Tantari Kim's "Journey of Sound"

By Grease Coakes

A short while ago Tantari Kim the blue vixen well known for being in Second Life over a decade has decided to give DJing a try. DJs have been around for a long time in Linden land being entertainment in clubs for earning linden, sharing their music or perhaps DJing for charity. Lots of pixelated avatars DJ for various reasons. I caught up with the blue vixen herself at her favorite hotspot Shadowquine Maltz's "The Ark" which is a popular hang out for furries. It's certainly well known for being far from G-rated.

I asked her was there an event or person who inspired her to DJ. She had this to say.

Tantari Kim: "Well, I listened to a lot of My Little Pony fanmixes, and I made a mix for myself.  I really wanted to show it off, so I did a one-time show at Cutlass."

Tantari Kim: "The Sunweavers did like the MLP set, but that was it (with what I had).  I had to fight to get airtime and I wasn't invited back.  So... I didn't become a DJ then.  It was Bix that made me a DJ."

Bixyl Shuftan (our editor), who helps manage the Happy Vixen, a club on the Sunweaver/Angel Estates, asked Tantari to DJ yet again. Tantari had a "Vixens of Science set," but she had to scramble to it put together. Tantari said Bixyl's club was low pressure, so she could make mistakes as she was starting out. When I was starting out as a DJ I had a simlar start.

By the sound of it, in a way, Bixyl Shuftan inspried and kept pushing Tantari to become a DJ. I asked Tantari what kind of music she plays. One of her themes was the Vixens of Science set for herself. But she's not a one trick fox. She's capable of playing other musical themes for herself.

Tantari Kim: "I flipping love science!  I love robots and sci-fi and technology and computers and all that stuff.  So SCIENCE was a natural set for me. I get my themes from all sorts of things, but they have to be something I care about, something that inspires me."

 Tantari said she likes playing music which pleases her furry ears. She had to this to say about her music selection, and about sharing her music with her friends and dancers.

Tantari Kim: "All of my sets have a very strong theme. It's a DJ's job to play the music you never knew you always loved. (smile)"

Tantari Kim: "My sets start with: 'This is a Journey into Sound with DJ Tantari.'  That's my goal: to take you somewhere.  Make you feel something.  Sometimes even tell a story. It's not enough to be a good song.  It has to fit the feel and message of the set.  Otherwise I don't play it."

I agreed with Tantari that DJ sets have to stay within a certain theme or else they will sound horrible. Making a DJ set is hard work. She was saying she spent between 6 to 9 hours making a DJ set making sure all the songs fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Tantari Kim: "Please come check out my sets.  Come with me on a Journey Into Sound."

Tantari wishes to share her music so much that she now DJs for three diffrent clubs around Second Life. She DJs for Rita Mariner and Jenni Greenfield's Club Cutlass, the Happy Vixen and of course the Ark where I interviewed her at. Also, Tantari has her own DJ group to join. If you want in on her DJ fan group go on her profile and join for free DJ Tantari Kim's Sound Journeys. You might expect this if you came to her sound journeys. And here's a good idea of what she plays from the fox's muzzle herself.

Tantari Kim: "I mostly play electronic dance music and rock, but I'll play anything as long as it's good and it fits my set.  Some rap.  A tiny bit of country.  Some classical.  A lot of movie and TV themes.  Whatever it takes."

As Bixyl pushed her into djing, the Second Life Newser had it's five year anniversary. So she made up some "facts" about Bixyl Shuftan such as.

Tantari Kim: "TRUE FACT: 'What Does the Fox Say' was written about Bixyl Shuftan."

Tantari Kim: "TRUE FACT: Bixyl Shuftan once interviewed a Magic 8 Ball... and got it to confess to a murder."

Grease Coakes: (Laughing out loud)

Tantari Kim: "Tell them 'Please come check out my sets.  Come with me on a Journey Into Sound.' "

She has to update her website for her DJ times, but she told me Saturday night at 6pm SLT and 9am SLT Sundays at The Ark here http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Quarabia/187/127/501

What to hear a fresh and new talent here in Second Life? Look no further than one of it's oldest and bluest's avatars. Ms. Tantari Kim.

