Horrors

Something was being tested by Marie-Thérèse. Whether it was my rationalism or my courage or my obedience to the whims of a spoiled daughter and a new friend I could not say. She had commanded me from the moment we met, and I now felt she had invented this test to secure her authority over me, and that if I passed or failed, I would be forever enchained to her caprices. At the same time I wanted to please her, because I already loved the haughty way she shook her black hair and the stern command in her pretty eye. And I did not want her to withdraw from my reach all the secrets of her enchanting world out of displeasure, so I knew fear had already put me in her power. No matter what horrors lay beyond those doors, I was suddenly more afraid of the enticing desire to place myself in the power of another, to acquiesce and abase myself. I remembered what M. Biancolelli had once said when he was at dinner with us, "at the Comedie Italienne we are chosen by our roles." Marie-Thérèse was offering me a role, a mask to wear in return for the pleasure of sharing her father and the theater with her. These thoughts came to me one after another in an instant, my heart pounding in my throat, yet I did not know what to do.

"Do as I say, presto!"

"Do you know what is beyond this door?"

"Si! Yes!" Still looking at me with curiosity.

"I however do not, and I like to be well armed in strange places." I searched about and found a long bolt that had fallen out of the crumbling stone wall. In my small hands it would serve as a poor weapon, but it was at least something to hold out in front of me. I concentrated on keeping it steady because once I decided on a course of action, I had started to quake violently. To hide my fear, without any further delay I pushed open the door a crack and slipped in, alone.

The room beyond the wooden door was a small, dark antechamber to a sunlit room beyond. There was a pile of rags in one corner and a strong, cold breeze that caused some motion within it. I moved toward the sunlight, my back to the wall, never taking my eyes from the stirring shape. I could hear Marie-Thérèse's voice calling my name, but I was now seized by such a paroxysm of fear that I could barely open my mouth. I watched in horror as the ragged shape in the corner began to struggle violently and then rise. From under a rotting shroud a dark malevolent eye watched me balefully, filled with hatred and spite. I ran the last few steps into the sunlight, which streamed in through two ogival windows. A great raucous screech pursued me and as I turned I saw an enormous black form bear down, its bony talons raised to seize my face. I struck out in terror with the iron bolt and fell senseless to the ground, as the creature flew past me on terrible wings and disappeared out the window with a caw.

"Yolande, Yolande, di cosa si tratta? Aiuto!"

When I came to myself, I found there was blood on my hands and face. I got to my feet unsteadily and hobbled to the pile in the corner. It was a crow's nest, filled with animal bones and coins, bits of colored string and metal buttons. "Stay where you are!" I cried to Marie-Thérèse, "do not come in!" I could hear the sound of her sobbing on the other side of the door. I poked at the crow's treasure and uncovered a large bird skull and a bit of mirror that I used to inspect myself as I wiped my face and hands with my dress. I found no scratches, but had struck my scalp when I fell and was bleeding from the crown. My hair was hopelessly tangled and clotted with blood, but my hands had stopped shaking. We were in the Tower of Jean-sans-peur, the same ancient pillar around which the hôtel de Bourgogne was propped, that I had seen from street. The windows gave a prospect of Rue Mauconseil and Rue Françoise with their milling crowds and a distant view of les Halles and l'Isle de France beyond.

"Oh, Yolande, I am afraid, Don't leave me alone!"

I returned to the door and pulled it open. Marie-Thérèse was clutching herself and quivering. I did not put my arms around her or comfort her. I looked down on her and said, "You have nothing to fear." She looked at my bloodstained dress, my wild hair, and my hands blackened with dirt, and recoiled. I pointed to the pile of bones in the corner, which she could now plainly see through the open door. Her expression changed from fear to surprise and horror. She looked at me then, and I wondered if she was about to throw her arms around me or back away. I said, "There was never anything to fear," then pushed past her on the stairway and descended. She followed me without a sound.

Combat Cards for Sale

Link to Hamlet's story on the sale of Combat Cards, with the "Ghastly Grin" in the illustration, discovered right after I had explained how I believed ghosts to be the external manifestations of a disturbed or irrational mind!

