News from Lauk’s Nest

Haruno Watanabe at Lauk’s Nest Sunday, December 13 at 12:00 noon

Haruno Watanabe, a Japanese origin living in the United States, has been classically trained since her childhood. Singing has always been her passion in her life. She was a member of Tanglewood Festival Chorus, chorus group for Boston Symphony and Boston Pops for over 7 years worked with world famous musicians and conductors such as Yo-Yo-Ma, Seiji Ozawa, James Levine and Zubin Mehta.

In Japan Haruno sang actively as a classically trained soloists at various concerts. On the second life she challenges herself learning new genre of music and performs Jazz, Showtune, pops, and of course her repertoire of classical music in Italian and Japanese. She carefully chooses songs with wonderful lyrics and melody and not necessary by genre. Her friends describe her singing, “a voice pure like a crystal”, “fragile and strong in music notes with all her emotion”, “lovely and yet fearless sensation around her voice”, and “just close your eyes and her voice will transport you far away.”

Her Sample music can be found at Haruno’s website and at Haruno’s Myspace

Lauk’s Nest and The Mossy Knoll join forces for The Make a Wish Charity foundation December 12th and 13th. This is indeed a combined effort of love from both communities to help children with terminal illnesses experience life long dreams.

For any parent of a child that has a terminal illness knows, not only is it an emotional nightmare, but also a financially taxing event in their lives. This is why Graceful Aeon and IKnow Tomorrow along with Bridget Dumpling as well as the Lauk’s Nest and Mossy Knoll communities have combined resources with The Make a Wish Foundation to hold a charity event for the holiday season.

This is the time ladies and gentleman that our communities are asking for your support and contributions to help the children experience something wonderful in their too very short lives.

Starting Dec. 12th and ending on Dec. 13th Lauk’s Nest and The Mossy Knoll will be holding special events with live performances , dances , live dj’s, and treasure hunts.

We are very excited to bring the challenge to Second Life residents to open their hearts and their wallets to help this very important organization. Stay tuned for more information and Bless everyone for their heartfelt time, care, and contributions. See you there !!!!!

Stevo Wonder

Our third artist but definitely not least is another Dutch artist, Beertje Beaumont,  who will have an exhibit of their RL work.  Here is their blog.

“I’m a real-life artist from the Netherlands.  I work with textiles and make colours myself by mixing powderpaint.”

“All my paintings are handmade which I use old lace and sometimes real gems like jade and pearls for.”

“My philosophy is to provide emotions in all my designs and my inspiration is life itself.  There is so much beauty all around us.”

“My photos are taken in the environment that I live in.  Sometimes very early in the morning, during rain and thunderstorms, but they all have natural colours.”

“I never use Photoshop for my pictures as I think the colours are better from the environment itself.”

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have, and don’t hesitate to tell me your opinion.     Love Beerje

As you can see we have three wonderful artists.  All with varied styles but all with great talent.  See you at the Grand Opening on the 21st of November.  And there will be other artists exhibits at other times.  An exciting place to hang out and enjoy the art.

The second artist that will have their artwork displayed at Gallery in the Park is from Germany and their name is Cat Boucher.  Here is what she says.

“Hello and thank you for your interest in my work :-)”

“My photos are done without Photoshop…cos I am too silly to use it and cos I am interested what is possible to do without it…sometimes I want to do a photo and try to be as close to reality as possible…sometimes it matches with the pic when everything looks unreal or like pixels  lol.”

“With my work I try to express feelings…moods or an atmosphere and I hope that I am also able to create them in light and love.  Cat Boucher-Germany.”

As you can see we have some great talent.  I am so looking forward to seeing their work.  Come see it with me.

)

This blog is about Sandhya, aka Yanieck Mariani.  She was very instrumental in getting this project going along with our very own Graceful Aeon.  I decided the best thing to do was let you read her blog from her.  And I will also do the other two artists the same way.

“I’m a woman from the Netherlands.  My name is Yanieck Mariani.  I started doing Second Life:)) almost three years ago.”

“I have learned myself the techniques of Photshop, with some help from some dear friends from SL.  Started with PS6, now working with PS CS4.”

“I’m a self taught digital artist specialized myself in photo manipulation and 3d fashion for 2nd life.  Looking at the tv, my environment, listening to music, watching stock images or pictures on the internet, even my mood, give me a constant flow of new ideas that I’d like to bring to life through my manipulations.  I work alot with stockpictures, brushes sometimes my own photo”s(in combination with stockimages).”

