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.
As always, all times SLT / PDT, and unless otherwise stated, events will be held on the Seanchai Library’s home on Imagination Island.
Sunday August 10th
13:30: Tea-time at Baker Street: The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
Tea-time at Baker Street returns from the summer break, and Caledonia Skytower, Corwyn Allen and Kayden Oconnell once again open the pages of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, the final set of twelve Sherlock Holmes short stories first published in the Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927.
This week: The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
When is a Garrideb not a Garrideb? That’s the question that vexes Sherlock Holmes. or more correctly, Why is a Garrideb not, in fact, a Garrideb; it’s not a particularly common name.
So when he hears from one and is confronted by another, his suspicions are aroused even before the Garrideb – or the man claiming to be Mr. John Garrideb, formerly of Kansas, in the United States – who visits him starts spouting an unlikely tale of inheritances and land tycoons full of its own inconsistencies.
The key to the mystery appears to reside in, or with the personage of Mr. Nathan Garrideb, an elderly eccentric who has every appearance of being a genuine Garrideb. So what is going on? An attempt to defraud the old man? An attempt to steal something of value from him? Yet “John Garrideb”, having already been in contact with Nathan Garrideb, has never requested money from the older man; and while the elder Garrideb is a collector of just about anything he can keep in his rooms, none of it would appear to be of any intrinsic value.
Yet something is clearly going on, particularly when “John Garrideb” arrives at Nathan’s Garrideb’s rooms announcing he has found a third Garrideb – this one in Birmingham. A visit with Inspector Lestrade helps to confirm Holmes’ suspicions…
18:00: Magicland Storytime
Join Caledonia Skytower at Magicland Park.
Monday August 11th, 19:00: Far From Home
Gyro Muggins continues reading stories drawn from the “Fuzzy” series, initially started by the Late H. Beam Piper in 1962 with Little Fuzzy, and which continued in 1964 with Fuzzy Sapiens, and then posthumously in 1984 with Fuzzies and Other People. Over the years, further books in the series have been written by the likes of William Tuning, Wolfgang Diehr, John Scalzi and Ardath Mayhar.
Little Fuzzy charts the discovery of small furry species on the planet Zarathustra are sentient, and the other stories in the series build on this and the evolving human / fuzzy relations.
For Golden Dreams: A Fuzzy Odyssey, Mayhar took a different approach, re-telling the incidents depicted in Little Fuzzy from the perspective of the Fuzzies – or “Gashta”, as they call themselves. And it is from this book that Gyro concludes his reading.
Tuesday August 12, 19:00: The Sea Fairies
Lyman Frank Baum is best known for his Wizard of Oz novels. However, over the course of his life he wrote some 59 novels (including four “lost” novels), 83 short stories and over 200 poems.
The Sea Fairies, first published in 1911, was intended to be the first volume in a new series of stories after Baum had “finished” the Oz series with the Emerald City of Oz. It tells the tale of young Mayre Griffiths, known to all as Trot, who lives on the coast of Southern California, where her father is the captain of a sailing schooner. Trot’s home life is shared with Cap’n Bill, her father’s former skipper, who has lived with the family since an accident cost him a leg.
Cap’n Bill is a devoted guardian to little Trot, and spends his days walking the beaches with her, or rowing her along the coast, regaling her with tales. But when the subject of mermaids comes up, Trot’s wish to see one is granted, and both she and Cap’n Bill fix themselves transformed into merfolk – who are sea fairies – and taken to the undersea realm of Queen Aquarine and King Anko, where they witness many things and are forced to come up against the wicked Zog the Magician …
Join Faerie Maven-Pralou as she takes to the seas in this lasting tale.
Wednesday August 13th, 19:00: More Selections from Chestnut Street
Maeve Binchy, journalist, columnist, playwright and author, began her writing career by accident, thanks to her father sending the letters she wrote to him while on a kibbutz in Israel during the 1960s to a local paper in Ireland, which subsequently published them. This in turn led to her being offered a job with The Irish Times on her return home, thus starting her on the road to becoming one of Ireland’s most successful and internationally recognised writers.
Through her writings, she would often jot down short stories about an imaginary street in Dublin, where people would constantly come and go and experience the most diverse of times and situations. Once written, these stories would be put away for “the future”. That imaginary street was called Chestnut Street, located not far from the setting of her 2010 bestseller Minding Frankie.
In 2014, these tales of the folk who live along, or visit, Chestnut Street were gathered together in a single volume and published posthumously under the title Chestnut Street.
Join Caledonia Skytower as she delves into the rich diversity of stories to be found inside the covers of this book. Perhaps you’ll meet Bucket Maguire, the window cleaner, who finds himself going to extraordinary lengths to protect his son; or hear all the local gossip from Melly, and see how it helps a local fortune-teller for the good of all; or maybe you’ll find yourself sympathising with poor Nessa, whose summers are blighted every year by the arrival of her aunt from America on a vacation sure to turn Nessa’s life and home upside down. Chestnut Street is inhabited by the most colourful characters, and their stories are lovingly and humourously told; so why not join Caledonia as she pays them a visit?
Thursday August 14th
16:00: The Sea Hag
With Shandon Loring
19:00: Seanchai Late Night
With Caledonia and Shandon.
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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 July-August is WildAid: seeking to end the illegal wildlife trade in our lifetimes by reducing demand through public awareness campaigns and providing comprehensive marine protection.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 