The Stair

Though I was only eight, I had grown up among adults and listened to the conversation of enlightened men, so I had already formed a definite opinion about such matters as ghosts and fantômes. I did not believe a ghost was the supernatural apparition of a dead person, or the spiritual remains of a human being attached to the place of his death. I did not believe a white ghost indicated joy and success or that a black one augured ill fortune and maleficence. Even less did I think them sent by the devil to lure and trick us into perfidy. I believed such inexplicable occurrences to be the external manifestation of an internal terror in those who perceive it, evidence of a disordered and irrational mind. I had heard my uncle say so and I felt this explanation satisfied my own experience, which often dwelt on morbid scenes. Nevertheless, I was fascinated by stories of fantastical and supernatural coincidence and listened to them with a particular thrill. But I had never been visited by any disembodied spirit and secretly wanted to experience the frisson and test my reason before it. So when Marie-Thérèse asked if I believed in fantasmas, I nodded and asked, "Have you seen one?"

We were alone on stage, in an ancient, dark hall decorated with writhing airborne figures that rose about the proscenium and grinned out of the darkness. The adults had gone backstage to prepare for rehearsals, and the only sounds were the cries of infant Catherine and our own voices echoing in vast space around us. Marie-Therese did not answer but smiled and said, "Venga con me!" then led me into the wings.

She expertly passed through the machinery and properties that had accrued over fifteen years of performances. Bizarre suits of armor, masks and strange hats suggested characters that had been brought to life under the stage lights still slept in the wings awaiting their return to the spectator's applause, but now watched us warily. We slipped between stacked flats painted with a necromancer's cave, a roiling ocean, the flames of hell, a mystagogue's library. Banners and flags for countries and duchies that may never have existed outside the imagination hung limp and faded above us, punctuated with fantastically intricate horns and cornets, viols with massive fretboards and bellies like lutes, all suspended in the air, left there by a vanished band of aerial players. We came upon a smashed clavichord whose wiry guts lay tangled and threatening, splintered by some accident perhaps or by the composer whose ethereal compositions were lampooned by a rude hack pounding on its keys. I wanted to ask, but Marie-Thérèse moved so quickly and insistently, clinging to the enormous baby in her arms with alarming strength, maneuvering through narrow spaces like a possessed creature, that I could not take my eyes from her for more than an instant. 

I wish I could here inventory everything we found: baskets of brocade; crates of stucco angels, their pink faces chipped and blackened; an impossibly elaborate mantlepiece carved with a twisted, interlocking design; collars and ruffs; a full-sized stuffed donkey with horrible bared teeth and gleaming patches of black, leathery skin where his dirty hair had been rubbed away; a gilt cage with a mute parrot; a brass door knocker as large as any door I had seen and a hideous bestial face gripping an iron ring in its teeth; a giant scalloped chariot that could have belonged to Aphrodite, complete with reined porpoises. We made so many changes of directions and sudden turns that I could never have found my way back to the stage and I began to worry that Marie-Thérèse did not really know where she was going. But at last we emerged from that grotesque forest and arrived at a little woodworker's shop where a lamp burned over a long bench against the wall and the floor was carpeted in soft shavings. Marie-Thérèse placed her sister in a cradle that rocked in the corner and covered her with a dirty quilt. The baby fell asleep instantly.

"Good, now I show you a thing..."

The walls of the shop were covered in wide planks but under the bench was a gap where the planks did not reach the floor. Marie Therese, whose dress was now covered in cobwebs and woodshavings, went on her knees and crawled into the black space. I hesitated, but her disembodied arm reappeared and gestured at me impatiently.

On the other side of the wall was what used to be a stone doorway, and a short passage that opened onto a narrow circular stairway that continued down into inky blackness and upward toward a cold light. Marie-Thérèse put her hand on a railing carved directly into the stone wall and smoothed by centuries of use and began to climb.

"Where are we going?"

"Our secret. We go up."

"Are there ghosts?"

"Shh. Don't say that word here. I show you."

We climbed around and around, the stairs lit by narrow slits in the stone wall; every fourth one gave out on blue sky and supplied all the light we needed to see our way, otherwise we might have broken our necks. By the time I thought I should be counting steps, or windows, we came to a wooden door on iron hinges. "You go first," Marie-Thérèse said, looking at me with interest.

Marie-Thérèse

"Papa!"

M. Biancolelli gave a squeal of delight, spun around on the spot and fell to his knees, arms extended like a prince in a tale by Lafontaine toward a little girl about my age and dressed in a dainty frock. She ran over and threw herself in his arms, burying her head into his embrace, like one who had been separated from her father for years. Uncle Adraste reached down and took my hand in his. 

