Month: January 2018

A trip to R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S. in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S.; Inara Pey, January 2018, on Flickr R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S. – click on any image for full size

Rahmenlos is the private team project of the Rahmenlos-Chaos-Team (R.C.T.). We are a mixed troupe from different German-speaking areas. And as different we are, R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S. is too. Everyone of us got involved with his own ideas and personality. And the result is really good. Whether you like beach, nice landscape, City- or Club-Live, animals, hidden places or just much small things to explore: everyone will find his favourite place!

Thus reads the introduction to R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S, a 1/2 region design Shakespeare and Max pointed us towards. It’s an interesting team / community build, which as the introduction states, offers a little something of everything. Occupying the south side of a Full region, there is no set landing point, so I’ve opted a location on the east side of the parcel, close to its northern edge. This takes the form of a small precinct of town-style buildings which include a coffee bar and cheese shop sitting before a terraced seating area, together with a brewery, and where an information giver is located.

R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S.; Inara Pey, January 2018, on Flickr R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S.

Across a rough cobbled road from these is a second piazza, home to another shop and a small art gallery. Two more shops are close by, guarding the way to a small hamlet of houses beyond which open fields stretch westwards, climbing gently up to a Tuscan villa sitting atop a low hill.

Beyond the hamlet, the cobbled roads quickly give way to a dirt track that runs up to the villa. Along the way, it is joined by others, like tributaries joining a stream. One of these offers the way to a rough path leading down to a small beach on the south side of the land, others offer paths to the houses and cottages scattered across the landscape below the villa. The largest of these houses also sits on the south side of the land above a range of low cliffs rising from the sea, a small music venue in the field alongside it. Inland from here, a thatched cottage and windmill watch over cows and horses grazing in the fields.

R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S.; Inara Pey, January 2018, on Flickr R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S.

To the east of the land, reach via a winding road and a bridge, is a small artist’s commune, with one studio on the “mainland”, the others on a small island separated from the rest of the land via a small channel. Above these, facing the little hamlet of houses and shops sits a further house, a large pond before it, with a folly on the far side. Secluded by trees, overlooking the sea, it has all the looks of a private country home, a getaway. Closer examination, however, reveals it to be a cosy café.

With ducks and geese, deer, pigs and birds, as well as horses and cattle, the land is rich in detail and natural sounds, while the art gallery and studios offer further attractions for people to see. All of which makes R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S. a pleasing visit. When doing so, I would recommend perhaps trying out various windlight options; I’m not convinced the default does the land full justice. For the images here, I took the liberty of using Annan Adored’s Morning Dream – with a little retouching through GIMP.

R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S.; Inara Pey, January 2018, on Flickr R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S.

SLurl Details

Aech’s garage: a Sansar Ready Player One Experience

Posted on by Inara Pey

Aech's Garage, Sansar; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrSansar: Aech’s Garage – click on any image for full size

Update, January 11th: following my enquiry concerning posting images of Aech’s Garage to the Lab, I received a reply from the Sansar community team, who also posted a  statement to the Sansar Discord channel, which I’m reproducing here, with the relevant comment highlighted for future reference by anyone positing images from Sansar:

We truly appreciate the ongoing support from the community, especially with all the excitement going on this week! We want to clarify that users are not discouraged from posting screenshots from any experience that is open to the public as long as there is no claim to exclusivity, early access, or other potentially misleading statements or claims that are untrue or could be construed as an official statement from Linden Lab or Sansar. We hope you all understand!

With this in mind, I’ve reposted the images in this article

Update: from the comments left by Ryan Schultz following this article, you can see there is something of a kerfuffle over whether or not images from the Aech’s Garage experience can be published. I have contacted Linden Lab on the matter, but have yet to receive a definitive reply one way or the other. To prevent further controversy, and while not having heard of any embargo myself, I have decided to remove the images in the post for the time being. 

Linden Lab recently unveiled two new experiences in Sansar, which I plan to look at in a broader piece on the platform later this week. However, one of them offers a particular attraction as a destination, so I’m leaping in with a look at it here as a part of my Exploring Sansar series.

Aech’s Garage is a joint collaboration between Linden Lab (via their Sansar Studios team), HTC, Intel, and Warner Brothers Entertainment to recreate the film set of Aech’s Garage from the upcoming Amblin Entertainment /  Village Roadshow Pictures film Ready Player One, the motion picture of Ernest Cline’s 2011 best seller.

In the novel and film, Aech (pronounced “H”) is best friend to Wade Watts, the novel’s protagonist – at least within OASIS, the two never having met face-to-face – who operates out of a basement location in the book. For the film, Aech’s base has been moved to a vast garage-cum-warehouse unit, and it is this space that has been recreated in Sansar with the formal title [HTC] Ready Player One – Aech’s Garage.

Aech's Garage, Sansar; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrSansar: Aech’s Garage

For purists, the move might be seen as an annoyance and typical of Hollywood’s tinkering with adaptations for no readily apparent reason. From a visual perspective however – particularly if you are a film buff with a lean towards science fiction – the move is a treasure trove of sights. A long, comparatively narrow building, the garage is partially lit by a low Sun streaming in through the grime layered windows along one wall. This casts a good part of the experience into shadows which I suspect aren’t as quite as intrusive in VR mode as they can be when visiting in Desktop Mode. Klieg lights scattered around the building offer additional pools of light.

