It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in Voice, brought to Second Life by the staff and volunteers at 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 October 6th
13:30: Tea Time at Baker Street – The Adventure of the Golden Pince-nez
Caledonia and Corwyn bring us another installment in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s volume of stories The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
Willoughby Smith, secretary to the invalid Professor Coram, has been murdered.
There is no apparent motive for the crime, comitted using a sealing-wax knife belonging to the professor, and the local police are stumped, leading Inspector Stanley Hopkins to pay Holmes and Watson a visit one dark November night to seek assistance. He brings with him the only clues to the matter: a pair of golden Pince-nez glasses found clutched in Smith’s hand, and his dying words, uttered to the maid who found him.
“The professor; it was she.”
Holmes examines the glasses and stuns Hopkins with a series of pronouncements: their owner is a woman of good breeding, refined and well-dressed, who has been to an optician at least twice during the past few months. Holmes even goes on to give a description of some of her physical characteristics.
Agreeing to assist the police, Holmes and Watson go with Hopkins to the scene of the crime the following day, and the game is well and truly afoot.
18:00: Magicland Storytime – Bonfires and Broomsticks
Author Mary Norton is perhaps best know for her long-running series of fantasy books The Borrowers (named for the first book of the series) published between 1952 and 1982.
However, her first published work, in 1943, was entitled The Magic Bed Knob; or, How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons, a fantasy piece about an elderly woman who practices magic for a hobby and has a magic bed knob, and three London children evacuated to the country during the bombing of London.
This was followed in 1945 by the sequel Bonfires and Broomsticks. Then, in 1957, the two books were republished as a single volume entitled Bed-Knob and Broomstick. And it was a play on this title by which the story became most widely known, when in 1971, Walt Disney released the film Bedknobs and Broomsticks starring Angela Lansbury and the late David Tomlinson.
Join Caledonia Skytower at Magicland Park as Caledonia reads from the second volume of this classic tale.
Monday October 7th, 19:00: Sci-fi Classics
With Gyro Muggins.
Tuesday October 8th, 19:00: Spookable Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
As All Hallows creeps ever closer, how better than to get in the mood than with some classic tales of horror and spookiness from literature?
Perhaps one of the most well-known (and well-loved) stories of dark hauntings is Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which is also one of the earliest examples of American literature of enduring popularity.
while setting his tale in post-revolutionary America in the year 1790, Irving in fact wrote the sorry tale of school teacher Ichabod Crane and his ill-fated encounter with the rumoured Headless Horseman in 1819 while visiting England, where his also penned Rip Van Winkle. Both The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle first appeared in print in his serial The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, which also marked Irving’s first use of that pen name. As with Rip Van Winkle, Irving claims he first heard about The Legend of Sleepy Hollow from “Diedrich Knickerbocker”, a fictional “Dutch Historian”.
Join Derry McMahon and Bear Silvershade as they delve into this classic tale.
Wednesday October 9th, 19:00: Bits O’ Poe
Caledonia Skytower continues the journey into haunting tales and dark stories as she presents a selection from the master of the horror genre, Edgar Allen Poe.
Thursday October 10th, Creepy Little Creatures
Very few things are more frightening than unearthly creatures conceived by the masterminds of supernatural fiction. This collection of the macabre includes stories from F. Murray Gilchrist, Edgar Allan Poe, E.F. Benson, others, all presented by Shandon Loring.
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Please check with the Seanchai Library SL’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule. The featured charity for September and October is Water for People. Have questions? IM or notecard Caledonia Skytower.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
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