A Story About a Tree

"A Story About a Tree" is a short essay and an epitaph written by Raph Koster, regarding the alleged death of a LegendMUD player named Karyn. The essay raises the subject of inter-human relationships in virtual worlds, particularly the loss of friends, concluding that these are not "just games". The case, having caused a massive uproar in the MUD's community, is used as a paradigm to the human ability to grieve for imaginary people as well as the aspect of death in Internet-based friendships. The existence of a real Karyn has since been disproved.

Synopsis

Karyn had first logged into LegendMUD in autumn of 1996. She claimed that the name of her avatar was also her real name, and to be a Miss Norway 1995 finalist and law student in the University of Oslo. Her particular emphasis in the MUD was on role-playing and being somebody else. Shortly after joining, she created a personal website, displaying the pictures claimed as being her own, and founded a Guild named the Norse Traders. Some time later, her frequent visits to the virtual world ceased, resulting in the stagnation and eventual decrease of guild morale. Two month past her disappearance, Karyn's website displayed a letter from her parents and a news article in Norwegian. It was soon common knowledge on LegendMUD that Karyn died in a traffic accident, whilst test-driving a Porsche 911.

A Story

A Story is an album by Yoko Ono, recorded in 1974, during the "lost weekend" sessions in which John Lennon produced Walls and Bridges. It was unreleased until the 1992 box set Onobox, which featured material from A Story on disc six. It was only properly released as an individual album in 1997, with the reissuing of Ono's back catalogue by Rykodisc. The reissue added three bonus tracks, including home demos and a live recording from the Starpeace tour.

Track listing

Track information

Many of the tracks on A Story made it onto subsequent albums in re-recorded form: