There's a hair in our cake

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

That Pandora Wrigglesworth has struck again. I'm still chuckling, even as I type.

The annual Hair Fair 2009 in Second Life® is a massive (hairy?) affair that just about everyone loves, despite that fact that it lags us nearly to death (attendance is sky-high), but we like it especially because it benefits Locks of Love, the charitable organization that provides hairpieces to children suffering from hair loss due to chemotherapy and other medical reasons.

Now, Pandora is known for her utterly surreal, over-the-top and laughter-inducing creations and her exclusive coiffs for the fair do not disappoint.

She writes:

"None of these styles will be available until the fair opens and, for the duration of the fair, will only be available at the fair."


The "Lampshade Hairstyle"

"Why choose between glamour and frivolity? You can have both and be the life of every party! When you walk in with Lampshade hairstyle, you are sure to light up the room!

Lights up just like a Real Lamp! Just tug on the single spring curl beside your right ear.

Hide in plain sight from Stupid People!"


The Let Them Eat Cake Off Of Your Head! style

"The people may be revolting but don't hold it against them. Let them eat cake with the Let The Eat Cake Off Of Your Head hairstyle! Treat your guests to six delicious varieties of cake, artfully arranged within a tower of lavish curls and garnished with delicate flowers.

People can help themselves to any of the three cakes you are currently wearing simply by touching the cake they want. Forks and plates are complimentary."

Hostess and Buffet in One!

The most SCRUMPTIOUS hairstyle ever!

Infinite Cake!

The Cake Menu includes:
- Chocolate Cake
- Strawberry Shortcake
- Carrot Cake
- Cherry Cheesecake
- Red Velvet Cake
- Birthday Cake

It seems we can expect three hairstyles from Pandora, and we haven't seen the third yet. I am all anticipation!


Photographs by Pandora Wrigglesworth.

(Virtual) Prostheses!!!

Posted by Alpha Auer ;-)...

Despair not, all ye elderly avatars! At the point where virtual muscle gives over to flab the resourceful amongst us turn to prostheses! And what a selection there is to be found in our oh so eternally youthful virtual world! I maintain that even the most fastidious of cyborgs will have very little to moan about in this department...
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Primtronics, the joint venture of Skalli McMillan and CJoke Oh is an emporium on which I have previously posted voraciously, so brilliant do I find their output. And when it comes to spare body parts Primtronics is an establishment not too easily outdone, as these chrome arm and leg attachments with built in machinery will easily attest to.
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I am told that incubating mothers need to be particularly vigilant against griefers. The Grim Bros incubator can be combined with watchful eye attachments by Primtronics for a maternal while yet stylish look!
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And when one's own skinny arms are no longer up to the task of hefting heavy objects one simply puts on these power limbs: These robotic (animated) cyberarms, again by Primtronics, come in both an industrial as well as a chrome finish for a variety of occasions from casual to dressy.
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Lucia Cyr's arm and leg prostheses can be found at her store Losthaven and these are certainly amongst some of the finest in Second Life®. However... And yes, I have already mentioned this little drawback on my Flickr ages ago, but one can never really overdo it with precautionary advice whilst dishing out shopping tips: Do not even think that these will get you out of exercising; if anything you will need to spend more time on that odious contraption known as the treadmill: Prolonged periods of inactivity tend to bring on a most unsightly accumulation of rust!!!
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Always a favorite, the Prosthetic Spine, for that extra little bit of support for severe cases of virtual sciatica and lumbago - this one comes from cutea Benelli at Grim Bros., combined with yet another most useful head appendage from the same establishment. Could be my imagination entirely I suppose, but the external neural transmitters really do seem to convey the brain juices most efficiently - far better than my built in ones anyway...
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Finally! A garment which does my clockwork brain justice, designed by none other than cutea Benelli comes from Grim Bros.: The automatic peacock dress. Quite needless to add, the brain is the "brainchild" of Pandora Wrigglesworth.
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And speaking of brains, The Cortech Brain Jar by Total Chastity is the essential accessory of all avatars that like to air out the gray matter from time to time. Works even better than Gingko Biloba, I find: Simply wear for an hour a week, preferably outdoors... Sudoku is all very well and good in its way, but not a patch on a nice northerly breeze blowing through all of those dust ridden crevices!
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Failing eyesight... It does come to us all in the end, doesn't it? And while in Real Life there are of course the wonders of Laser interventions, virtual ophthalmology offers a far more elegant solution: Goggles!

