Category Archives: Cass City^

perspective 01

Cassandra City was certainly big enough. Difficult to take a long range picture of, though. Too much of the infrastructure not rezzing in properly with that draw.

Jenny attempts to draw parallels with ancient Crabwoo. “2 sims, not 1,” she utters to escort Todd A. another night, because their act had been so successful that they were extended for 2 more weeks. 2 weeks! Jenny would have plenty of time now to explore the burg. “Crabwoo was larger spacially,” she continued. “But perhaps not psychically.”

Todd A. was getting the sinking feeling that developing Cassandra City was just Pipersville heated over. Where’s the equivalent to the room? he wondered. Where’s the missing laundromat, record store, bakery? It all seemed overly ambitious. And, as we all know, Our Second Lyfe has definite limitations. Lag is always an issue in such crowded spots. And it’s just going to get worse as the city fills out more. Perhaps smaller Pipersville had it right, Todd thinks another time. Build around a lagless, forbidden void (Sink X). Crabwoo too in a way, since the 6 protected sims of the Blue Feather Sea laid just to the northeast. Waterless sink vs. filled sink: which was better? It was a debate that underpinned all life, all activity on the continent, really. This is where TILE comes from.

Jim A., of course, scrutinized the large Seraph nightclub at some length. Soon Pipersville’s Jim Club would be no more. He knew he couldn’t compete. And his house band was leaving soon — he could feel it in his bones. “Might as well rent the building out when I return,” he spoke to Keith B. after another successful gig here. Sweat was pouring off his body. What fun! The circle within the circle certainly did the trick. Keith commended daughter Jenny on the idea again and again. Until the end.

And Jim and Keith were doing maths together. Keep that in mind as we continue our story.

What about the others? Tillie and Tealy had finally arrived in town after circumnavigating the big lake just to the east of Cassandra City. In fact, that’s what most of the local yokels called it, simply enough: Big Lake. One of the problems with that appellation is that Northerners applied the same to their Blue Feather Sea sometimes.

Which brings us to another issue I wanted to talk about: the division between North and South on the continent, how it all got started. We turn back to the handy “Second Life Tourist Blog” entry on Satori/Maebaleia:

http://thesecondlifetourist.blogspot.com/2016/09/know-mainland-satori.html

To get an historical perspective: In 2007, when this continent was constructed, the media was full of articles about Second Life. It was less than a year since Ansche Chung’s picture had been on the cover of Business Week, and there were many residents wanting land. According to the old forums, the Lindens were auctioning off multiple sims at a time, and some went for very high sums….

It was not until late in the next year that the roads in Satori (Route 8, 8A, 8B, 8C, and the Old Wagon Road) were completed. Because some of the sims that were in the right-of-ways had been sold, many roads have dead ends and are connected by false tunnels with teleports, or billboards with teleports. The map kiosks along the road are a big help.

Bottom line: Roads were split between North and South on the continent because of bad planning. You can see the gaps on this continent map I provided before: Route 8b (blue) was suppose to connect to Route 8c (yellow), and so on.

Only the eastern part of Route 8 ran the entire length of the continent north to south. Not by accident, the most heavily bombed highway of the brief yet intense Maebaleia/Satori Civil War. They couldn’t even agree on a continental name. And, I think, this is where Real Life Bluefield also comes into play…

(to be continued)

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Northerners

“Whale! Squid!” She waits a beat. “Whale!” She waits a beat longer.

“Do you want me to make any more?” questions Shallot’s brother Jinn by her side, knife in hand.”

“Aww, no use. Chinatown is not what’s the happening place tonight. *Everyone* is up at the Seraph Club exploring Dean Martin!”

“Martin and Lewis this week,” agrees the more English fluent Jinn. “Rowan and Martin the next. Then after that, who knows. Maybe that Mr. Rowan Atkinson Bean who is so popular on television these days. If patterns hold,” he furthers.

“Too true brother.” They wait again.

“I’ll take one.” It was Jenny (future Your Mama), approaching from the bowels of the sub-town, fellow Pipersvillian Todd A. in tow. Trinkets filled her small backpack.

“Whale or squid?” Shallot asked expectantly.

“Don’t let her tell you that’s whale,” blabbers Jinn. “It’s a shark substitute. But shark (name) doesn’t sell as good as whale.”

“It’s *not* shark, Jinn.” returns an annoyed Shallot. “It’s just… a different kind of whale.”

“I’ll take it,” responds Jenny, looking up at Todd A. “Whatever — both of them.”

——

Then, around the corner, Jenny leans against the side of a building and opens the 2 containers, one after another, studying the contents in each.

“You’re not going to actually eat that are you?” queries Todd in front of her. “Because I’m sure not.”

“Nah.” She throws the food into a nearby gutter. “Just wanted to see what these Southerners eat.”

“Southerners,” grumbled Todd A. with her, and they moved away from Chinatown after that with only plastic souvenirs.

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more

“We made it Brother Amos,” spoke Gabby, who had barely stopped talking during their whole trip down from Toppsity. “*Twin* brother Amos,” he declared. “Fellow Gemini; no doubting of that. Now all we have to do is find non-twin and non-Gemini Brother Keith B. and save him from The Shallows.”

“Where he’ll be murdered,” clarifies Brother Amos from his own bike.

“Killed at the very least,” supplied Gabby Truth, who always tells. “Hills. Of Bill. Keep him out.”

