captains Wrath Constantine and Rachire Andel, Emperor SteelCobra Calamari, Mr. Denny Kozlov, Miss Stereo Nacht, Miss Kimika Ying, and Mr. Podruly Peccable all vied for the prizes as well. Miss Garnet Psaltery and Miss Aevalle Galicia were spectators at the start, and Mr. Vivito Volare assisted with the operation.

See Mr. Goode's photographs of the start of the event here .

I kept up as well as I could. Captain Andel took an early lead, and then a disruption in the space-time continuum must have occurred, for I lost the group...they were never seen again, though I heard some further reports via subspace radio, so I can only hope they survived.

Actually, Captain Andel was declared the winner with a time of 26.82 minutes; Miss Ying was a close second. Congratulations to the Captain, and to all the participants!

Ho-Hum, Another Birthday Come and Gone

Not mine - bite your tongues! I refer to Second Life's birthday celebration. By the time this posts, I strongly suspect that SL7B will be history. I don't really know the dates - certainly I could look them up, but the uncertainty reflects the casual attitude the Lab seems to have taken this year. I was around for the fifth and sixth year birthday bashes, and they seem to be getting steadily less bashier. I recall I was bombarded with notices about number five, and was made aware of the starting and ending dates of number six. This time? I wouldn't have known it was underway but for reports of yet another SL birthday controversy.

(For what it's worth: I fail to see the connection between a naked Barbie doll (add the TM if you like) and attracting the attention of the child-molesting Bad Element. And, as others have noted, the situation did not seem to be handled well. But I digress.)

Mr. Carl Metropolitan mentioned that Caledon's Oxbridge gateway was represented at SL7B, so I thought I should pay my respects. It's a small but stylish structure clearly modeled after Oxbridge's architecture, flying the flag, with some information about Oxbridge classes inside.


In looking around the Oxbridge build, however, all I found was a hodgepodge of...stuff. I can't recall if SL5B had a particular theme, but I do recall large, elaborate builds, including Caledon's. For SL6B, the theme had to do with the future, and the builds made some effort to fit within the theme. Now - well, look below.

There are birthday cakes. So far, so good. Is that a plywood roof behind it? Hard to tell, but why risk making your roof look like you can't apply a texture to a flat surface?


Dunno who the people in the foreground are, but they apparently like soccer. Or football, as everyone else says. All very confusing, really. If the inventors of American football could have just called it "American rugby," or "painful yard-by-yard gains" or something, we could have saved "football" for soccer and been on the same page with the rest of the world. Then again, would that mean we would have to have adopted the metric system? Because, frankly, it hurts my head when people elsewhere in the world say things like "Boy, is it hot today! It must be nearly 33 degrees." But I digress again. The large hotel-like structure to the right of the Oxbridge build looks impressive, but the view is marred by the Lego-looking building to its right, and the medieval tower to the right of that.


Moving a little further afield, there's the Time Capsule exhibit in the foreground - except that, as text floating in the air kept telling me, it's not really the Time Capsule, that I have to do something else to get there. And the swirly thing doesn't really scream time capsule at me. Behind it is a large emerald structure from the good folks at, naturally the Emerald viewer. It showed off the developers and probably had more to it than that, but by then the lag was starting to get to me and, let's face it, it's a big green thing - not terribly inspiring.

I slogged a little further. The guy below was pretty inspiring, in a cute Saturday morning cartoon character way. Not sure who he was, though. I did like the scaly texture on him.

I came away feeling uninspired, which I'm sure was not the intent. Maybe it's the event, maybe I was just in a bad mood that night. I dunno.

National Loathing

As the U.S. heads into the July 4 weekend, one might take the time to reflect on, say, the liberties that we enjoy, or the shared values that we embrace. One might think it odd to use the occasion to lament that independence from Great Britain means we can't get a decent cup of tea; we have many other days in the year in which to embrace the glass-half-empty philosophy.

Yet the leader of a well-known Steampunk band chose to retweet the following: "In the US, the idea of a female president still weirds many out. Iceland's female prime minister just married her girlfriend." Perhaps the first sentence is true, though it lacks any firm empirical basis. Personally, I'd be delighted by a competent female President, though choosing a political leader on the basis of gender (or race, I might add) seems to be a poor method.* Let me concede that gender (or race) matters to some voters. There's no accounting for tastes. (This explains why Air Supply was once popular.)

