Luskwood's Twelfth Anniversary

By Bixyl Shuftan

On Satuday October 17, The Luskwood community held it's Twelfth Anniversary Celebration, also known as the LW12B. It was in October 2003, when the Grid was just a few months old that Arito Cotton, Liam Roark, Eltee Statosky, and Michi Lumin (May 2012 interview) got together in what was known then as "Eltee's Treehouse." But from those small beginings would come a much larger community, the first of many Furry communities in Second Life, and the oldest continuously occupied social spot on the Grid, Furry or otherwise. Every year, Luskwood holds an anniversary celebration, and this year they held a number of music performances at three of their venues. The locations were in or mainly in the Perry sim, which the Luskwood group owns.

It's time for Luskwood 12B! Join us as we celebrate 12 journeys around the sun, starting with Alazarin Mondrian at 12:55 PM SLT in the psychedelic forest!

The "Psychedelic Forest," created by Eo Fenstalker and Kumba Digfoot for Luskwood's Tenth Anniversary, would be the scene of the first event at 1PM SL time. The dragon musician Alazarin Mondrian and his band performing for a packed crowd. Getting there, it took some minutes for most everything to rezz into focus.

There were a number of regulars at Luskwood, and some from the Trotsdale community which has become closely linked to this group of furs in the past few years.

 In the past, special hats had been given as presents for those attending the anniversary. This time commemorative T-shirts were given out, resembling a Lunar mission logo.

The party went on the Psychedelic Forest for an hour, then at 2PM SL time, the celebrations shifted to the ampitheater. The Luskwood Ampitheater is mostly on the Perry sim, but part of it goes over Lusk for those hit harder by lag can attend events. Keeba Tammas and her band of tinies performed live music for the enthusiastic crowd, which had a number of normal human avatars and tinies amongst the furs and ponies.

At one point, someone from the audience got on stage and strummed his own guitar. As he wasn't interfering with the band, he only got smiles. Then one of the ponies got on stage, and it wasn't long before Michi Lumin, the most popular of the four founders, was talked into joining in, the real-life engineer heading to the keyboard instead getting a guitar, "Hope she is not nervous and sprays here at stage," one wag commented. But of course she didn't.

From 3 to 4PM, there was an intermission as the Luskwood staff took a break. But after the break was over, the popular Jaycatt Nico and Frogg Marlowe took to the stage with their own live performance.

At five, it was Shannon Oherlihy's turn, strumming her guitar as she sang.

At 6PM SL time, it was on to the third location for the celebrations. The crowd headed over to the "Disco Moon" platform, so named as it's located inside a large globe resembling a moon on the outside. The first to DJ for the crowd was Chippingham Millions.

After a couple hours came the last DJ on the schedule, squirelgirl Haley Maruti.

Like at the previous two venues, not everyone showing up was a fur or pony.

The celebrations would go on late in the evening. At one point, Scentuallust, one of the administrators of the pony sims was dancing next to founder Michi, and then a third skunk got into the act. Then someone else changed to his own skunk avatar, resulting in a line of monochrome with four stinkers dancing away.

The fun went on past Midnight SL time. DJ Haley eventually had to go to bed, "THANK YOU LUSKWOOD!!" "Thank you Haley!"And one of the ponies played some music on the stream for a little while. 

But eventually it was time for those left to retire for the night, Michi commenting, "I am so losing it. I've now been going 13.5 hours if you count pre-party stuff." She shared hugs with those nearest to her. LW12B was over.

While the anniversary celebrations were done, the Luskwood staff doesn't have long to rest. Halloween is coming, and one can bet the Big Tree will be the host of some "Spook-tacular" fun then.

For this online reporter, Lusk isn't just any location. It's where I more or less got my start in Second Life, and I still use the Luskwood Red Fox as my everyday avatar. While I no longer hang out here every day, I still come by time to time to check on things.

Happy Birthday Luskwood

Bixyl Shuftan