After what seemed an age, M. Biancolelli held his daughter at arms length and bounced her up and down until her limbs flopped like a doll. "This is my puppet-daughter Marie-Thérèse, who was made for me by the Seamstress-Queen of Modena. Every night I have to remove her stuffing or she will not sleep, but asks me endless questions all night long: 'When will you take me to the theatre, papa? When can I meet the Principessa Yolande? When will we go to Venezia and dine on profiteroles?' I told that woman to stuff her with sugar and dough, but instead I was given a great big sack of cotton-head questions."

"Is she really a princess?"

"No more questions! One more and I shall expire!"

Marie-Thérèse laughed and whispered in her father's ear. His eyes opened wide, as wide and round as I have ever seen on a person's face. Then he stiffened and gave a lurch, and with a whistle of expelled air, collapsed onto the floor like a depleted wineskin. Marie-Thérèse clapped her hands in delight and made a tiny pirouette, pleased to be part of the performance. Then she came to me and kissed me on both cheeks. "I ask him if we can play together." She spoke French with difficulty but had a sweet breath and deep, black eyes.

"Haven't you struck him dead, then?" I said, for M. Biancolelli had not moved an inch.

A woman with a baby in her arms appeared from backstage. "Get up, get up, you fool, Madame Riccoboni is on her way."

M. Biancolelli rose to his feet in so strange a manner, seemingly without bending his limbs, and then with a grand flourish and bow swept an imaginary hat before him and declared, "You have even the power to raise the dead, Your Majesty, that the saints would be jealous. As the Seamstress-Queen commands, so poor Dominique must obey, even from beyond the grave."

"Enough with your heretical nonsense, and in front of the children! You should be ashamed."

Marie-Thérèse giggled and whispered "Maman is just pretending to be cross." Indeed a smile had crept across Madame Biancolelli's face and she gave her baby a kiss to hide it from her husband. "You had better get changed or that woman will send you straight back to whatever grave you dragged yourself from."

Uncle Adraste bowed and offered his hand, into which Madame Biancolelli placed her own, but before he could kiss it, she had turned to me. "Do not be too hard on our Marie-Thérèse, all she hears at home is Italian because her father has never bothered to learn proper French. You'll have to find somewhere else to play, though, because we must set up for rehearsals. Marie-Thérèse, will you look after Catherine?" Mme. Biancolelli put the tiny child in her daughters arms and led my uncle and M. Biancolelli backstage.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" Marie-Thérèse asked me, getting a better grip on the baby, who squirmed in her arms. 

La Sylphide

"Monsieur Riccoboni, this is my niece, Yolande Geoffrion, the only child of my poor cousine, Adèle de Castelnau-Jonville."

"I have met the father, if I am not mistaken?"

"Perhaps. He was very fond of the theater when he could tear himself away from his cards." My uncle lowered his voice, and refused to look at me as he said the last few words, though I was staring at him in surprise. I had never heard him talk about my father before.

"It is nothing to be ashamed of in this age, when one hardly counts as nobility if one does not owe at least a half million louis," Mr. Riccoboni said with a smile. "He was a brilliant player, I remember."

"My brother-in-law played écarte and piquet brilliantly enough to ruin himself."

"It was not the cards but the man he played against that ruined him," said Monsieur Biancolelli. The others nodded.

I tugged on Monsieur Biancolelli's hair and he lifted me off his shoulders, setting me down gently on the boards. "Principessa Yolande says she saw a Sylph."

"Really, where?"

I pointed to where the motes still danced in the sunlight. "Over there by the curtain. She was wearing a green dress."

"Giannetti hasn't come in to rehearse today, has she?"

"Not yet, neither has Margarite."

"What's a siph?"

Monsieur Riccoboni furrowed his thick brows. He had a doughy face and eyes that reflected wetly. "I think I shall look in on the loge d'acteurs. Mother is directing rehearsals this afternoon and she was in a sour mood this morning when I left their apartment." His anxious face disappeared behind the heavy curtain.

The two musicians, having finished tuning their hautbois and flutes, began to rehearse. A tall, skinny man in ragged clothing dragged a ladder out of the gloom of the house, untied a cleat and lowered the chandelier on a rope, then went over to replace the burnt stubs with wax candles from a basket. Someone closed a door and the low sound of traffic and crowds on rue Mauconseil faded away. A haunting melody arose from the oboe and echoed in the vast space, as if coming from very far away.

"What's a silf?"

"A sylph is a fairy made of air who likes to play cruel tricks on little girls."

M. Biancolelli laughed. "Your uncle is in love with a sylph so you must not believe him, Yolande. They are bellissimo spirits with bodies of light and vapour. The clouds over Paris at sunset are painted by the wings of sylphs, and they appear to handsome young men of romantic inclination."

