As my third year in Second Life begins, I've finally come to accept that there is no rule book to be found and that the game really has no objective. How it is played and experienced is to be determined by each user. I can finally stop worrying about whether or not I'm doing it right. I suppose this is a liberating realization.
Looking back on my two initial attempts at getting started in Second Life, I'm embarrassed by the over-inflated sense of self-importance I assumed in feeling the need to chronicle the experience in blog and audio form. Fortunately I'm well aware of my limitations at written expression. This awareness had the governing effect of limiting blog entries to announcing and describing the various bits of audio put on offer as podcast. For better or for worse, there is no such controlling mechanism once the microphone is hot and the tape is rolling. The net result of this unregulated need to spray my thoughts, impressions and ideas as digital utterances has been a podcast currently called Meet Scottlo Scorbal.
I continue to wonder how or why anyone can endure programming so devoid of a premise. I've repeatedly offered the excuse that I'm doing this as a self-reflective exercise solely for myself. If that were a genuine sentiment, why then the need to distribute it in a podcast mechanism? That's just it, it's not a genuine sentiment. At heart, I am a ham (or a hack, perhaps). Whether or not anyone ever listens really doesn't matter. What matters is that this is how I choose to do it and it keeps me from roaming the saloons.
And this perhaps brings us to the point of this post. In an effort to produce audio that is somewhat more compelling than the droning monologue that has heretofore characterized MSS, I'm in the process of developing a new segment for the podcast. The segment will share the same name as the parcel I've just begun renting on Corona Cay that appears in the snapshot above: Sound Off.
Sound Off, the segment, will feature a co-host with computer-generated voice and me reading aloud selected holy scriptures from the world's great religions before a studio audience. The readings will be followed by musical renditions of the selected readings by various SL musicians with interpretative dance routines performed by multiple avatars in period costumes from the studio audience that have been scripted and choreographed by Aubie Audion.
Sound Off, the parcel, will feature consciousness experiments, poetry slams, barbershop quartets and AV petting booths that are intended to stimulate both the mind and the economy.
I don't know if the tenant association at Corona Cay will permit such dubious public performances on the sim. There is after all a certain standard that must be maintained. I'll probably have to appear before the
CoronaVerse Star Chamber to humbly request permission to chase this dream.
While the specific details for the Sound Off segment are getting sorted out, the droning monologue that is the Meet Scottlo Scorbal Podcast will continue. Also continuing, will be my efforts to figure out how best to inhabit the Sound Off parcel. Feel free to drop by and tell me how I'm doing on either score.