“Keep him out,” echoes Amos, almost as excited as Gabby about finally arriving in half empty or half full (take your pick) Cassandra City. It was not the destination they had planned for their escape. Not atall. Golden Sink… or even further north, had always been tops on the list. Maybe the Lake District. But something told them to turn left (south) instead of right (north) when leaving their cursed home village via Route 8.

“The 4 colored clown and her monochromatic opposum must be here,” Gabby spoke, half in a scrying trance; not unusual. “Soon at the very least.”

“Okay.”

The brothers got off their bikes and locked them up with the rest already on the rack. Jim’s and Todd’s. Jenny and Keith had come by bus. Tillie and Tealy were walking. Cindy A., perhaps the last to arrive but also perhaps the first, came or comes by plane. Wealthier than the rest she is. Later: the poorest of them all, sometimes not even being able to afford to walk. One or perhaps even two more by boat. Identity or identities yet to be determined. Maybe the Bishop and his center-no-more King. Let’s see, who else? Craighead Phillips seems trapped walking around another half empty, half full (again, take your pick) Bluefield city in West Virginia, Real Life, USA, so he may not be a candidate. Besides, he may not even be born yet, since we’re in the past, before Jenny became Your Mama (for example). Tracy Austin appears similarly stuck around the Blue Feather Sea, another BLUEF (since the variant name is Bluefeather, pronounced BLU-fe-ter by some). But, again, it perhaps doesn’t matter since she may also not be born. Think that about covers it. Oh, I guess I should explain more about the Man About Time/Marcus Fox Smart/Professor Suckaluck triangle. But I might not have time tonight. Have to get to Tillie and Tealy!

—–

“What are you doing?” Tillie questioned her fellow, colorful travel mate.

“Calisthenics. What does it look like?”

Tillie faces the yawning gap again. “Yes,” she agreed, pondering doing some stretches herself. “Looks like we have a longer journey than anticipated.”

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privacy

The 3rd night, Jim  (A.) Brown came down from Pipersville to hear his home duo. Owner of Jim’s Club of course, the one everybody dug in Pipersville. Well,  he got an earful; realized he couldn’t hold on to them and they would outgrow the bounds of his small venue. “Soon enough you’ll be playing places like the Seraph Club on the opposite side of town,” he declared to Keith afterwards at the bar, who was still wiping his forehead from the excitement. Jenny had gone shopping for trinkets up in Chinatown.

“Yeah, maybe,” Keith agreed, nodding. “I don’t know, I don’t know. Something’s just — *entered* me all of a sudden. He looks back at the drum kit and the circle within the circle. “I feel like (he turns back to Jim), that I’m in a different place now.”

“I would advise you to remember The Room — where you come from.”

“I mean, ahem, that’s kind of what I’m doing.” He swigs his drink again. Martini. Dry as a sinkhole.

“What about the maths? What about the theorems we worked on? You know that Sink X can’t actually be a sink. None of the Maebaleia depressions are. We’ve *proved* it.”

“Shush,” he motioned with his mouth and hands. “Keep it down.” He looked around to see if anyone else from Pipersville was in the room with them by chance. No one spotted. Todd A., who also came down this fateful night, was escorting Jenny around. But that was their plan all along: to leave Brown and Bower together for a while for a man to man talk. Because Jim and Todd knew what was going on before they arrived. The Brown-Bower experiments hadn’t even existed before this.

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repatriation

“So it was actually the very next night the drums changed over. To the celebrated circle within a circle.”

“Yes,” states Biff Carter, still drinking and explaining at the bar. “They were celebrity spotting in that small park outside the Seraph Club on the other side of town, the *uptown* area, when Jenny noticed the poster.”

—–

“Hey dad. You’re more into British stuff than American, aren’t you? More Union Jack than Stars and Stripes?”

“Sure, baby. If we were in Real Life.”

She pointed above her father. “What about *that* for a logo, then?”

—–

“And, as you can hear, there’s improvement even in the drumming tonight. The symbol actually makes the man in this case. He’s entered his ascent. And, sadly, this trajectory would eventually cross his equally ascending daughter’s at the Room.”

“Back to the Room, then.”

“Sure, baby. I mean — just sure.”

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two three

“So they began playing together, even touring together away from Pipersville, the home base. Daughter and father; Jenny and Keith they were called in the days. Well, Keith never changed his name. Jenny, of course, became Your Mama.”

“Of course,” I replied to Detective Biff Carter. Because he was an officer of the law no more. Not since Oakley. But who am I? Just an observer for now. Call me Smart. Like a Fox. Clever, even. Back to Biff…

“I was here when they played their first gig away from home. Sitting right at this bar listening in. Oh that woman, that *girl* at the time, could sing. And Keith. Well, he was adequate on drums. Never guess he’d eventually become a member of a major rock band, let’s say. And, as you can see, he’s still got the star on the drums; hadn’t got rid of that yet.”

I peered over at the illusion on the Cassandra City stage. Keith B., bank employee of Pipersville whose boss recently told him to keep daughter Jenny out of that room at all cost. So he went into the garage, found the drum kit buried under a heap of old moss. Pulled it out, dusted it off. Practiced. Here we are.

Biff Carter stared over at me. “I’m glad I found the Man About Time, even if it didn’t turn out the way I expected.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. I decided to test my new catchphrase. “There’s a Sucka born every half century.”

“Overlap,” he replied, nodding. “Good idea. Train the replacement.”

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