Thursday, October 05, 2006

Omphalos, or "Do I have a navel?"

Only on SL question #2...

I've been on SL over a month, and aside from one brief experiment with a bikini, I've not dared show my midriff until today.
I know, it makes no sense; on SL, everyone can be beautiful... but there it is.

So, I used the top from one outfit, but didn't care for the short shorts—not with a word across the back. I've never understood why anyone would wear clothes that paste a word across one's backside.

Anyway, I put on some faded blue jeans, and headed out into the virtual world... and had a very good time indeed (thank you again, Mordecai!). At one point I went for the mobile cam POV, and thought I noticed something—or didn't notice it.

Back in the 19th century, a fellow named Philip Gosse wrote a book titled Omphalos, the Greek word for navel. He was trying to salvage creationism after Charles Darwin proposed his famous theory, and argued that God created the world just as if it had evolved--Adam and Eve had navels, even though they had never been attached to a mother's umbilical cord, etc. It was blown off by the religious and skeptics alike, the former because it implied that God is a cosmic liar.

Thoughts of Gosse and of Barbara Eden, whose navel remained unexposed throughout the run of I Dream of Jeannie thanks to NBC Broadcast Standards, zipped through my head, and I asked "Do I have a navel?" Had I given voice to the question, it would have been quite plaintive.

I was assured that I did indeed have a navel, and much panning and zooming persuaded me of it. (Innie or outie? Hard to tell; it was just a dot even at high magnification.) OTOH, I do wear a skin. Do new users have navels? I wonder...

...but it occurs to me that this is the archetypal waste of time, as I am contemplating... no, I can't say it.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I don't think the default system skins have a navel.