Grease Coakes

A Day of Relay Events

By Bixyl Shuftan

Saturday March 23rd was a day full of events for the Relay For Life. Numerous teams had events planned, large and small. And all of them cheered each other on through the volunteer group chat.

At 11AM was the biggest event in terms of area it took place on: the "Cross-Country Giant Snail Race." Organized by RacerX Gullwing and his team, his Giant Snail Races usually take place on an obstacle course in part of a sim. This marathon took place over 45 sims on the Mainland, going by places such as "The Shelter." For the Relay, RacerX and his team are known as the Giant Snail Relay team.

About a dozen racers donned giant snail avatars, and took part in the course. There were a few problems unfortunately for both contestants and onlookers. Forks in the road had arrows to help guide the racers. Unfortunetly, lag could sometimes hide them, from both racers and people trying to keep up with the action. The snails could also get caught in obstacles hidden by lag, such as trees, in addition to ban lines from peoples' houses on the mainland. The exact time the race took wasn't available when this article was written, but these cross-sim races often take over forty minutes before the first racer crosses the finish line, and an hour before most contestants have gotten through. Alden Cortes' snail was the one who won the race. Stay tuned for the race to appear on the Treet.tv archives soon.


The Giant Snail Relay might have had the largest event. But there were plenty of others. The Unmasking a Cure team announced a "Sink the DJ" event, "Unmasking A Cure team is kicking off our first event with DJ Chris Crisis! Come on down …  We'll be here all day! Hope you can stop in and have some fun with us!" Getting there, it was a small but enthusiastic crowd. The DJ and hostess were sporting ducky water floats, "Pay the kiosk 100L, and I'll take your request. Show your love, help unlock a cure!" Near the dance floor was a small pool, presumable where the DJ would end up if enough cash was donated. The event went on for about eight hours.

At Celtic Isle, an "En Garde" fencing tournament was held. Panza Elde announced the competition to Relay chat, taking amusement to the variety of avatars, "Another match about to begin, bird vs bunny." Heading over, the contestants were a variety of human, furred, and tiny avatars.  More than 11,000 Lindens had been raised at the event, the winner being Capt Blinker with Stero Nacht a close second. Capt Blinker joked, "I cheated, I tied Stereo's shoelaces together. (grins)"

There were other events that day. The Sunbeamers held a special "Purple Passion" Relay event that night at Club Cutlass in Sunweaver Space. How much was raised at the event is unknown, but as of the writing of this article, the team was comfortably in Bronze status with almost 32,000 Lindens. Harmony for Hope held a "Jail n Bail" in which Sunshine Zhangsun found herself behind bars, "I am too cute, so they threw me in jail. *pouts*"  "I'm sure it's well deserved." "Yes! Oh wait, I mean NOOOOO!!" And there were some more jokes about "Stinky the Skunk" and his continued presence at the Relay Rockers. It would be a few more days until the Rockers were finally free of their long lasting "skunked" status.

 There will be many more Relay events big and small in the coming days and weeks. You can find some posted in the Relay For Life in Second Life webiste Here. A new website was also revealed which keeps track of various RFL blogs and those of friends of the Relay.

"Go Relay!"

Bixyl Shuftan

Image Credit: Jasmine Dawn Shuftan

Halloween Fun All Over Second Life

by Grease Coakes

I got an invite last night on Halloween eve to a great Halloween party at club Zero Gravity organized by Jasmine who is Bixyl Shuftan’s girlfriend.  I was surrounded by spooky party goers in great costumes. It was packed. Bixyl told me Jasmine put a lot of work into the Halloween party designing the set and DJing the music. She did a great job. She played Halloween music old and new, and an extended mix of Michael Jackson’s "Thriller." The speakers were made of pumpkins.

She set up a best in Halloween contest for 1000L or so for everyone, and then by surprise Nydia Tungsten the owner of Club Zero Gravity showed up and added 2,000L to the prize money making it a total of 3,000. I won a Halloween contest earlier that day as Guy Fawkes the revolutionary man in a mask from British culture. So I played fair and did not enter the contest wanting someone else to win. The prize winners were Kitacelia and Amaya. 

