Tuna and I did a static piece of art last spring, on a generous grant from Annenberg/MacArthur, in Second Life — as part of the opening of the International Justice Center in SL.

In December, there will be a festival to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and I was very proud to see an image of our piece used today to head up an announcement of the planning for the festival!

Today Fish and I did a real life magic show at Waban Health and Rehabilitation Center.  Fish has been doing shows for them for several years, and I’ve been helping him out on some of the shows for the last year or so.

We opened with a stirring rendition of Flying Purple People Eater from Fish, and some card magic.  Then I did a dramatic reading of Poe’s “The Raven” (older folks love good poetry — I wish more of our kids’ shows had that taste!).  We followed with more magic, including ropes and more cards, sponge balls, and various.  Then Fish gave a nearly rap version of Monster Mash, with the whole crowd clapping the rhythm.  I told a Zuni variant of the classic archetypical Opheus/Eurydice story, which had one woman in the front row weeping, but smiling.   And Fish closed with more cards, his amazing ring finger fantasy routine, and a contortionist trick he performed with the cooperation of Joanne, the activities director.

A good time was had by all.

I love the real life magic gigs, but I’m far more interested — and see such a larger future — for our work with art/magic/technology in mixed/augmented reality.

We are now officially a Massachusetts for-profit corporation.  Now we have to talk to our lawyers more about a more standard investment contract.  Qualified investor?  Interested in investing?  Contact me!

[I'll be editing this with more details in the near future -- but meanwhile it seemed best to get the story on virtual paper! -- Shava]

Thursday night we were up nearly all night preparing for the trip, and after a couple hours of sleep, I took my mom to the doctor’s for a check up, and we gathered our “tour kit” (several days of clothes, the laptop bag, and various promotional materials) for departure.

We left for NYC on Friday’s 3pm Fung Wah bus from Boston to NYC, arriving about 7:30pm — and our tickets for The Residents (Fish’s 40th birthday present) were for an 8pm show at The Blender Theatre, twenty minutes away.  We cabbed it, and got to the line, finding Frog Foden and Spagandy (Frog and Spagandy of the Singing Lawnchairs) in line with friends from the area.  They had come all the way from Florida for this show.  We’d never met in person, so it was one of those odd first-meeting-and-reunions one has with friends from Second Life the first time you meet in the flesh.

The show was amazing. (more…)

And filing the preliminary patent is moving forward!  We might even have that done by Friday!

In addition we are negotiating to do a mixed reality show at Arisia this year.  Stay tuned for more news.

Fish took his birthday gift card to Borders and got a nifty reference book on Augmented Reality tech.  Some of this we’ve seen, and some of it we haven’t.  But it should enrichen our plans for Oddfellow Studios, and also our performances, coming soon!

Yes, we live, breathe, and even dream this stuff, but I can’t complain!

Tomorrow afternoon we head to NYC for an evening concert, Friday we are meeting with various folks, and then Saturday is “Gateway.”  We got the proof for the 4×6 cards today, and they are stellar.

Sometimes, I can’t help hearing the echo of the opening of David Copperfield when I think about what we are doing:  “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”  Right now, life seems like a whirlwind adventure.

On Saturday, October 11th from 6pm-10pm Eastern, Fish and Shava (and Tuna and Shava) will be performing at Jack the Pelican Presents in Brooklyn, host gallery to Brooklyn is Watching.  Filthy Fluno (Jeff Lipsky IRL) will be there to document the event in pastels, as live art.  Simultaneously, we’ll be doing a special Odd Ball in Second Life, at about 7pm-9pm Eastern (4pm-6pm SLT).

The gallery has named the show “Gateway” — we’ll be talking as much as we can about the tech at the foundation of Oddfellow Studios.

Y’all come!  One world or the other!

Here’s the art from the postcard we made for the show (check out the stylin’ graphic from Tillie Ariantho, and the Tuna portrait by Crap Mariner) –

postcard, front

postcard, back

Welcome to the new home of Oddfellow Studios, home to Tuna Oddfellow, performance art star of Second Life, and his beautiful assistant Shava Suntzu.

Many of you also know these two by their real life counterparts, artist Fish Fishman, and entrepreneur and writer Shava Nerad.

This is Shava, opening up our new company blog — I will try my best to keep up the folks interested in our performance and our business interests here!

Welcome to the Tunaverse!