It's Saint Lucio's Day

And it's December 13th again, which means its the annual day for celebrating the saint Lucia from Syracuse in some of the Nordic countries.

In the Commonwealth of Southern Enchantment the day has been masculinized to Saint Lucio's day. This is the day when the laird runs around in the traditional white garb of the saint and wears the appropriate headdress with candles.

For those who wish to witness a more traditional Swedish Saint Lucia pageant you have the opportunity later today at Kicki's Jetty.

Kicki Springflower invites you all to her jetty for a proper Saint Lucia pageant at 1 PM SLT. After the pageant there will be some frivolous dancing.

Your sledge to Kicki's Jetty (SLurl).

The Yadkin Valley Festival 2013

Free ride to the Yadkin Valley Festival 2013

The Yadkin Valley Festival is the Woodstock or Roskilde festival of SecondLife. Hopefully there will be lots of rain and a muddy camping site to make for wonderful memories in the future. The camping site opened on Thursday, you can borrow or set up your own tent for the weekend.

This is a party lasting all weekend with loads of live artists and other entertainment going on all the time. Events are announced in the SecondLife group Iendis Transistor.

Confirmed live artists are Bara Jonson & Free Balan, Oldwolf Criss, Hazie Moonwall and Lisa Brune. DJ Apollon, DJ Rultan, DJ Ikaros, DJ Kicki and DJ Alf will all have parties Fishing Tournament and other prestigious competitions.

Listen in on the festivalradio at http://64.34.170.177:19150

The Yadkin Valley Festival

My ex-missus and friend Iendi Laville and my friend Gittrika Mint have joined forces and with the help of a few more friends organized an autumn festival.

The program

FRIDAY (times below are CET until I take the time to change the to SLT)
20:30 Inauguration of the stage next to Bounce Bar
20:30 Rola Hykova on the same stage
22:00 DJ Apollon at the Bounce Bar

SATURDAY
10:00 Melodikrysset (a Swedish radio crossword puzzle program not recommended for International guests) at the campsite. It is of course good to just come and hang out also
11:00 Festival Radio. Rattle and music with Iendi and her guests
13:00 aake Roffo will be in place at the Yadkin Exhibition to show the current exhibition. One of the artists may be in place.
17:00 Festival radio transmits Aake´s fairy tale "The Princess and the Frog". You should expect a discussion after the program. The fairy tale will also be broadcast after the events on Friday and Saturday.
19:00 DJ Betty at La Grenouille
21:00 DJ Ikaros at La Grenouille
22:00 AM Quar at Gitts Club
23:00 DJ Kicki on the deck

SUNDAY
12:00 Bright Oh on stage at La Grenouille
13:00 Discs with coffee at the campsite
15:00 Festival radio broadcast replay of interviews with Rola Hykova and Bara Jonson
19:00 Bara Jonson & Free Balan at Gitt´s Club
20:00 Torben Asp on stage at La Grenouille
21:00 DJ Rultan at "The Mushroom"
23:00 Urban Harvy on stage at La Grenouille
24.00 Talk into the night at the campsite. If you hear someone snoring in separate tents it will be Gitt and Iendi. (Wouldn't it be even more interesting if we could hear the two girls snoring from the same tent, my comment)

Iendi and Gitt welcome you all to have a fun weekend with them!

For updates or changes in programming please check The Yadkin Post

We Owe Them Gratitude - SEMA 2011

Day in and day out, week after week and all year long they work tirelessly to give the rest of us in the Swedish community in SecondLife, and our International friends, a possibility to meet, chat, dance, listen to music, meditate and have a good time together.

We owe these avatars loads of gratitude and love for doing that!

Apollon Allen, Vira Broome and NE0 Timeless got together and created "The Swedish Event Makers Award" (SEMA). The purpose of the SEMA is to celebrate the creative and committed avatars for their efforts during the past year.

"The only thing wrong with the SEMA", said the Much Honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm and prince of Cascade Falls in an interview to CNN today, "is that I didn't come up with the damn excellent idea myself. Of course I will be there - and in full colors - to give back a little to all these these wonderful people!"

Ms Gittrika Mint : Proprietor of Måndagsbörsen (The Monday Exchange) where she has a theme party every Monday evening. She also runs Greenroom on Wednesdays for formal dances.
The Monday Exchange (SLurl)

Ms Iendi Laville: Proprietor of La Grenouille Inn where she throws parties with live music and also proprietor of the inworld radio channel "The Swedish Transistor".
YADKIN VALLEY (SLurl)

Mrs Vampi Twine-DeSantis-McMillan (honorary) and Sergeant at Arms sirhc DeSantis-McMillan (adopted) owners of Club OrmDricka (by the laird and his clan lovingly referred to as OD) where they throw parties - with or without themes - every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
ORMDRICKA (SLurl)

The Connemara Hills collective: (Mrs. Rultan Zeppelin, Mrs Blanche Argus, Mr. Peppe & Mrs Trulte Firecaster who own and operate Connemara Hills together) The collective has a Celtic evening every month and arranges meditation sessions every Friday.
CONNEMARA HILLS (SLurl)