“My style is very broad and I’ll try to be a little different in my work, by giving it my own touch.”

“Fantasy, surrealism, romance, epic, dark/horror, macabre, sci-fi, narrative, illustrative, emotional, meaningful, colourful, embellishing/retouch.”

“You can find me and my store IW:  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Saeneul./184/144/?img=http://farm4.static.flicker.com/3449/3402344488_d2b620e689_m.jpg.

or on xstreet:  http://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?CategoryID=294&SearchCurrentCategory=on&name=marketplace&merchantID=11618&

or on:  http://www.flickdriver.com/photos/yaniecks_passion/popular-interest/”

“Note:  My photos should not be used, reproduced, or distributed without my written permission.  Please contact me if you would like to use any of my photos.  My artwork may not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted, tubed, or uploaded in anyway.  If i use stockphotos from others, then the links are under my work.”

You will love her work.  Come see what she has helped produce at the Gallery in the Park.

There is a new park opening up soon.  Graceful Aeon and her artist friend, Sandhya, started this venture with the hope that parks and art will stay very much a part of Second Life.

This park will be a lovely place to just be there, babbling brooks, scultures, a place to meditate, places to sit and be with friends in a beautiful setting.  The park was started with the love for art in mind.  There will be the sculptures, but there will also be other forms of art as well.  Paintings you are going to love.

The Grand Opening is the 21st of November from 1 PM slt to 3 PM slt.  The very talented DJ Waartza Quixote will be streaming, and we start off the sculpture park with the viewing of three fantastic artist’s work.  I am doing three seperate blogs on the three artist who are from the Netherlands and Germany.

I hope to see you all there.  The LM to the park will be available a day or so before the Grand Opening.  If you have any questions contact Modesty Mcdonnell.

Where is it? I just had it. I used it last when? It’s got to be right here. I remember seeing it. It was just the other day!!

We have all witnessed this phenomenon, you need _____ (fill in the blank here) in order to take care of  ____ (fill in blank here). However, you just can’t find blank.

First, you do a quick scan. Next, you do a little bit thorough scan. Then, you sit down and start to think. You can picture the object in your mind so you start scanning your memory bank. Replaying the scene over and over and over again in your mind. Whats this? Some item in your memory bank leads you too believe you know exactly what you did with it where it is , how it is positioned, the color, the texture, so you search once more, only to be disappointed still.

You even do that silly little dance were you repeat the objects name while turning counter-clockwise in a circle in hopes of this virtual voodoo is going to magically lead you to the spot of utter Nirvana. Only to be kicked in the gut once more. How many times is it now? Two?  Three times?

So you start to search a harder, empty this drawer, search that drawer, did I look in that drawer? Let me empty it. Disassemble the couch, remove the interior of my vehicle, clean out the garage, the shed, the bathroom, check all the pockets in the coats and jackets you haven’t worn for nine months !!

And then you notice your sweating , your using words and phrases that you haven’t heard since you saw the Exorcist with Linda Blair, or better yet, your dear old aunt Agnes as she described how your uncle Henry took the wrong turn on their trip to California back in 1942.

Ah yes, the patience level of the calmest human becomes twisted then withered as an old dish towel. Your breathing heavy with near panic as you sit back down to ponder and rack your frayed near Alzheimer level mind as you stare intently only to discover…………..the item……..sitting right in front of you.

Enjoy your day

Stevo Wonder

Characters:

A small boy (Bobby)

A milkman (Gus)

A milk horse (Dolly)

Setting:

Any small town U.S.A. est. late 1950’s early 1960’s

Gus was going to need to leave his route for a few days due to a meeting at the milk company’s home office. Seems the company is upgrading to the new motorized delivery wagons, and retiring the “obsolete” horse drawn wagons that had served the company very well since the very first day of business nearly 30 years ago. Gus had never misses a day of work since he started with the company 29 yrs ago. Young and handsome and full of energy and fine values, went through life with a hard determination not to let the trials and tribulations get in his way of making a place in the world for his family and for himself, Gus is 64 years old. Retirement isn’t a word that he recognizes nor would even care to know the definition of.

Seeing that he was going to gone a few days of course he was concerned for his dear friend and working partner Dolly. A sorrel mare that has been working with Gus for the last 15 yrs.  Still young at heart and full of “kick”, life would not seem natural without seeing the two together.

Bobby comes from a well cut family, high moralled as well as responsible even so for his young 8 years.