Top left, Thomus Keen (Steampowered Nuts); top right, Disembodied Hand (Defectiva); bottom left, my favorite ones by Torus Heliosense, these are scripted to set your hair on fire should you desire to do so! (Unfortunately no location seems to be available for Torus Heliosense at this time). And finally bottom right, Primtronics strikes yet again!
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And in the end, when hearing loss finally creeps up, one can always find solace in cutea Benelli's hearing aid, available at Grim Bros., enhanced with bells, trumpets, car horns, gauges and whistles. And if that doesn't work - trust me, nothing ever will!
;-)
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Credit also goes to Laynie Link, whose helicopter and tower hair I have worn for some of these shots. These were pieces which Ms. Link was distributing as freebies during the hair fair. Her store at Hairspray however, carries a far more conservative, Real Life-like line these days. Maybe we can entreat her to design some more towers and helicopters?
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May you all have many healthy days ahead of you in your long virtual lives! The amazing cyborg paraphernalia to be found in Second Life, of which I have shown only a very very small personal selection can of course be enjoyed by all avatars of all sizes, shapes, descriptions and age groups. So, enjoy my friends, enjoy...

W magazine's Second Life : NPIRL and the Fashion Institute of Technology get a Second Chance

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

I was beyond excitement when my copy of the April 2009 issue of W magazine arrived this week. The cover reads, "Second Life: Designers Revive Their Greatest Hits." Alas, the article is not about fashion in our Second Life®, but reissues of old classics - marvelous though they may be - in Real Life. Sigh. Mark my words... the day will come.

Not long ago, I was scheming with NPIRLer Max Newbold (aka Beth Harris in RL) on a mixed realities project in New York/Second Life that was to feature fashions that are Not Possible in Real Life. At the time, she was working at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, but the blueprint for our happy plan got tossed in the dust bin when Beth was snatched up as director of digital learning at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Talk about mixed blessings...

The good news is that a scholarly hero has stepped in to rescue the FIT/NPIRL project. Dr. Steven Zucker, dean of the School of Graduate Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, has rallied the troops and has informed me that it is still a "go!" Meanwhile, the real world fashion industry will just have to wait to learn about the hottest names in virtual fashion, and in particular about NPIRL fashion.

Eshi Otawara, creator of the most expensive dress in virtual worlds, just unveiled this new POPI outfit with a skirt that reminds me of rich, creamy icing and comes with a bonus: a finger jewel of a bee that is sticking its tongue out at you :P. The hat! Eshi Otawara couture is available here.






I haven't retouched these, other than to crop

Cutea Benelli and her shop Grim Bros, continue to issue surreal and/or humorous outfits for men and women and every possible mood (teleport directly from here).


Artemis


Lalala


Virulent

Alpha Auer has already blogged about Pandora Wrigglesworth's colossal "Rococo" hairstyle, but I still can't get over it. Literally. This all brings to mind that Texan expression... "the bigger the hair, the closer to God." Available at Pandora's fantastical Curio Obscura shop (teleport directly from here).


Rococo Fantastico

Oh that Pandora Wrigglesworth! She has done it again!

Posted by Alpha Auer...

I would have expected nothing less than total hilarity from the lady who has endowed the metaverse with the clockwork brain, which is prominently displayed in my blogger picture to your right on this very page, but I really have to say that Ms. Wrigglesworth may have outdone even herself with this latest one - the Rococo Fantastico hair. Thus, without further ado, first a direct quote from the creator herself:

"Now is your chance to show that snooty Marie Antoinette who the real queen is. Rococo Fantastico is the biggest hairstyle you will ever see. It takes six zeppelins and four propellers just to keep it up! Includes clockwork ballroom with porcelain dancers. Choose your own color, bows, flowers, and style!"


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So indeed, Rococo Fantastico comes with a full menu which allows you to decide on the colors of all its components and even gives you style options. Needless to say, I immediately went for the dark steampunk style. However, in the event the menu turned out to be a bit of a lifesaver beyond all of the stylistic issues: I was somewhat dubious prior to acquisition whether I would actually be able to wear this - the problem being my one pride and joy in this life; my ears (well, my tail too of course, but it is all an ensemble you know...). My ears must be visible at all times! This is indeed the one area in my life where I would rather die than give an inch. After all, I only have 768 pairs of them and visible they must be. (Not all 768 of them at once obviously - but I am sure you get my drift). But, I need not have worried: The construct - I hesitate to call it by such a banal phrase as mere "hair" - has a handy little re-sizer built into the menu and thanks to this piece of state of the art technology I managed to size down the hair to the point where my ears did in fact become visible. A bit of a mohawk style it ended up being but I quite liked that too for some reason.


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I may or may not wear Rococo Fantastico. Who knows?... The occasion may indeed present itself! One thing is for sure though, if it weren't for the prim count and the fact that I am running perilously low, I would rez it on Syncretia in a nano second. This is utterly utterly wonderful!


The ballroom with puppet dancers (close up)
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You can teleport to Curio Obscura, Pandora Wrigglesworth's shop, directly from here.
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Pandora Wrigglesworth presents the Ghostly Woman Avatar...