Princess Midnattsdotter Fride, lovingly referred to as Mid or Fride: owner and operator of the Frides Club & Lounge, where she has events once a week with International DJ:s and Fride Live with International Live Musicians once a month (this was the venue where the laird heard the awesome Strum Diesel the very first time)

LEGOLAS SIM (SLurl)

Mrs Ewa Aska: Proprietor of Viking land of Birka where the theme is mostly viking, but she also arranges Bollywood parties once in awhile. (Earlier venues have been Vadstena Castle and The Ice Hotel - ahhhh all the great memories I have of that beautiful venue)
VIKING LAND (SLurl)

Ms Kicki Spingflower : Proprietor of "Club Kicki´s Jetty" where she has tea dances in the mornings and nude parties on Fridays.
KICKI´S JETTY (SLurl)

Ms Fia Wycliffe: Proprietor of Fia´s Porch Club where she - usually on Fridays - throws parties that are called "Friday cozy ups"
FIA´S PORCH (SLurl)

Mr Alfdeejay Cooper: Proprietor of the Avalon Club & Garden Beach and Xanadu Club. At Xanadu Club the theme is usually ´80s or Disco. He also owns and operates the radio channel Alfdeejay Radio around the clock.

AVALON (SLurl) and XANADU (SLurl)

Mr Ix Heron: Proprietor of Euroclub, where he DJ´s himself on the theme Eurovision. .
EUROCLUB (SLurl)

Ms Jini Shearer: Co-proprietor of the September Rainforest which is a sim filled with romance, beautiful waterfalls and a dance floor in the middle of the jungle (great for dating and marriages)
SEPTEMBER RAIN (SLurl)

Be there or be square!
...and for the love of everything that is important to you lets show them all our love and gratitude by having FUN!

What: The SEMA 2011
When Saturday February 4, 2012, 1 PM - 3 PM SLT
Where: Fallen Gods Club (SLurl) (Reopening of the club)
Who: Everyone who wants to see Swedes go crazy is invited
Clothing: Gala/Formal (which means tartan for me)
Host/DJ: Apollon Allen

All Time High

July 2011 was a record breaking month for "Bock in SecondLife" with a total of 12 477 page views. The previous record was set in January 2011 with 10 041 page views.

Countries share for July 2011

As evidenced above I owe huge gratitude to Kicki Springflower for "the Egyptian invasion" which I have mentioned in an earlier post (url).

I would like to thank all my readers - old and new - for your continued support!

The Kicki-effect

I have told you earlier about my observations about the surprisingly increased amount of visitors from Egypt.

Here are some graphs to show you the evidence.

This is what my friends from Egypt and most of the other Arabic speaking visitors come to my blog for; Kicki Springflower in Naked Avatars in SL 102.

I wish someone could explain to me what "Nakny in Wuxi" means.

Egyptian Invasion

Lately I have had a lot of traffic to this blog from Egypt.

 

I couldn't understand why and perhaps still don´t, but this post Nakna Avatarer i SL 102 is what they come here for. They find it when they do a search for "ناكني في كسي", which according to my Google Translator means "Nakny in Wuxi" in English and "Nakny i Wuxi" in Swedish. The problem is that both of the translations are totally meaningless to me.

The post shows my friend Kicki Springflower posing for my art and peace project last year called "Naked avatars in SL" (Well as I was still writing in Swedish then so it was "Nakna avatarer i SL".)

Kicki was pregnant with her first avtatar child at the time but still graciously agreed to participate in my project.

The Wedding of Kicki and Detron

As I told you yesterday I was on my way to a wedding in SecondLife. My friend, the always charming, funny and beautiful, Kicki Springflower was going to marry her Detron Soern.

This is not Kicki´s first marriage in SecondLife, as we discussed and had fun with when she sent me this invitation. But as we both agreed, we have to do what we must do when the guy we happened to marry turns out to be a creep. In our conversation I even suggested she should perhaps let me screen the guys in the future, but to that she responded with great confidence that "Detron is a keeper!".

Well I don´t know Detron at all, except for seeing a discussion he had once in the Swedish chat where he held his ground and argued his case well without becoming abusive. After my conversation with Kicki I thought to myself that I better give him a fast screening to check if he passed the "Bock test of men, geeks, creeps and douche bags". So I made sure to get to the church early...

This test is a sort of quick litmus test loosely based on my Ars adage "Action not words". I engage the subject in conversation and study what happens carefully. It´s not so much what they say - even if that is also important - but how they say it, what they do and how they interact with myself and people around us.

The wedding was taking place at the most wonderful church I have seen yet in SecondLife,  "Stavkirken" in Second Norway. The church was beautifully decorated for the occasion.

When I arrived the groom was already there (+10 points) waiting at the altar with his best man. So I dived into the testing straight away by engaging him in conversation and seeing how he handled it.

Let me just say, Detron passed the test with flying colors. He scored 93 points of the total 100. To my great relief I can therefore report that I agree with Kicki, this man is a keeper for sure!