"Nonsense, they are the condensation of splenetic humours from peevish women that are left on earth when their souls ascend to heaven. Even Mr. Pope says so."

"No Adraste! It is you who is splenetic. Reading bad English satire makes you so. Your sylph is a delightful girl, but you must learn to be more light-hearted when you call on her. But dolcemente, they are coming."

Salle de Spectacle

The interior of the theatre, built principally of enormous timbers blackened by two centuries of soot and lit by tallow candles, was a gloomy blackness made dangerous and labyrinthine with ropes and pulley blocks, rolled canvas drops, ladders, chairs and massive gilt stage properties that gleamed with sullen life in the candlelight. Monsieur Biancolelli led us between papier-mache giants, demi-horses with frozen manes, dusty fountains, burnished suns and spangled arches, bowers of paper roses and painted forests, leather harnesses and calfskin wings, rows of unfashionable wigs from the last generation powdered with soot, and everywhere the smell of turpentine and wood shavings. I wanted to study every treasure: it was unlike my uncle's bookshop whose glories slept tidily between covers in their categories and shelves. I had fallen into a living book, a chaotic assemblage of cast-off dreams, lacquered vanities and slumbering desires; a precious jumble of some gargantuan imagination, a glimmering dollhouse for fairies and sprites.

"Yolande, allons-y, you must see the stage!"

Monsieur Biancolelli stepped forward and disappeared into the velvety blackness of the biggest wall of fabric I had ever seen; my uncle vanished in a similar fashion, winked out of sight. I walked in the same direction, hands before my face feeling the heavily napped curtain and inhaling its musty darkness, then felt the movement of air on my face. I opened my eyes to the most splendid view of all my eight years. A vast platform before me was bathed in sunlight falling in brilliant rays through the heavy air from windows a hundred feet above us. It was of course the stage and it raked away toward the pit and the parterre, with an undivided gallery, the paradis, hanging beyond it in the gloom. I stood facing a vast space that made me think only of the nave of a cathedral, but instead of windows it was divided into loges, or boxes, each one stuccoed and gilt with cherubim and cornucopia. These rose up in an endless repetition, stretching down the left, arching around behind the paradis and returning on the right. On either side of the stage were columns entwined with figures who smiled down as if they were my own parents and brothers and sisters welcoming me home. I blinked in the light and then sneezed. The most beautiful woman I had ever seen, dressed in a gown of pale green and a beribboned cap, stepped lightly toward me and sang in the sweetest voice,

"Felici l'alme e fortunati i cori,
Ove con lettre d'oro Amor l'imprima
Nell'imagine vostra, et in cui s'adori."

I looked toward Uncle Adraste, but he was busy being introduced to an older gentleman by Monsieur Bianocolelli. The woman extended her hand and I saw she had a green ribbon tied about her round wrist. I happily placed my hand in her white fingers as soft as down and tinged with pink. She smiled and spun around me lightly, laughing gaily as a bird and shaking the curls that escaped from her cap when she tilted her head, causing the motes dancing in the sunlight to swirl and fly. I lost my balance and sat down rather heavily.

Monsieur Biancolelli bustled over and lifted me off the floor. "What are you doing sitting here by yourself, little princess?"

"I was dancing with the pretty lady in the green dress."

Monsieur stopped and looked up at me with an astonished expression on his face. "Pretty lady? Where?"

I looked around me from the height of my tall friend's shoulders. Uncle Adraste and the strange man had stopped talking and were looking in my direction. Two musicians were tuning their instruments in the pit. But the rest of the stage was empty. The woman had disappeared.

"Well, well, perhaps you saw a Sylph," Monsieur Biancolelli said. "How interesting."

Recollections d'Enfance

If you are reading along with my childhood recollections, you may have missed earlier posts from the same period in time. I note them below as much for my own as for my readers' convenience. I have no head for chronology, and in any case these evenements took place in ages past to gentle people long since returned to dust, so you may read them in any order that may please you. One day perhaps I shall attempt to order them into a narrative. For now you may explore them as they occur to me, in fits.

• Kitai, in which I first discovered the mysteries of China in my Uncle Adraste's bookshop.
• At the Monastery, from a period shortly after I fled my marriage.
• A l'Italienne, a lamentably brief introduction to my acting friends.
• A letter, that may serve as preface to my odd life.