Looking through notices I saw ZZ studios was having a trick or treat event on Halloween day itself. That sounded like a definite treat. The notice explained that we could go to ZZ studios staff like Cindy Babii or Rhin Forti and say “Trick or treat!” The prize for saying that was a random ZZ studios trading card with various furries in adult themed clothing. The cards were from the Halloween season, so it was a nice treat. I myself am in one of these cards dressed in primitive clothing in loin cloths and spears paired up with Justin Foxchase. 

Finding Cindy Babii she looked like a zombie killer but she corrected me and told me she was dressed from the movie "Mad Max." I said “Trick or Treat!” and she rezzed an orb, which I clicked to get a random ZZ Studios card. When I wasn’t looking, Cindy tried to be sneaky and steal my car that I bought from a charity car show. (When I reported on the Hot Bay City car show earlier in the year) Luckily only I can drive the car, so Cindy was foiled in her car theft.

I found Rhin Forti in their movie theater. Just like Shockwave’s movie night ZZ studios has a place to play movies. Rhin herself was dressed up like a piranha plant from the Super Mario brothers game that pokes up from pipes to bite those pesky Mario brothers. She also gave me another card through the random orb. For kicks I drove past the zombie house and saw a Halloween party going on so I stopped by and chatted a little bit through voice and text. Throughout the day ZZ Studios was playing Orson Welles’s "War of the Worlds," "Zombie Land," and "Ghostbusters" 1 and 2 in that order in their movie theater.

Later in the Halloween day I got a teleport invite from Gemma to a Halloween party at the “Corner of Revolving Time.” DJ Qwark Allen was playing some cosmic and spooky psytrance. Gemma and Qwark were reapers with pumpkin heads, and I saw an avatar with a large skull head. Made me think of the show animanics and the character “Mr. Skullhead.” A friend of mine ShinyWhiteDragon was at Qwark’s party wishing me well for Samhain, another word for Halloween as the pagan holiday when the veil between the spiritual world and the physical is at its thinnest.

All in all I had fun partying with furries and humans for the fun holiday of Halloween. I didn’t get any chocolate or candy but I still had a lot of fun in SL’s various nooks and crannies.

Grease Coakes

Goodbye Perri, Hopefully Only For Now

A little sad news from the HV Community sim, where I make my home on the Grid. One of my neighbors, Perri Prinz, has made a name for herself as a DJ in Second Life, in my opinion one of the best in her selection of 60 and 70s music. She would play at Cutlass, Club Zero Gravity, and other clubs. With her partner RECoyote Mindes, she also owned a club of her own, the Green Meadows Club, which friends also called Perri's Xanadu. Her music got her many fans, and her gentle manner a number of friends. And of course there was her partner RECoyote.

Outside of Second Life, Perri, or "Hunny Bunny" as she sometimes calls herself, was also known as a writer. She wrote the chapters for Spectral Shadows, a long series of stories that mixed themes such as time travel, Fantasy, and Science Fiction, going back for many years. A teleporter at Xanadu would take one to a gallery of Spectral Shadows Illustrations. She would also put some thoughts in a Livejournal, which went across a number of subjects, such as music.

Her latest Livejournal post however was a sad one.

Perri suffered from health problems in real life, and as much as she loved her friends and playing her music, the technical glitches could sometimes just be too much, requiring her to take occasional breaks to rest up. Running her club had proven to be a bundle of nerves, so friends from the FCA club alliance, including myself, had recently been helping her to try to get Green Meadows/Xanadu up and running again.

Unfortunately, one event she had spent hours preparing for happened to occur right on the very day the Grid was hit with its "Unscheduled Maintenance." Not only was getting online difficult, but nothing seemed to work, notably her music stream. It was then she felt there was nothing better to do but leave the Grid for good, saying goodbye to her friends who managed to show up despite the glitches that day.

Since then, Perri's gotten a number of messages from friends and well wishers.  And she responded she might return after an extended hiatus to heal, "REC and my friends … I'm missing them already. … I hate the thought of never being with … the others again. … We'll see what happens. I just pulled the plug. I didn't throw out the computer." Perri's Livejournal entry and responses can be found here: http://symphonic-rp.livejournal.com/203000.html .

As for Club Green Meadows, events there have come to a close, at least for now. It's possible later on the FCA club alliance will try to get the club running again with others playing the music Perri was noted for.

Goodbye our friend, at least for now,

Bixyl Shuftan

*Addition* Perri did come back a few days after this was written.