"OOOoooOOoOOooo!! Very spooky!" says Pandora Wrigglesworth, a woman dear to my heart, since she is the very one who invented that most indispensable of all contraptions - the clockwork brain! Personally, I wouldn't even know what to do without mine... And beyond my undying gratitude, the gentle reader should also be reminded that Ms. Wrigglesworth has been frequently featured on the NPIRL blog to date and previous posts on her output can be read here.



However, without further ado, onto the matter at hand... It seems that all our weight gain worries are to be resolved once and for all: Pandora Wrigglesworth has once again outdone herself by launching this wondrous avatar upon the world:

"With our eerily effective weight loss system, there is no need to exorcise. Watch the pounds melt away in an instant and slim down to a petite 21 grams as you manifest your inner beauty with the frighteningly fashionable Ghostly Woman Avatar. Three skirts and two hairstyles billow in the cold winds of the spirit world. Your friends will gasp in amazement when they can see right through your entire body! Plenty of sculpting, glow, flex, and invisibility make this one of the most unique avatars you will ever see.... ....and possibly the last."

The Ghostly Woman avatar makes extensive use of invisiprims, transparency, and glow to create a very unique look and can be examined at Curio Obscura by teleporting directly from here.

Seeing is believing...

Pandora Wrigglesworth was always being asked to demo her products, so she finally just made a series of super short videos. Did I tell you her stuff was great already?

Here's the Oui Coupe...



and the Horseless Gown...



You can see more of these video demos off her Flickr stream.

Pandora Wrigglesworth's Portable Door Generator - Physics with panache

Today, Pandora Wrigglesworth will be releasing her newest product, The Portable Door Generator. She teleported me to a room yesterday and asked, "The door is behind you but, how would you get out of the room if there were no door?" She went on to explain, "With my new device, you don't have to rely on the architect's choice of where to put a door."

She activated the mechanism, and with a swirl of particles, a new door magically appeared, when none had been there before.




And just like that, Pandora walked through a door of her own creation...

Pandora went on to say that "It works on any solid surface. It doesn't have be just walls. It does require rez perms but it is temp rez so prim limits aren't an issue. It works on walls up to about 5 meters thick and doesn't have trouble with walls being different angles on the other side. There are five different kinds of doors chosen at random."

How does it work?
Pandora Wrigglesworth: Rezzing the doors and linking them up was easy. It was detecting *where* to rez them that was tricky. There is no LSL command to detect the shape of a prim in other objects, so I rez small invisible prims and bounce them off the walls and then through the walls like sonar. They move until they hit a wall and that's where one door goes. Then they drill through the wall until they stop colliding with it and that's where the other door goes. There are three prims and then I use a little matrix algebra to determine the rotations and positions from that. They are self-deleting. I'd hate to see them stack up in the Lost and Found folder!

Please note: This device is also handy when you fall down underneath a building on a bad teleport.

All proceeds from the sale of Pandora's items benefit her Global Domination Fund. You can pick up the Portable Door Generator at Pandora's shop, Curio Obscura, by teleporting directly from here.

Inflatable women, Happy Missiles and other necessary accoutrements for a properly accessorized Second Life

I have always been fascinated by ultra accessorized avatars who are in the know when it comes to the coolest purveyors offering an array of goods with which to manifest their particular styles, ranging from the "everything but the kitchen sink" belts and boots sporting Swiss knives, flasks and cigarette packs (and the occasional teddy bear), to tellement détaillés military dandies, ninjas and soldiers of fortune dealing with imaginary villains in their camouflage uniforms, cyber-prostheses, and well-appointed helmets and katanas.


I snapped this pic of a customer at artoo Magneto's Trash Palace ages ago and have longed to find that hair ever since. Alas, no such luck

Among the fashiontribes I most admire are the impeccably attired Steampunk peeps. All those exposed gears and bolts, coupled with bowler hats and Victorian touches convey an appealing gentrified eccentricity and frankly, I find it all rather elegant, in a metallic sort of way.

There was a good read in the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this month by Damon Poeter, in which he points out that "Steampunk originated in the 1990s to describe science fiction that was an offshoot of the cyberpunk genre, but has since gained a real-world footing in fashion and design that evokes the Victorian era. Now a full-fledged subculture, Steampunk is increasingly visible at gatherings such as Burning Man and Goth "Convergence" festivals." Well Damon, it is also a much celebrated phenomenon in the virtual world of Second Life®, as can be seen in such charming apparatuses and whirling gizmos, doodads and creatures created by TracyLynne Carpenter and Ordinal Malaprop, and of course, Bryn Oh.

Anyhow, I have no idea how I managed to get so sidetracked when what I really intended to tell you is that I had the pleasure of running into the very delightful Pandora Wrigglesworth yesterday afternoon. We spent a pleasant hour at my lush new Chakryn Forest (teleport directly from here) catching up on things and, as it turns out, she's been busy researching and developing advanced Steampunk-ish gadgetry and unusual innovations (some do call it "misapplied technology").