And then the most important person of any wedding arrived, the beautiful bride. Kicki was wearing a stunning - albeit a little daring - wedding gown. I first managed to get a picture of her outside the church and then we see her walking up the isle to her groom.

The reverend Herman Bergson was officiating at the ceremony. Almost everything went well, but the good reverend should in the future always remember to make sure his manuscript is updated and includes the correct names of the bride and groom.

However Detron handled the reverend´s "faux pas" marvelously and saved us all from greater embarrassment by inserting his own name. (+10 bonus points as this happened after the official testing had been concluded.)

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the invitation Kicki and Detron, I had a wonderful time! I wish you both all the happiness in the world. To Kicki, I would like to add, "Nice catch, gurl!"

It´s A Boy

Here we see the beautiful Kicki Springflower with her newborn son in her arms and her dazed hubby Hercules.

Poor Hercules had to be there while the baby boy was born, thats what you get for being a modern man.

According to all reports the mother and child are doing well. It is more uncertain if the father will ever recuperate fully from this traumatic experience. The doctors seem to avoid questions about this matter!

The newborn son is named Simon.

The Wedding of Kicki and Hercules

The bride and groom at the altar

Protesters?

Yesterday I was honored to be a guest at the wedding of Kicki Springflower and her handsome lover Hercules.

The church, Stavkirken in Second Norway, was packed with the glitterati of the Scandinavian communities with some interesting International additions. Stavkirken is a beautiful jewel of architecture in SecondLife and all the guests did their best to match it. Most of us actually succeeded, except for a guy who kept his hat on inside the church.

It was a very beautiful ceremony and the declarations of love between the bride and groom were touching and heartwarming.

The lag was surprisingly horrendous as we were no more than 45 people on the sim. I don´t really experience lag very often in SecondLife although it is a common complaint. I took a few pictures - as you see above, but the only one close to acceptable is the one at the top of this post, but if you look closely on that you see three guests standing in crucifixion poses.On all the rest there were "Grey people" as witnessed by the picture to the right.

I at first thought this was Ms. Blanche Argus and some friends protesting against "marriage being a patriarchal form of slavery for women", but when I interviewed her on this she vehemently denied it and claimed that she and her bench-mates were in fact all sitting down..

Well as I always say, "Lag is a state of mind, don´t blame it on the Lindens!" I had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony. For better pictures I suggest you visit some of the other Scandinavian SecondLife blogs. I was sorry I could not attend the party afterwards but reports say that it was great fun with Ms. Ewa Aska and Ms. Rultan Zeppelin as hostesses and the amazing DJ PJ.

Kicki and Hercules, you made me proud by the way you both handled the difficult situation, I wish you both all the best for the future! As the SecondLife saying goes "If the wedding has bad lag but the sim doesn't crash it will be a long and prosperous marriage!" (Well, I just made that up, but there should be such a saying.)

P.S. I hope a bosom buddy of mine notices that I carefully avoided to include any picture of a certain reverend/philosopher in the pictures above.

Nakna avatarer 102

Moderskap och kvinnor i "välsignat tillstånd" har varit ett motiv inom kulter och konsten ända sedan stenåldern.  Det gläder mig därför mycket att jag idag kan infoga även detta uråldriga motiv i min bildserie.

Ett stort tack till Kicki Springflower för att hon ville dela med sig av dessa vackra och rörande bilder.

Vad vore vi utan de starka kvinnor vi omges av. De präglar, påverkar, styr, leder, fostrar och berör oss alla och kommer alltid att göra det.

Modern är möjligen en av de ursprungligaste kvinnorollerna men den har fortfarande sitt berättigande vid sidan av hustrun, älskarinnan, vännen, arbetskamraten, chefen, politikern, prästen, läkaren, forskaren och konstnären.

Så länge vår samhällsstruktur systematiskt tillåter negativ särbehandling av halva befolkningen när det gäller makt, inflytande och belöning så har vi misslyckats. 

Så länge vi som samhälle fortsätter att acceptera, tillåta och möjliggöra mäns våld mot kvinnor måste alla män bära en del av den kollektiva skulden och skammen för att detta förekommer.

Starka och självständiga kvinnor behövs i varje samhälle som vill utvecklas.

...och om nån nu tror att detta bara handlar om RL så öppna ögon och se kvinnoförtrycket som florerar i alla möjliga och omöjliga former i SL! Läs exempelvis det inlägg som sirhc DeSantis berättar om på sin blogg "dirty nails" i detta inlägg. Jag spydde och grät av skam och ilska efter att ha läst det.

Nakna avatarer i SL 80

I detta läckra bidrag låter Kicki Springflower och Maffe Carlberg oss vara med en förtrolig och nära stund när de myser på sängen under en vacker och varm sommardag (en sådan som vi här i södra Sverige längtar mycket efter just nu).

Jadå, ni är fortfarande välkomna att skicka era bidrag till mig antingen inworld eller till min mejl lundamats@gmail.com
Yes, you are still welcome to send your contributions to me either inworld or to my mail lundamats@gmail.com