Gus asked Bobby if he would be interested in keeping an eye on Dolly while he would be away at the meeting. Bobby, never being one to turn down the opportunity to help a neighbor out agreed readily assuring Gus that he had nothing to worry about. He would see to it that Dolly was brushed and bathed and fed as well as making sure her stall would be well maintained during his absence.

Three days went buy and as promised Bobby attended to Dolly like she was his own. Doting upon her the attention that Dolly has always been accustomed to. But on the third day Bobby noticed that Dolly wasn’t eating her oats.  On the morning of the 4th day, noticing the uneaten oats once more, Bobby grew real concerned.  After attending to her and her stall, Bobby thought that maybe a walk would do Dolly some good. So slipping on her bridle and lead, Bobby took her up and down the old dirt road.  Bobby noticed when they got to the end of the road, Dolly would stop and look up and down the old main road as if anticipating the arrival of someone or something. On about the third trip Dolly had become more listless and unresponsive. This concerned Bobby so much that as soon as he got Dolly back to her stall,  he set out to find Doc Pritchard the local veterinarian.

After a thorough examination, Doc Pritchard announced that he could find anything physically wrong with Dolly. When asked about her not having eaten , Doc Pritchard just lifted his hat and scratched his hairless head and said” I reckon she will eat when she’s hungry” and set out to tend to his other calls for the day.

Bobby is now at his whits end worrying about Dolly, so he enlisted the help of his dad and was able to get hold of Gus on the Bell telephone. After a lengthy conversation with Gus,  It was decided that maybe ol Dolly might just be missing ol Gus. Well it just so happens that Gus was returning home the next day back from his meeting with his new motorized wagon.

On around noon time, Gus pulls in to the old dirt road leading up to his house, just chugging along having  just a dandy of a time.  You could tell he was proud of his new wagon, and couldnt wait to see Dolly.

Jumping out and concerned for his friend Ol Gus ran into the barn shouting her name !  ” DOLLY  DOLLY !!!” he yelled.” you just have to see my new wagon, now you don’t need to work anymore” !!! Going up to her he gave her a big hug and started telling her about all the new changes that was happening and about his time spent in the city. All seemed happy.

But Dolly still would not eat. Day by Day passed and everyday Gus noticed Dolly getting thinner and thinner. Then one day coming up to park his new wagon, Gus noticed something odd about Dolly. She had backed up between the rails of the old milkwagon as if she was waiting for her harness. Sitting back watching her Gus started to think that she has been right there every afternoon when he came home from his rounds.

Knowing full well he couldn’t use Dolly to pull the old wagon on his route anymore, Gus started to think.

The next morning running his route as usual, Gus seemed a bit more joyful and unusually happy for somebody that generally is happy all the time anyway. Pulling up at a crawl he stopped in front of Bobby’s house with his morning delivery to see Bobby and his dad sitting on the front porch. Bobby, not having spoken to Gus in a few days asked how ol Dolly was doing and whether or not she had started to eat.

” Well Bobby”, Gus said with a rosy faced smile. ” Why not ask her yourself?” as he turned back toward the wagon. Standing behind the wagon was ol Dolly all plump and with a bounce in her trot not seen in many a long day.

“It seems that Dolly isn’t to fond of that retiring thing” exclaimed Gus. ” Seems she just wants to be of some use” said Gus. ” I guess nobody wants to feel useless and forgotten” said Gus in a low quiet voice.

I know this ran long, and I do apologize, this story has a moral and I would be interested in hearing your interpretation .

Thank You,

Stevo Wonder

Wednesday, Oct. 7th-6:30 PM slt to 9:30 PM slt-DJ Merlinzz Magic Show- Come join us for DJ Merlinzz as he play classic rock at it best.  Great music, wonderful folks to chat with (including our very funny host, Stevo).  And dancing.

Friday, Oct. 9th-Noon to 3 PM slt-DJ Merlinzz Magic Show-Another chance to dance and visit as the awesome DJ Merlinzz plays his classic rock.

Saturday, Oct. 10th-Noon to 2 PM slt-DJ Meg Philly-The greatest in 80’s rock and romantic ballads played by the fantastic DJ Meg Philly.  You will love this wonderful DJ who is very witty.

Sunday, Oct. 11th-6 PM slt to 9 PM slt-DJ Merlinzz Magic Show-We finish out the weekend with DJ Merlinzz and his awesome classic rock.  A chance to unwind and get peace before the week starts up again.

And if you are looking for a good place to go dancing Friday and Saturday night check out the Crazy Parrot Club.