Waitin' For the End of the World

Location: Unpenitent

I'll take a break from invented worlds on screen to one that is happening in the flesh now: the myth of The Rapture. A Unitarian-Universalist like me, who disbelieves in Hell or Satan, who feels all faiths lead to the same destination though along different error-strewn paths, scratches his head at the invented world of The Rapture.

But some folks believe 100,000 (or so) souls will be taken up tomorrow, and Twitter is abuzz with jokes. I asked William Gibson if he is "taken up," could I have the typewriter he used to compose Neuromancer?  Pranksters in large cities are going to leave empty suits of clothing here and there on the sidewalks.

My one Rapture Tweet: "You got Raptured and all I got was a lousy 1983 Chevy Cavalier."

Even when I was a Catholic, I learned that this notion of Rapture is not only a Protestant "heresy" but also a recent one not based upon biblical ideas. The notion started in America.

I won't belabor the point or even allow comments on this post. I'll just editorialize one point: whatever holy books (inspired by God, edited by humans) say, any god who would create a hell and then cast people into it is not worth worshiping. I do believe in a God of love, not an angry old man on a throne who would cherry-pick a few humans. Perhaps oblivion awaits the evil: that's a mystery to me. Enough Catholic teaching remains with me to be comfortable with the idea of Sacred Mystery.

I believe that we were given this good Earth as a gift and it won't go up in fire and Tribulations unless we bring them down ourselves through poor stewardship. And if that occurs, I feel that God would be the first one to weep.

So see you all on May 22, while the End-Times calculations get reset yet again.  And we can get back to the cheerful nonsense of our daily lives.

Update May 22, 2011: The sky did not roll back like a scroll as farmer Iggy (real Farmville, not the game) mowed a field and worked on the backhoe yesterday. The earth did not open beneath my wicked feet as I sipped a beer and listened to the whippoorwills at nightfall.  No final trumpets sounded as I filled an old briar with "And Now to Bed" pipe tobacco, blended on the Isle of Jersey. I plan to go there one day.

Midnight came and went, and those awaiting the Rapture had to recalibrate their Doomsday clocks.

As my pipe smoke wafted up to the stars, so perfect beyond the light pollution of the cities, I gave quiet thanks, which is about all a Deist can do before a Creator who put matters into our hands. I gave thanks for this life, this world, and human ingenuity.

As for human foolishness and the desire to live in special times? As for a not-so-subterranean wish to see others not like oneself suffer?

I did not dwell on those things.

And in the Vault...

Location: Usher Boneyard

When you Google "headless skeleton," you never know what you'll find.

Now that the Mountains of Nevermore are nearly done, I'm returning my attention to the Island's interior and the crypts beneath The House of Usher.

As Madeline Usher grows ill, her brother refuses to place her body in the family graveyard, to avoid "certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial-ground of the family."

Well, what might have happened to other Ushers in that forlorn graveyard? Of such voyeuristic horrors are Poe's tales woven.


The tomb was easy to build, and I found a very nice stone-on-stone sound at freesound.org. The lid image is a modified photograph, as is the headless skeleton inside.  The mystery, noted in the tomb, would be how a recently buried person (the Ushers' mother, in fact) became so weathered and lost her head.  Seek in the cemetery and you may find out!

Nevermore, The Wiki!

Location: Google Sites

I'm pleased that a grant from my university permits faster work this summer on the Virtual House of Usher's rebirth (or perhaps "return from the crypt," to be Poesque). The project will be ready in Jokaydia Grid by summer's end, with some finer touches added during the fall term. In late fall, 20 or so students will explore the simulation as they read Poe.

A first step involves setting up a better wiki than the one used previously, so student assistants and actors can collaborate to add clues and other materials to the site. We could, of course, design some brooding Gothic masterpiece of a Web site, but my preference is a piece with multiple authors and an easy-to-master interface. If any dropping to HTML code is needed, I'll shoulder that tedious burden.

Have a peek at the new Google site. Potential actors, as Fall approaches, let me know if you'd like to step into Roderick's or Madeline's shoes.

Case Studies, Project Links, and More at VWER

Location: Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable

Some time ago, Hamlet Au pondered if there were any case studies, with empirical evidence, demonstrating learning in Second Life as compared to other methods of instruction.

I took him up on his challenge, offering the success of the U Texas system's venture. He was not impressed, though we both agreed that Ken Hudson's Canadian Border-Crossing Project did demonstrate the validity of immersive learning.

With this in mind I did a short literature review, a useful "twofer" since I was also doing research for a forthcoming article written with Viv Trafalgar. We have not found any case studies of the use of SL or OpenSim in a literary-studies setting, the focus of our article.

Two studies surfaced. One showed some benefits, but with a small sample size and no control group, and another showed no benefit in an engineering program where, the authors note, they had not provided a good orientation for their students.

With these articles under my virtual arm, I put a question to the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable in a session called "Making the Case for Avatars": What are the Advantages over Teleconferencing?

I was impressed by the responses, and you can read a transcript of our talk here. Note that for those not wanting to wade through a HUGE text transcript, I aggregated all links at the start.