Maybe time to leave all the United States of Stupidity.

Hurricane Season in New Toulouse. Definitely more fun than the real thing. But then it is “Second Life,” isn’t it.

Basilique Town is most famous for the Basilique Performing Arts Company staging of “John Milton’s Paradise Lost.” Well worth seeing. The audience participates by dancing on scripted cue as a chorus of angels or devils, depending on the the glory or perfidy of the moment. But I more often just sit here at the cafe in town, collecting my thoughts and perhaps rereading a bit of Milton to remember what all the fuss has been about all these centuries.

The lure of greater realism leaves me cold. Say, the “mesh” skins kludged into Second Life with full body alpha: the more real their aspirations, the more uncannily alike they all become. A roomful of them dancing can get quite eery. If I needed more realism in my life, I’d listen to that lying bathroom mirror and that troll of a scale. I’d take the dog for a walk to the beach. No, I am a happy toon and a happy toon I shall remain — an avatar on some strange voyage thither.