Paris 1730

It was a week before my uncle Adraste and I took a calèche to rue Mauconseil and the Comédie Italienne. The hôtel Bourgogne was already the oldest theatre in all of France, the first built after the Romans abandoned their circuses in Gaul. In 1730 it was nearly two hundred years old and hidden within a labyrinth of noxious, winding streets bordered by leaning houses and shops that would burn like kindling around a heretic if fire ever broke out. My uncle shook his head whenever we passed one of the old medieval buildings that still stood here and there, its timbers blackened with rot and age. 

I later learned the hôtel Bourgogne had been the ancient stone stronghold of the Jean-sans-peur, Duke of Burgundy, who launched the Hundred Years War by openly plotting the death of his cousin and rival Louis, the Duke of Orleans, the brother of King Charles VI. War between the rivals ravaged Paris until the Lords of France forced them to meet and reconcile their differences. The Duke of Berry, their uncle, had them swear bon amour et fraternité before the King and the entire court, and they shared the host from the hand of a priest at a mass celebrated expressly for them. Three days later Louis was assassinated as he left the hôtel of the Queen Isabel of Bavaria, cut to pieces, and his servant murdered as well. Jean-sans-peur was not suspected, given the sanctified oaths that had been sworn, but he boasted of committing the crime a few days later. He was later assassinated in turn in the presence of the Dauphin, ridding the realm of an ambitious and dangerous man, and it is said his ghost still haunted the stairway in the surviving tower that overshadowed the theatre. The theatre itself was built in 1548 as the city's only permanent stage and once accommodated sixteen hundred very compressed visitors. It was shared with the Comédie Française, who quit it a shambles for the hôtel Guénégaud.

When Monsieur Biancolelli's troupe of comedians assumed sole ownership of the Hôtel, it was in a desperate state, and nearly a hundred thousand livres were spent on its restoration. They had played for many years in the Fairs and marketplaces, growing so popular that they threatened the Comédie-Française, and their fathers had been expelled from Paris in the previous century for lampooning Madame de Maintenon. Their return to Paris in 1716 under the patronage of the Duke of Orange offered some protection, and when that noble prince died, they obtained a patent of the King himself, which they proudly carved in black marble set upon the front door of the theatre under the royal coat of arms. 

Monsieur Biancolelli was waiting for us at the door and I ran to throw my arms around him. But he gently released himself and whispered with a sly smile, "You must not make my Marie-Thérèse jealous." He then led us inside the dark, rickety timber building that groaned and creaked in protest to the exuberant youth that the Italians put in every step.

In memory of absent friends

When I was eight, my uncle Adraste brought home an amusing friend whose scenarios were being typeset chez Briasson. He was Monsieur Biancolelli, known throughout Paris as Dominique, the famous Trivelino of La Comedie Italienne that played in the Hotel Bourgogne. I was enchanted by his round, honest face and his enormous, gentle eyes that looked upon me with sympathy and fondness, for my uncle had no doubt told him my own sad history. We dined simply at home and M. Biancolelli told my uncle jokes all the way through, his mouth full of bread and wine, with the base parts in Italian so I would not understand.

"It's rude to speak in a strange language," I complained crossly.

"Diabolo! You mean to tell me you do not understand Italian, little princess? How can that be?" He gestured to me and with my uncle's permission I went over to his side of the table. "Why, it is the most beautiful language in all of the world, especially when spoken by a young lady such as yourself. You know, my Marie-Therese is the same age as you. She speaks a beautiful Italian. Her mother and I are worried that she hears too little French at home, and her only companion at the Theatre is a little boy with abominable manners." He bent down and cupped his hand over his mouth as if he had a secret to share though he spoke loud enough for my uncle to hear. "You know, princess, if you insisted, your uncle might permit you to pay us a visit. He would refuse at first, for he thinks us all vagabonds and braggarts, but if you stamp your foot like this..." He stood up, crossed his arms and stamped, exactly as I used to do when I was six.

My uncle laughed and said, "Look, now you are already ruining the child! Yolande, naturally you may visit the Biancolelli's, but only if you don't listen to this madman who never grew up!"

At my uncle's words, Monsieur Biancolelli appeared to deflate before my eyes and hung his hands limply, swaying every so slightly on bent knees, ever so much like a marionette on strings. "You wound me, Seignor Osborno, you cut my strings!" And his hands dropped and he collapsed on the floor, his head lolling on his chest. I leaped back in horror, but his head rose and he gave me a quick wink before he let it drop again. "What shall we do with the poor puppet?" came a falsetto voice from the heap that was my uncle's friend. "He must grow up and go to school" came another voice from the same place. "He must learn proper French and arithmetics and law and become a dottore at the university." "No, I'll run away first!" Then M. Biancolelli leaped to his feet and dashed out of the room.

