Ephemeral Pixels and Lasting Memories

They say it's only a pixel moon

Sailing over a cyber sea,

But it wouldn't be make believe

If you believed in me.

-Lyndon Heart, "Pixel Moon"

Virtual space is an ephemeral thing by nature.  Formed of pixels, programming and the pulse of electricity, the web is as ever-changing as the minds that drive it.  Second Life is no exception.  Sims grow, move, change hands, languish, or disappear just as, say, blogs do.  I've been there for a matter of months and I can already provide examples of each.  And yet, the loss (or, clinging to hope, potential loss) of Molaskey's Pub was an idea that never quite occurred to me.

As of St. Patrick's Day, 2011, Molaskey's Pub is four years old.  As virtual space goes, it's an institution.  And, as far as I can tell, it's iconic among Second Life live music venues.  How can it not be?  Visually, its anchor is the pub itself, built on sturdy pixel bricks on the shore of a tideless digital ocean.  Surrounded by beaches, rivers, shops and galleries, it's a beautifully detailed gathering space.  My favorite stage floats in the water just off the Bonfire Beach, overlooked by glittering palm trees and the pub's shining golden signs.  A circular stage with cushioned seating, it encourages an intimacy that the  rectangular area above and behind it doesn't quite accomplish.

Chapman Zane on the Bonfire Beach stage.  21 February, 2011.

Molaskey's was created by Katydid Something, Apple MacKay, and Nasus Dumart.  It has been run with love and enthusiasm by its founders and Mia Kitchensink, host, shop-owner and long-time supporter of the venue, for all those years.  Stace Silvercloud, also a host, joined the Molaskey's family about five months ago or so.  I'm a host now, too, and after two short months, that hasn't sunk in and probably never will.

I've blogged about this place before.  How my first time there wasn't for a concert, but for a set of Celtic tunes spun by Molaskey's DJ, BJ Farlight.  It was just what I'd needed at the time, and I'll remember that as clearly as the first live concert I heard at the pub.

I went to my first concert there on a whim.  It was a Sunday beach stage lineup of Tone Uriza, Lyndon Heart, and Gypsy Quixote, which left me expecting a more bluesy venue than it really turned out to be.  Going to the concerts two or three days a week quickly got to be a habit.  It was a routine escape into consistently good, wonderfully live music by a long list of great artists, and all of that in the company of friends.  Virtual space it may be, but the interaction between the audience and the performer is real.  It's not just the singer/songwriters, streaming across states, continents, and oceans, that bring the music.  A good crowd brings it, too.  If you've ever heard John Cage's 4'33", you know this especially well.  My favorite times, as an audience member, have been when the group gets quippy, laughing and building on a joke that may or may not be tangentially related to the music.  Having fun, as we let the notes wash over us just as surely as the warm cyber sea washes over the sand pixel beach, makes the concerts real.

Virtual space is ephemeral.  Individual memories often are as well.  Shared memories, however, live on, and whatever happens come May, we have the rest of April to make them.  I have to believe they'll be glorious.  See you at the pub.

Lyndon Heart performing "Pixel Moon" back in October, at the first concert I heard.