Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting.
Langstrath Valley shot “Windmills, Sancho? I see Giants!” which portrays the most famous scene from Don Quixote... I loved the book when I read it in high school Spanish and dragged my friend to see the statue at Plaza de España. I love the book far more than “Man of La Mancha,” the musical.
Why did I decide to hunt for Don Quixote in Second Life? Chatting on the phone with a friend, I characterized a mutual friend’s action as quixotic. I then wondered why we pronounced quixotic so differently from Quixote. I had my stream choosing music for me based on a Ben Webster tune and, rudely, The Impossible Dream began to play. I have never liked that song. The algorithmic overlords should have chosen Dulcinea. Anyway, it made me wonder about Don Quixote in Second Life. There were some lovely surprises such as Langstrath’s picture that is so true to the story.
For more of Don Quixote in the Metaverse, click here:
Moon celebrated the book which she discovered at the lovely Furillen, a sim I am sure many of us Second Lifers wish were still here. I love the warmth of her picture, the way it feels aged. What is so wonderful about Don Quixote is that the more fanciful pieces can be enjoyed by children while adults might be more intrigued by the class-conscious story of privilege and consequence. Perhaps he speaks to our time as well as Don Quixote’s nostalgic desire to live the chivalric life that was lost to history was, more or less, a failure. He could not make chivalry great again. However, if Don Quixote were running about today and Dulcinea were real, she would have gotten a restraining order and the book would lose about 300 pages.
Noddington Schmooz shot a picture of an avatar from nearly fifteen years ago. Ub Yifu, who seems to no longer be in Second Life, made an avatar based on Picasso’s Don Quixote and it could be found at Primtings. I love it, I wish I had seen it when it still existed in SL. PF Anderson also shot a picture of this avatar from an angle that suggests they are being trampled by the Quixote and Rocinante.
Bambi Bell imagines a woman on a quest with the important consideration of what is sanity when life is not. From Don Quixote, “When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!” This is the maxim of our times.
Derry McMahon gives us a far less familiar scene from the book, after it’s all gone to hell and he has been arrested. I am fascinated by the choice of this scene of abject dejection, though it is pivotal in setting Don Quixote back toward reality.
Scott Silverdale takes home the ribbon with his Penguin Classics book cover of “The Ingenious Gentleman Donkey Oté of La Mancha.” The link to create your own Penguin Classic book cover is still functioning. You all should go play with it.
Don Quixote has been called the best novel ever written. I don’t know about that, but it is very modern in a way because it’s so meta. Fiction within fiction, so very 2025. Doing this, I discovered a group performed Man of La Mancha in Second Life. How cool is that? There are many pictures from the performance if you search for Don Quixote and there are windmills, so very many windmills. But that’s for another day.
All images copyright the various artists.
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Cajsa’s Choices is devoted to unique, artistic, and innovative virtual world-based images and screenshots that showcase the medium as an art form and Second Life as a creative platform. (Generally not images that fit on this Bingo card.)
Cajsa Lilliehook is a seventeen year resident of Second Life, where she owned a photo studio, spent several years as a DJ at The Velvet, and for her first SL job, cleaned up prim trash. She co-founded and runs the It’s Only Fashion blog with her best friend Gidge Uriza. She also has a book review blog, Tonstant Weader Reviews and a cooking blog, Single Serving Recipes. She spends a lot of time researching and reporting on Republican sexual predators. In her first life, she is a retired grassroots leader who has worked for economic and social justice issues most of her life. She is also the minion of a cat named Nora.
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