The Magician's Life is one of slight of hand - of drawing the eye one way while magic goes on the other way. Much like the Lost Town display by Rebeca Bashly, the direction you're looking in changes everything. For a long time I have thought, I'm not sure why, that bell hooks was no longer alive - that I had her books to relate to and think on, but that she herself was in the past. Like how we talk about slavery and discrimination against Native Americans as if it happened hundreds of years ago, there is a way in which my perspective and inherent racism set me at a distance from bell hooks, and it was only through one of those incredible rabbit holes we cannot plan that I had the pleasure of seeing her and Melissa Harris-Perry speak on a wide range of topics related to gender, race, and class - as well as seeing the give and take of discussion, and a small smattering of how they handle various kinds of interactions with others in the community. I finished the talk with a mind stuffed full of thoughts and an increased appreciation for my own blindness. Sometimes it feels as if I spend my whole life preparing for these moments where I will discover I am wrong, I was unable to perceive what is around me - and then all at once it springs forth in front of me. There is barely any room for the shame, so lost am I in the joy of new discovery.
One thing which stood out for me is how we loose other people in our rush to make statements about the circumstances we all live within. This is something I've struggled with myself. In my rush to condemn sexism, I have often ended up targeting other women - policing their dress and appearance, judging their lives and choices, holding myself up against them as somehow better because of my relative wealth and circumstances. This paves over a fundamental insecurity, one which Harris-Perry touched on when she discussed how her voice was amplified at the behest of powerful white men. How power is created, gathered, maintained, and transferred is at the root of a lot of the inequality in the world. Once it passed through land and lineages. Now it passes through cash. In both cases it passed through the hands of men in the history of the culture I am within, and that tendency bends the world. I have a lot more to think about, but I and deeply grateful to bell hooks and Melissa Harris-Perry for sparking so much thought in only an hour and a half.
My hair is a gorgeous release from Alice Project; it was a gatcha prize with this coloration, but the hair itself can be bought at her store. I love her rainbow hued hair, especially when it's all winking in and out of the light like this. I tucked under it a delicate crown from Deviance, another gatcha prize and one of a number of gorgeous choices - all tintable, which is what I did in order to make a silvery circlet match up with the purple and cream of Magician's Life. My wings are also from Deviance, their usual shimmering white tinted ever so slightly toward cream to balance out the purple of my gown. My layered lips are a combination of two lips by Adore & Abhor - the larger purple lips forming a frame for her smaller baroque style, this time in sparkling gold. I tipped my nails in cream and gold thanks to Orc Inc, who has some of the most complete and economical nail sets on the grid. And finally, the gown - this gorgeous gown from Baiastice released for the FaMESHed event, caught my attention from the very first. I especially like the scalloped patterns on the sleeves, and how they are ruched above the elbow, but the careful rigging of the skirt so that it almost always appears like the skirt is skipping along the ground or flowing up with my movements. While I didn't photograph it, one of the !bang poses I flipped through is of my avatar holding her knee, and the dress bent almost perfectly at that joint, with none of the noodliness that you sometimes see with other dresses or boots, where the knee joint is rubbery and rounded. Instead it moved beautifully, and the ruffled edge makes even simple standing poses look elegant and natural.
( More pictures here. )
Credits:
Skin: Izzie's, Irene
Hair: Alice Project, Steph II
Crown: Deviance, Erulisse Circlet
Ears: Illusions, Seelie Ears
Eyes: De La Soul, Rainbow
Eyelashes 1: SLink, Mesh Lashes
Eyelashes 2: Flugeln Brise, 05-A
Lipstick 1: Adore & Abhor, Fluff Lips
Lipstick 2: Adore & Abhor, Silent Star - Shine
Wings: Deviance, Sidhe
Hands and Feet: SLink, Rigged Mesh Hands and Feet
Nails: Orc Inc, Pastel Shimmer
Necklace: Lassitude & Ennui, Stacked Pearls
Dress: Baiastice, Shannon
Pose: !bang
Location: Lost Town
Light Settings: TOR, NIGHT That Spells Moon 1
Water Settings: Glassy
Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping, only
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