I clapped my hands with delight to see an adult pretending to be a puppet all for my benefit. I turned to my uncle, who never stopped laughing throughout the entire pantomime, holding his sides and shaking his head. "Please may I learn Italian?"

"Yes, yes, but first go out and call Monsieur back to the table, or he may run clear across Paris!"

I pounded down the stairs as fast as I could. Monsieur Biancolelli was seated on the sidewalk a little way down the street, talking in Italian to a horse, who seemed to listen with much interest. I took his hand and pulled him back to our door, where he effortlessly hoisted me onto his shoulders and bounced me back up the stairs. I believe I held his hand for the rest of his visit.

A week of travel

...has kept me from writing. I have stopped in Eugene, Portland and Olympia; tomorrow I shall stand in view of Vancouver and admire the view of the Straits from Victoria, before returning to Seattle and southward again. The weather has been fine, but cold. I shall post pictures once my affairs are settled.

Mix'n Match Guest Post: The Do's and Don'ts of Hosting a Treasure Hunt in Second Life

DO:

...let as many people find out about the treasure hunt as possible
Even before the treasure hunt opens, announce it to as many people as possible. Obviously, your contacts are the first ones. But, also take advantage of already active groups in SL who are keen on treasure hunting. List the event in SL's Classifieds a week before. And for best exposure, do your best to get the treasure hunt blogged by Hamlet Au.

...provide enough hints so that participants are not endlessly searching
Spacing the clues are critical. If they are so far apart, the hunter will most likely lose motivation to go on. So, make sure that along the way, they are either getting mini-rewards or are receiving additional clues. Also, clues should not only be interspersed when the hunter is getting "warm". It is just as important to lead them back to the right trail when they are getting seriously "cold".

...make the treasure worthwhile to find
Inform the participant on what the treasure would be. No one wants to spend hours and hours looking for a "treasure" only to find a freebie shirt in the end of the trail. Not cool. I've also seen some treasure hunts with only L$100 pots in the chest. I do not think it is enough of a motivation for most. The only ones you will attract are the camper types who are probably just bored of sitting on a chair. Be creative! It does not even have to be a pile of money.

...make the search process a social event
There are so many activities in SL that can be done solitarily. I think what the world needs the most are events that bring avatars together. So, design the hunt as a group activity instead of just a one avatar mission. Try setting up pairs to do the treasure hunt. It is always more fun with friends.

...test out the hunt process first before releasing it to the general public
Many forget to do this and only find the quirks when they are reported by the participants. It is important that the clues and trails are seamless before it opens to the general public. So, do a couple of test runs first with some guinea pigs.



DO NOT:

...make it so difficult for the directionally challenged avatars
I was at this treasure hunt where the clue was embedded in the middle of a prim and can only be found if you switch to flycam and point it at the right angle. Too challenging for most I think. Don't make us sweat so much.

...write the hints in a culturally biased manner
Although North America has a significant number of participation, SL residents come from all over the world. So, keep in mind the universality of the hints when writing it down. In other words, avoid geo-centric clues such as..."this is where the Brady Bunch vacationed during the reunion episode". It does not mean you have to avoid Pop Cultural references entirely. Just make sure it as accessible to most participants.

...turn off flight abilities
In RL, hunts are done on foot. But, it is unnatural to force avatars to do the hunts in this manner. Remember, it is a 3-dimensional environment. So, allow the possibility of vertical searches without the need for hiking up long stairwells.

...leave the treasure hunt all by itself
The "build it and they will come" attitude will not work. Keep a narrow window when the treasure hunt is open to the public. And as best you can, be present to host the event. No matter how well organized the treasure hunt is, there are bound to be questions and comments from participants. At the very least, be present so that participants have someone to interact with.

CHENIN ANABUKI Bio

After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in Computer Science and Economics, Chenin Anabuki worked for various companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has also been involved with small to large-scale software engineering projects for consumer goods, finance, biotech and industrial design institutions in Silicon Valley. In addition to his Bachelor's, Chenin holds a Master's Degree in International Development Studies from the Universiteit van Amsterdam in The Netherlands. His graduate school thesis is an assessment on the impacts of micro-finance on rural poverty. Chenin Anabuki started Avatrian because it fulfills three of his most fervent goals...entrepreneurial, technological, and developmental. During his free time, Chenin enjoys drinking tea, reading Harry Potter and snowboarding down a black-diamond run at Lake Tahoe. Fortunate enough to travel and visit over fifty cities in the world, he considers Barcelona as his favorite. View Dennis Bacsafra's profile on LinkedIn When asked about his proudest achievement, Chenin recalls the time he hiked by himself to the peak of the High Atlas mountains in Morocco. "It was when I realized how much more I am capable of doing". Chenin can often be found in Second Life teleporting to various sites while overseeing in-world projects at Avatrian.