I was reminded that I never did manage to share the news with you about her Extendo-Leg Shoes - as shown here in a photograph of hers - when she demonstrated a variation on that theme that's especially appropriate for very short but fashionable women who want to give the appearance of being considerably taller: the Uber Platform Boots.

But the real surprise came when - in a true departure from the style I've come to know Pandora for - she donned her latest: the Inflatable Woman avatar, complete with that zippy sound of vinyl rubbing against vinyl when she walks.


When you hug the Inflatable Woman, she blows up like a balloon


Another recent innovation is her Camera Hat, which lifts off your head and flits about as it tracks your client camera.


The Camera Hat should not be confused with Pandora's Topter Hat - the ultimate flight assist - that opens its doors to deploy working propellers when the wearer is in flight

But my favorite, just for sheer fun, has to be the Happy Missile Silo.


That's me (in Tooter Claxton's Brunhilde avatar) on the top and Pandora to one side. Pandora also develops all the superb poses.

Pandora describes it as follows:

"So your neighbors have a Super Fun Cannon, do they? (Another Pandora Wrigglesworth product) When it comes to household armament, you can’t afford to fall behind. If you love your children and want them to grow up happy, it’s time to invest in a Happy Missile. You do love your children, don’t you? Don’t you? Install this Happy Missile Silo and you will have an endless supply of Happy Missiles. When properly calibrated, each missile is guaranteed to fire straight up and explode to the delight of the entire neighborhood.

Seats Up To Fourteen! Tiny Compatible! Silo Is Just 8 Prims! 20% Chance of Kittens with Parachutes! Beware low ceilings. Not recommended for indoor use.

Notably, all proceeds from the sale of her items benefit her Global Domination Fund. You can pick up any of these items at Pandora's shop, Curio Obscura, by teleporting directly from here.

See also: Fashion that would make any engineer proud

Photographs of the Extendo-Leg-Shoes, the Uber Platform Boots, the Topter Hat, and the Camera Hat by Pandora Wrigglesworth.

Fashion that would make any engineer proud

Is steampunk NPIRL or isn't it? That is a question that has surfaced many times over the past few months amongst the members of the working group Not Possible IRL. As an example, Inigo Dench practically gave a dissertation on this topic here, way back in August and just a few weeks after the group was formed.

I'd say that skin, clothing, accessories (and vehicles, you will soon learn) creator Pandora Wrigglesworth (rez: 10/25/2007), has laid the question to rest. In her dream-weaving hands, steampunk - that celebration of an Victorian era that never took place - can most definitely be NPIRL.

Take her Clockwork Automaton Lady skin, available in many metals and colors. Here, she has thoughtfully included adjustable leather straps (surely for those days when too much chocolate has added extra pounds), hidden all the cogs, and given the Lady an extra springy waistline. While Pandora - modeling the skin herself - is petite, gals of any size or girth are sure to charm whilst galavanting au naturel or fully garbed.

In Pandora's Clockwork Brain, steampunk brain surgeons must have a degree in engineering, and buy all their supplies at the hardware store. Clockmakers, too, do a little moonlighting on the side to boost their Linden finances during periods of economic recession.



Men and women alike appreciate the smart thinking behind (literally) her Topter hat which, in flight-mode, triggers springs that open the doors to allow for helpful propellers. Admittedly, the hat does jangle the nerves, but perhaps V2.0 will do a better job of suppressing the accompanying commotion.


Not all steampunk design is about cogs and wheels. It often involves all manner of hidden compartments and trapdoors and, on the other side of the spectrum, the evidence - via exposure - of how things work.

Corseted ladies understand best how important it is to be able to get-in-there and scratch, or perhaps make needed adjustments, and they were surely the inspiration for this layer that can be worn over skin or clothing. Per Pandora, it is perfect "for when you want to show people that, while you may be soft and warm on the outside, you are still cold as clockwork on the inside."

Perhaps the most useful invention in Pandora's arsenal of goodies is the very surprising yet eminently practical gown shown below. "Here I am in my Horseless Gown, inside the Hall of Mirrors at Chateau de Versailles (teleport directly from here)," said Pandora. She added,"This gown is my most recent vehicle creation, a merging of the French pannier gown and the California "Woodie" roadster. I'm using low gear for indoor driving." Of course, this raises all sorts of questions regarding wardrobe registration and proper governance, but society will just have to find a way to keep up with all of the new scientific developments this steampunk fashionista is introducing.


"Do you pass on the left or the right in Rococo-era France?" asks the ever-polite Pandora Wrigglesworth

You may peruse and acquire these lovelies at her shop, Curio Obscura, by teleporting directly from here. All photography by Pandora Wrigglesworth.