The second sentence of the tweet was news to me, but let me applaud briefly and say "Yay, score one for love." I don't care for politicians, but that's no reason they shouldn't get married, whether here or in Iceland. But what am I to make of the juxtaposition of the two sentences? That the U.S. should be more like Iceland because voters in the latter country are willing to elect a woman? Or a lesbian? Or that Iceland permits gay marriage? Perhaps I'm reading too much into two brief sentences, but this seems an example of an unhealthy line of thinking that seems all too commonplace. "I dislike my country because many of its residents don't think like me." How sad for those people.

Now excuse me while I brew myself an all-American cup of Assam tea in my Caledon tea mug.

* Not to digress too badly, but I find it disconcerting when pundits suggest that women and racial or ethnic minorities are supposed to vote according to gender, race, or ethnicity. It's demeaning. We have an African American President precisely because the racial majority did not vote according to race, yet the minority is supposed to let skin color factor into the decision? Tsk, tsk.

Virtual Harlem

While noodling about one day, I stumbled across Virtual Harlem, a reimagining of New York City's Harlem neighborhood in the 1920s and 30s.

Harlem (originally Nieuw Haarlem, after the Dutch town of the same name) runs from 110th to 155th Streets the width of Manhatten, from the East River to the Hudson River. East of Central Park, the area down to 96th Street is also considered part of Harlem (now Spanish Harlem). The area was settled by the Dutch in the mid-17th century and was taken by the English in 1664. For many decades the area was mainly farmland, with rich soil supporting large plantations. The population of Manhattan was largely confined to the southern part of the island, and connections between the population and Harlem were poor.

In the mid-19th century, as the land became depleted, Harlem's fortunes declined. The elevated rail line was extended to Harlem in the 1880s, which helped revive the area. After several boom and bust cycles in the housing market, blacks started moving into the area in large numbers in the early part of the 20th century, bolstered by the large black migration out of the South. In time, Harlem became the center of black culture in New York City, famous for entertainment venues such as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater.

Virtual Harlem has its version of the Cotton Club, which featured the leading black entertainers of the time, such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Cab Calloway (though famously denying entry to black patrons).

The Apollo Theater was where Ella Fitzgerald got her start, and featured other black performers. The theater also featured vaudeville acts.


The Virtual Harlem build has a number of fine brownstone buildings, such as the fire house - now an art museum - depicted below...

...as well as the library (which contains reference materials about the area).


I'm no expert on what the area looks like today, much less in the first half of the 20th century, but the build seems to lack a certain cohesiveness. Sidewalks and streets give way to grassy areas that seem out of place. Rather than seeing a section of a city, it appears more of a collection of buildings. And, unfortunately, like so much of the grid, it was nearly entirely deserted during my visits.

Review: Changeless, by Gail Carriger (2010)

Taking up some time after the events of Soulless left off, Gail Carriger’s sequel brings back the gang: the too-dark-to-be-fashionable Alexia Tarabotti, now Lady Maccon; her werewolf husband, Connall Maccon; his valet, Tunstell; Alexia’s fashion-challenged friend, Ivy Hisselpenny; and stylish vampire Lord Akeldama. Parasols and tea continue to play important supporting roles. As the book opens, Alexia must deal with a pack of werewolves camped out on her husband’s property, having just returned from Her Majesty’s service abroad. At the same time, a mysterious zone appears, inside which all supernormal beings – werewolves, vampires, and ghosts – revert to their human form and are unable to change. When the pack leaves, the affected area returns to normal.

Rather than investigate this as part of his duties in the Bureau of Unnatural Registry, Lord Maccon abruptly takes off for Scotland, where he was once the Alpha of another werewolf pack. Alexia, seeking answers to both her husband’s absence and the power that renders the supernormal changeless, hires an airship to take her to Scotland as well. Unfortunately, she has to contend with several other passengers: her annoying, dimwitted sister, Felicity; her friend Ivy; and a French milliner-cum-inventor, Madame Lefoux, from whom Lord Maccon has commissioned a special parasol for Alexia. Intrigue abounds on the trip: Ivy and Lord Maccon’s valet, Tunstell, are clearly in love with one another, but Tunstell is an actor (and wants to become a werewolf), and thus is a most unsuitable match for Ivy. Felicity, who wants to be married, makes a play for Tunstell. Alexia’s French maid, Angelique, clearly knows Madame Lefoux, but will not explain why she distrusts the other woman. Alexia believes Madame Lefoux to be a spy, but is oddly attracted to her despite her mannish clothing. (As an aside: the fraction of gay characters in these books is reaching the level of Tipping the Velvet.)

Several attempts on Alexia’s life later, the group lands in Scotland, reunites with Lord Maccon, and reaches the castle belonging to his former pack, where they receive a chilly reception. Now leading the pack is a formidable battleaxe of a woman named Sidheag Maccon – Connall’s daughter. Alexia realizes that her husband has neglected to tell her a number of important facts about his past.