Mix'n Match

I have waited for Chenin Anabuki's guest Mix'n Match blog entry all week, but received nary a thing, except a promise he would send it last Monday. Ah well, such contests sound like fun when they begin, but can become a burden to a busy person.
My blog entry can be found on Harper's Bizarre.

Master of All She Surveys

Back in my standalone sim I am feeling much more like myself. I shall have to make a new tricorn, which I am loathe to do having seen the elegance that now caps Osprey's head. Well, I am due for a new outfit in any case.
My button land has become mountainous thanks to some fiddling with L3DT. We progress. Next I shall create a 3×3 region sim, rename it Tempietto, and spend a little more effort on landscaping. Once the ground is ready, I shall begin to build.

OpenSim

What I find particularly fascinating about OpenSim is the magical ability to watch the behind-the-curtains communication that accompanies everything we do in this Life, as if the laws of nature (or the forces that convey those laws to our perceptions) were laid bare. Our universe is in active communication with our client, receiving requests, seeking permissions, assigning agents, requesting inventory and wearables, and broadcasting appearances to other agents. Of course I am the only being to exist in my Universe, so these (extracted) lines are like eavesdropping on the language of angels:
16:51:12 - [LOGIN BEGIN]: XMLRPC Received login request message from user 'Young' 'Geoffrion'
16:51:12 - [LOGIN]: Authenticating Young Geoffrion
16:51:12 - [LOGIN]: Telling OpenSim Test @ 1000,1000 (http://127.0.0.1:9000) to prepare for client connection
16:51:12 - [LOGIN END]: XMLRPC Authentication of user Young Geoffrion successful. Sending response to client.
16:51:14 - [CLIENT]: Got authenticated connection from 127.0.0.1:1088
16:51:14 - [CLIENT]: Adding new child agent Young Geoffrion in OpenSim Test
16:51:14 - [APPEARANCE]: Sending appearance to all other agents for Young Geoffrion
16:51:14 - [FRIEND]: Young Geoffrion logged in; sending presence updates
16:51:14 - [FRIEND]: Young Geoffrion doesn't have friends.
16:51:14 - [FRIEND]: Claiming Young Geoffrion in region:1099511628032000
No doubt those readers who work with networks and protocols will find nothing remarkable about it. To the neophyte, it is metaphysical poetry. I am impressed that our names are first presented in quotes, and that a region claims us as their own, as though our existence were somehow in doubt. On reflection it is in doubt indeed, and our name, person, appearance, indeed our very claim to the tiny portion of space or time we occupy is the result of an agreement between those who perceive us and the universe at large. For if we could not agree that Young Geoffrion was an avatar agent, she would be no more than a whirling blur of bits and pixels, a message without a receipient or a sender.
Ponder thine own existence then, and what you are without them who love you and the region that claims you for its own.

Sapere aude!

One could be forgiven for thinking an 18th Century adventurer would be utterly hopeless around new technology, but if you remember my century gave you the natural philosophers and encyclopaediasts, Denis Diderot, Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, Rene Descartes, not to mention Emilie du Chatelet, Caroline Herschel, and the Palatine Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, then you might grudgingly agree we rationalists have never be slow to advance new ideas (even if we may be long-winded about doing so).
Therefore, when Osprey breathed that she had begun to play with a standalone sim, I could hardly stand about and watch: imagine, an island running on your own computer, with no assets (in explico except those you create yourself), no lag and no griefers, free uploads, and the ability to connect to a growing grid of opensource, experimental sims operated by the most technically adventurous residents of this Life.
Well, I went ahead and obtained one for myself. As you can see. Do not fear, that is Young Geoffrion, Ruth'd, and renamed as the default Test User, scandalously attired in tights and tee. As one of us is fond of uttering, Bwahahaha! I claim this dollop of land in the name of her Royal Highness...
I rub my hands in glee, for I have ambitions and designs on this teardrop of existence, this bubble universe, this vaporous plane. Architectural ambitions. Vast architectural ambitions.

At Last

“We cannot tell the exact moment a friendship is formed; as in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses, there is at last one that makes the heart run over.”

