It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in Voice, brought to Second Life by the staff of the Seanchai Library SL.
As always, all times SLT, and unless otherwise stated, events will be held on the Seanchai Library’s home on Imagination Island.
Sunday 16th June
13:30: Tea Time in Sherwood Forest
It’s June in the evergreen woods of Sherwood Forest, and with it comes a month of tales from Howard Pyle’s The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, brought to us by Caledonia Skytower and Corwyn Allen, complete with original songs by Corwyn!
An American illustrator and writer, Pyle published The Merry Adeventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire (to give the book its original full title) in 1883. With it, he helped solidify the heroic / romantic image of Robin Hood witnessed in works such as Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (1819).
The stories Pyle built for the book were drawn from various ballads, which he drew together to form a cohesive tale, rewriting the songs to suit a younger audience and further establishing the role of Robin Hood as a heroic outlaw who robs the rich to feed the poor – a role in sharp contrast to the way in which the ballads actually portrayed him (which was principally as a through-and-through villain).
So popular was Pyle’s work that it led to several more children’s books about Robin Hood over the next three decades, firmly establishing the legend as a respectable subject for children’s literature.
We begin the saga of Allan-a-Dale, which starts with meeting the minstrel and learning of his troubles. As Robin befriends him, delighting in his sweet music, he starts a series of adventures that eventually lead to a church and to our old friend the Sheriff of Nottingham once more.
18:00 Storytime at Magicland
More original short stories with Caledonia Skytower, brought to us from Magicland Park.
Monday 17th June, 19:00 – The Twenty-one Balloons (Conclusion)
Caledonia Skytower reads from William Pène du Bois’ 1947 children’s classic, The Twenty-one Balloons.
A steamship en route across the North Atlantic comes across the strange wreckage of twenty deflated gas balloons and rescue, much to their surprise, a lone man – one Professor William Waterman Sherman.
The professor had last been seen some three weeks previously, departing San Francisco aboard a giant balloon, determined to spend a year aloft and drifting on his own.
Now, as word spreads that the professor has been found alive and well – and in completely the wrong ocean to the one he had last been seen flying towards – the world awaits the story of how he came to circumnavigate the globe in record time, only to be fished from the wreckage of twenty balloons when he had started with just the one. When he has sufficiently rested and recovered after receiving a hero’s welcome on his homecoming, the good professor tells a tale most fantastic…
Tuesday 18th June, 19:00: More from The City and the Stars
In 1948 Arthur C. Clarke saw his first novel, Against the Fall of Night published in the magazine Startling Stories. Later, in 1953, it appeared as a novella in its own right, prior to becoming the basis of a much expanded work, The City and the Stars, published in 1956. Both focus on the same setting and principal character: the City of Diaspar and a young man called Alvin, but they tell individually unique tales – so much so that both remain in circulation,enjoying equal popularity.
One billion years in the future, Diaspar stands amidst the desert of Earth as the last, self-perpetuating city of humankind. Here, the Central Computer watches over people who live multiple lives over thousands of years before they return to storage, only to be “reborn” at a time selected by the Central Computer. Diaspar is utopian: poverty and need have long been eradicated and there is little strife. Life within the city is focused on creativity and art and in the deeper exploration of already well-understood fields. Enclosed, cyclical and ultimately static, Diaspar is both the culmination and twilight of human endeavour.
Join Gyro Muggins as he once again delves into the story which has been hailed as one of Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s best works.
Wednesday 19th June, 19:00: The Tao of Pooh (Part 2)
Winnie the Pooh may have been a Bear Of Very Little Brain often bothered by long words, but in him, his friends in the 100 Acre Wood and their adventures, Benjamin Hoff found the perfect means of introducing a western audience to the principles and ideals of Taoism.
Starting with a description of the Vinegar Tasters, a traditional subject in Chinese religious painting depicting three founders of China’s major religious and philosophical traditions: Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism., Hoff uses Pooh and other characters from A.A. Milne’s stories to reveal Taoism to his readers, going so far as to cite how the characters exemplify Taoist principles and concepts. For example, he explains how Pooh personifies the principles of wei wu wei, the Taoist concept of “effortless doing,” and pu, the concept of being open to but unburdened by experience.
Complete with excerpts from various prominent Taoist texts, from authors such as Laozi and Zhuangzi, the book is an engaging read which topped the New York Times best seller list for some 49 weeks. So why not join Kayden Oconnell and Caledonia Skytower as they continue a reading of this fascinating work?
Thursday 20th June, 19:00: Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers
Prepare to be seduced by powerful magic — the sorcery of lust, need, and sensuality. Multiple award-winners Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling have gathered together twenty-two tales of unearthly temptations wickedly concocted by some of today’s most potent literary conjurers — including Neil Gaiman, Jan Yolen, Michael Swanwick, and Joyce Carol Oates. Here are stories of incubi and succubi, of forbidden fruits harvested in erotic gardens, of pleasures that persist beyond death. So heed the sirens’ song.
Join Shandon Loring at Seanchai Library, and then lie back, relax, and submit to the darkest delights you have ever experienced as he reads from these bewitching tales.
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Please check with the Seanchai Library SL’s blog for updates and additions to the week’s schedule. In May, library guests are invited to support Seanchai Library’s featured real world charity Heifer International. Have questions? IM or notecard Caledonia Skytower.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 