In between discovering what has been interfering with the ability of the supernormals to change form, discovering who has made attempts to kill Alexia, resolving the problem of the Scottish pack, and determining various loyalties, Lord and Lady Maccon find a fair amount of time to…well, it is a romance novel, after all. Alexia seems more eager than resigned to perform her “wifely duties,” as she put it, and to deal with the recurring problem of having her nightgown wind up on the floor. (Another aside: if one marries a studly werewolf, one has to expect that sort of thing to occur, it would seem.)

The thing about sequels is that the characters and setting are familiar. It’s more of the same, and, should the reader have enjoyed the earlier books in the series, the likelihood is high that the reader will enjoy the next one. At the same time, the author runs a risk that the series becomes stale because each book is a too-faithful repeat of the last. (Much as I loved Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series, the last dozen or more fell into that category, wherein entire scenes seemed transplanted from one book to the next.) Changeless has some common elements with its predecessor: the lust-fueled romance between Alexia and her husband, Miss Hisselpenny’s horrid hats, the bickering between Alexia and the rest of her family, the rivalry between the werewolves and the vampires. (A third aside: if this reminds you of a certain other series of books and movies, disabuse yourself of the notion. For starters, no one glitters in sunlight.) Carriger’s dry wit and keen sense of the absurdity of Victorian fashions and social customs is a highlight of both books, and the very practical Alexia is a wonderful creation. This book has more plot and less dewy-eyed will-they-or-won’t-they romance than its predecessor, which is a good thing. The plot seemed more fully-developed than in Soulless, perhaps because having defined the main characters fully in the previous book allowed more of this book to be spent in plot development.

What’s not to like? For starters, Carriger makes little pretense at using Victorian language consistently. For every “What is the meaning of this, wife?” from Lord Maccon we have a dozen anachronistic phrases. I am untroubled by it, but others may be put off by that writing style. (A final aside: Carriger was a guest on the live-from-Balticon version of Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing podcast, along with writer Matt Wallace and songwriter John Anealio. During the discussion, Carriger made the honest but somewhat distressing comment that she wrote to sell books, and she’d make any changes that an editor suggested as long as she thought the changes would sell more books. Can’t we at least pretend that a successful author is willing to fight for her artistic vision? Otherwise, writers are just tradesmen who work in their pajamas.) Then there is the cliffhanger ending, which has disturbed a number of reviewers. I’m not a big fan of cliffhangers, and one certainly could have ended the book several pages earlier and dealt with the new material at the start of the next book, but I don’t think Carriger has been unfair to her readers. She wraps up fully the main plot lines, and one can think of the additional material as a little teaser to whet the appetite for Blameless. Who can blame an author for that?

Gorey Ball for RFL (take 2)

(Note of explanation: I should learn not to try new things late at night. I had taken so many pictures that I thought it best to set up a Flickr account and upload the pictures there. So far, so good. Then I saw that Flickr allowed me to link to my Blogger account and actually post a Journal entry via Flickr. How wonderful! I thought, only to have my hopes dashed by discovering that I could link to one and only one picture that way. By then it was a little on the late side, so I thought I'd write a little text and fix it the next evening, only to find that the picture was the only thing displaying on the Difference Engine's screen. It was the lovely picture of the lovely Mrs. Fogwoman Gray-Volare below, but still, there was text accompanying it, and a link to Flickr. Ah well. Consequently, Take 2, the Old-Fashioned Way.)

On Sunday evening, Mrs. Volare held a ball to benefit RFL, choosing as a theme the American writer and illustrator Edward Gorey, whose black-and-white, vaguely Victorian illustrations made him famous. (Perhaps his most visible contribution was the drawings for the opening sequence of the PBS Mystery! series.)

The dance area was creatively decked out in Gorey fashion (courtesy, I am told, by the esteemed Mr. Vivito Volare who, alas, could not be in attendance Sunday night).




Mrs. Volare, our hostess:

Miss Garnet Psaltery, dressing the part to a T:

Caledon RFL co-captain Mr. Lucien Brentano, in a black-and-white striped suit:

Also daring white as well as black, your humble scribe:

Miss Martini Discovolante:

Miss Serra Weatherwax, scaring innocent partygoers enough to require the emergency bloomers (to steal a line from the Clockwork Cabaret):


These and still other daguerrotypes are available here.

Miss Magdalena Kamenev provided the music, offering a selection of jazz tunes from the 1930s or thereabouts.