When first I came to this Life, I passed long months wand'ring friendless and uninspired. I cannot remember how I first heard of Osprey, but when I did I knew she was someone whose acquaintance I could not miss, and I remember clearly my first visit to her Combat Cards dueling grounds in Spangle two years ago and my first sight of her. Her love for this world and its divers delights, her patience and generosity to all who approach, her inventiveness and desire to try everything, and her wit and sense of mischief represent all that is right and good about this Life. Without her and those friends she has drawn about her, our World, in whichever reality you choose to inhabit, would be mere plywood prims and default animations, an empty wasteland of grey goo. To those famous newcomers who stay for an hour and disappear forever I can only say, but you have not yet met Osprey!

At last our paths crossed last night, and as tired as she was, and as willing as I ever could be to simply sit and talk, she just had to show me her discoveries: a Japanese Fishing Village from the 1950s, oh, help me out dear, I didn't make a note of the second jump, and finally the Templum Ex Obscurum! We shall return to Baron Grayson's site one day and I will make a proper entry on these wonderful builds, but for now, having found Osprey's company, I feel that I have come home at last.

Exploring

I visited the Big Brass ball at Caledon Steam City where a party was going on. When I asked if we were celebrating, Magdalena Kamenev diplomatically explained, "You may celebrate, mourn or just be, as you wish. All are welcome :> "



Then to Finechal Alliez for another party that was most definitely celebratory, where Code Hunter waved the flag.



And to Unofficial Obama Headquarters where the celebration had become exultatory.



A quiet moment at Gion,



And a most unusual encounter in Rivet City, worthy of a post of its own....

Congratulations, Friends!

To all my American friends,
Felicitations! It was very exciting, and you have a leader you deserve! You do yourselves proud!

Mix'n Match

Second Effects explorers and merchants ArminasX Saiman and Vint Falken invited fellow diarists to open their blogs to one guest writing on a subject proposed by a second guest. After a seven-month hiatus from writing, I need all the encouragement I can get to return to regular postings, and left my name.

I have been assigned to write about Second Life as an exploration of culture & diversity, suggested by steampunk kitty Eladrienne Laval, and to be posted on Harper's Bizarre, a blog by reluctant space traveller Harper Beresford, whom I am yet to meet, and whose blog I am looking forward to reading. 

My proposed subject, Theatre in Second Life, will be journaled by Peter Stindberg, the founder of Babel Translations, on Tiyuk's Second Life Adventures. Here is one devoted to the worthy business of translation, building bridges and connecting cultures. Bravo. 

And I shall have the pleasure of hosting a guest entry by Chenin Anabuki, CEO and Founder of Avatrian.com, about the do's and dont's of hosting a treasure hunt in Second Life, suggested by jeweller Skinkie Winkler. Welcome, Chenin, and we'll not mind if you leave a map or two around after your research. I have shovels and picks and some urns that want filling with doubloons and denarii.

Several new acquaintances in one fell swoop. I do hope Vint and ArminasX will bring us all together in world one day. 

Revenant

I was unable to attend the opening or the parade later in the day, but I did make my first return to Second Life this morning, appearing to Enjah like a fantôme at daybreak on All Hallow's Day. She was mounting an exhibition of digital aboriginal at her gallery in Grignano. I was not entirely at ease in my skin - I never quite know how one says that in English - having been absent from it for so long, so express'd my pleasure inelegantly. My stony expression encased a volcanic delight. I hope Enjah could see igneous smiles behind my eyes at least.

Of course I was too happy to see Enjah to think of taking pictures, or even asking news of my friends, but remembered to pass a moment enjoying the colour behind the gallery after Enjah parted to feed Spouse and Hound. I may not have much time for visits this autumn but I look forward to seeing you all before long, and to writing again. My pen is loosed and my tongue is sure to follow. We shall see if I can dredge up enough wit to torture an audience.

My state of mind has persuaded me to seek solitary distractions in recent months. I have taken much comfort in puzzling out a mystery of sorts, applying myself to understanding a building tool called Blender and a dialect named Python. Here are some very early results. Translating them into what passes for physical reality in this world is embêtant, as I am still a rank beginner. Enjah will attest to that. But it is a start and sculpted objects are enticing.



As I have lost my home in Orion I shall soon start a search for land on which to build a new one. Do tell me if you have any recommendations. Or if you are acquainted with anyone who might desire a slightly used Radcliffe Camera. For the present I remain your very humble and itinerant servant.