Horton Hears a Who-One Laptop Holds a World

Virtual Cafe at FoxyFlwr's place, one of the Great Pioneer Musicians of Second Life...has taken a bit of a 'vacation' while exploring her world...was hanging out with her at her "Cafe"...I was momentarily fixated on the coffee cup on the table, near the laptop, just because it made me 'feel' that same feeling I would experience had I been at the Local Wi-Fi Cafe here where I live, those little details are what really make the Virtual Experience something that from time to time, I can lose myself in.
Most of us have had the experience of being in a cafe, with people at various tables, laptops propped up, their favorite hot beverage near them, pondering...thinking. Thing is...I used to walk in Cafe's in Minneapolis, or any other city, and see people engaged in chess games, poetry, long conversations about politics, or music, poetry or the local town gossip. Now I look around and see people quietly sitting, engaged in deep thoughts as they look lovingly at their laptops.
However in Second Life (tm) it's a rare site, to see anyone engaged heavily with a virtual laptop, in a virtual cafe, although it's happned, it's rare and it's usually for the Visual of the 3D Experience they are immersing themselves in.
In Second life, we are already Immersed in our laptops/pc/mac...and experience the virtual world thru our 'device of choice'...why would we need to go back into a Virtual Laptop....it would be like standing in the mirror, with another mirror facing that mirror and seeing the Long hallway of endless identical images.
Fun as an experiment, leading no w here.
We ARE immersed in Second Life, engaged in Conversations via Voice Chat, or of course the good old fashioned Text Chats and group chats.
We are surrouned with Virtual Avatars, each one respresenting someone, somewhere else in the world. Long distance, real time conversations with friends from the UK, from Australia, from South of my Mid Western town, to North...Global.
Each avatar representing a different perception on the experience, new shared information on culture, engaging conversations about Politics, while we grab our virtual latte's and carry on lengthy conversations about topics of interest, share ideas, and for us Artists and Indie Musicians we are collaborating on a Global Scale of ideas, and even performing together, from opposite ends of the world.
yeah...the Real Life Cafe's seem to have the lonely feel of quietness, a dozen people in one room, all engaged to a Laptop...but, perhaps they are engaged in a whole world, immersing themselves in multiple conversations with people in places they'll never go, reaching out, networking.
remember the movie by Dr Suess? Horton hears a who?
one little flower at the end of the Elephants trunk
encasing an entire universe.
one little laptop
holds the world.

Burns

B U R N S
11 8 2008

It's sickness like a rock, sinking painted black
it turns like molten lava
it thickens as it turns
expanding into more sickness...
and they wonder what it's about
and they don't understand what that feels like
shove it all down
swallow it with something sweet
the cold ale of darkened crimson
the kind one would find beneath bare feet in the forest
where something bled
and something died.

It's sickness that burns
and the lining of my instinct
and the edges of my intuition saturate themselves in it
and I can 't get rid of it
it blurs the lines of what is and what was and what comes
it's perception with a cracked lens
it's depth where there is no bottom.
Because of it
the walls are closer than I had thought
doors are further than my hand reaches
windows are higher up above my eyes
and I can't get out into the world
because my eyes won't reach the wooden pane of the glass.
Without it, I might be free.

Quote from Michael on myspace.com/7juel in comments

"Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them.
But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things.
They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. "