First, dreadfully sorry and all that, I didn’t actually mean to be away for so long, don’t you know. I was captured by pirates and tortured – forced to drink American domestic beer, if you can imagine that. The horrors. It still makes me shiver with disgust, the memory of it all. I finally escaped only by dint of my wit and my cane … but that’s a story for another time! My most humble thanks go to my dearest Sherpa Voyager for carrying on the responsibility of reviews during my enforced absence.

A loyal reader sent me to A Starry Night, a Vincent VanGogh museum. I was quite pleased with what I found there. Not only is it an entire sim dedicated to VanGogh, but in addition to many of the paintings and informational kiosks, many of VanGogh’s works have been rendered in 3D, allowing one to actually step inside the painting!

No, that wasn’t Seeker getting clever with Photoshop; as you can see here, I’ve stepped out of the shot.

Ah, I believe I can hear your objections. You were just standing there. Can you sit? Well … watch this!

There are, of course, paintings in which one doesn’t clamber all about.

There are about 70 paintings on display. And there are also the expected, and no doubt useful, informational plaques.

If you want to just skip around the 3D pieces, you simply click on the easels by each piece and Bob’s your uncle; but I do hope you don’t do that. Seeker will be most disappointed. As you know, good things come to those who are patient …

Eventually, don’t you know, as you wander outside and up a long staircase, you’ll come to the most famous of VanGogh pieces, Starry Night. We’ll not dwell on the conjecture that VanGogh suffered from astigmatism, the perennial question of whether it was that – or his genius – that made those remarkable swirls. never mind: let’s just enjoy them. At the top of the stairs, we see the usual easel, showing the original.

But off to the side … Is that a teleporter? Yes, but before we step onto it, let me digress for a short moment. I first heard of a Starry Night build when my good friend MarkTwain White IM’d me with a URL. “You have to see it.” he said. And I did. The URL led me to Robbie Dingo’s blog. Mr. Dingo is a well-known machinima artist. As far as I know, Dingo’s Starry Night was first. I IM’d one of the group owners of the sim asking them about this but I never heard back.

So now let’s step on that teleporter and walk about Starry Night. The scale is most impressive.

One can walk all about the village. See if you can find a VanGogh hanging in one of the houses. I did and I’ll even give you a hint: it is on the second floor.

Places like this build, and Mr. Dingo’s film, really do show the true promise of Second Life. I’m glad I visited.

So please do watch Mr. Dingo’s movie and do visit the build and ignore who was first, because don’t you know, both of them are extremely worthy of your attention. You start by teleporting to the Virtual Starry Night and spend some time with Vincent.

And I’ll just sit here, waiting for my dearest Sherpa, who I do want to thank for shouldering the SecondSeeker.com burden all these months. I’ve offered to buy her a spot of something if she’ll just spend a little time with me (especially after my close shave with the pirates and their dastardly deeds of torture), but, alas, I am alone yet again, this time in a cafe rather than on a bench … but the loneliness is the same.

“Waiter, another absinthe, please!”