Entering via the Sansar Atlas spawns visitors at one of the building’s two ends, and from the start the level of detail is impressive. The lighting is very realistic, while the texturing and finish is superb. There are work bays, metal steps leading up to platforms and elevated work spaces, tools are scattered on work tops, bins, tyres and other detritus of an old working environment fill spaces and rise on tall racks standing against walls and windows. There even a bicycle is leaning against one wall – perhaps to offer someone a quick means to travel up the central aisle space of the building. Good use is also made of Sansar’s recently added audio materials: shoe heels click solidly on the cement floor, but footsteps ring hollowly as heels strike the metal steps when climbing up to or down from the raised platforms.

Aech's Garage, Sansar; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrSansar: Aech’s Garage

But all this is just the apéritif, so to speak. The real feast lies in what can be found within this garage. Depending on which end of the building you spawn, you’ll find yourself either being watched by the Iron Giant from the 1999 film of the same name, or find yourself confronted by ED-209 from 1987’s Robocop – fortunately without its guns focusing on you with an ominous warning that you have 30 seconds to comply. The detail on both is superb, and the Iron Giant really gives a sense of scale. Split into two parts of upper body and head, with legs alongside, it is simply huge.

Nor are these the only models here. Sitting between them, down the sunlit side of the garage are a Mark 2 Viper from Battlestar Galactica (original and re-imagined), suspended from the roof alongside an Earth Defence Directorate fighter from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and a maintenance pod from the United States spacecraft Discovery One, featured in Stanley Kubrick’s seminal movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Aech's Garage, Sansar; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrSansar: Aech’s Garage

Sitting under these, a little incongruously, is the prized 1961 Ferrari GT California Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) persuaded Cameron Frye (Alan Ruck) to snag the keys for from his father in the 1986 teen movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. While across the central aisle is a mechanoid loader of a similar kind to those seen in the Alien movies, with a model of Eagle 5 from Spaceballs suspended overhead.

As noted, the visual aspects of this experience are superb, in Desktop mode it leaps out at you, and I’ve little doubt that in VR it will look stunning. What is especially interesting about it is that it is a tie to a forthcoming major motion picture, due to be released on March 30th, 2018, and perhaps marks the first attempt to use Sansar in one of the market spaces where it could have some traction: marketing and PR. It demonstrates a potentially low-cost way of generating public interest in films, etc., by allowing people to not only see trailers and teasers from the comfort of their own home via social media and the likes of YouTube, but to also offer them the opportunity to visit locations from blockbuster films ahead of their release.

Aech's Garage, Sansar; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrSansar: Aech’s Garage

In this particular case, it is entirely fitting that a film which might help promote wider interest in VR is gaining some degree of added promotion from VR. I’m curious to see if Linden Lab / Warner Brothers / HTC plan to do more with the experience between now and the US theatrical release of the film at the end of March 2018, particularly given the way the début – through the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas, courtesy of Intel – has been presented to the public at large.

Aceh’s Garage is without a doubt a powerful demonstration of Sansar’s potential, and a delight to visit. However, you plan to do so,  I’d perhaps suggest waiting until after CES 2018 closes on Friday, January 12th, 2018, as right now it is the subject Right now Aech’s Garage is tied to ongoing demonstrations of the HTC Vive at the show.While this is good for Sansar, it means that audio-wise there is a lot going on audio-wise within the experience, and it can get distracting with multiple overlapping conversations, even with Voice roll-off over distances. I frequently found myself getting caught between overlapping conversations and manually muting those I didn’t want to hear (including, I’d add, staff talking bugs and users over open microphones!).

Aech's Garage, Sansar; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrSansar: Aech’s Garage

Experience SLurl

A journey into Sapiens in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Gem Preiz: Sapiens

Sapiens is the title of a new region-wide installation by fractal artist Gem Preiz, which has an official opening at 13:00 SLT on Wednesday, January 10th, 2018.

This is – quite literally – a huge installation. It starts at ground level, on a walkway where visitors can find information givers on the installation and how best to view it. Camming out from this will reveal a large floating cube shape, formed by a 3x3x3 matrix of smaller cubes, which is something of a motif for the installation:  can also be found at the end of the catwalk, where a smaller version acts as a teleport which will deliver visitors to the installation proper.

Gem Preiz: Sapiens

The build takes the form of a giant “labyrinth” very industrial in looks (something heightened by the stream venting at various points throughout). More raised catwalks form a grid around huge towers rising from the floor, catwalks and towers alike enclosed by massive walls. The walkways are further enclosed under high ceilings. At various points around this grid of catwalks – such as where they intersect with one another or in the corners of the grid – are platforms, some of which  have square holes at their centres. Above these rise huge shafts, further platforms visible at their tops, and from which square sections may periodically descend to fill the open spaces in a platform below, becoming elevators visitors can stand on top be carried between the levels of this vast complex.

Throughout each level – all of which have a slightly oppressive feel about them due to the repeated fractal designs of floors, walls and ceilings which imparts a feeling of unending sameness – Gem has variously put pieces of his fractal art, forty in all. These are intended to represent four themes: technology, mazes, darkness and confinement. Some many only appear once, others may be repeated; all are meticulous in their design and presentation and are visually captivating. They are not images one sees as one is drawn into them. Most reflect the environment in which they are set: enclosed and confined, limited; other suggest broader horizons and the promise of places we might yet discover.

Gem Preiz: Sapiens

There is more here to be seen than may be at first apparent. For a start, depending on which elevators you use, you may find the build seems to have 3 levels – but if you use others, you’ll find it actually has four (I’ll let you decide which lead where…). Also, triangular windows in the corners of the central towers hint at a world beyond the confines of the tunnels and catwalks. This can be seen by flycamming through the walls or by – on two of the levels of the build at least – finding the door marked EXIT, which can be opened with a touch (but do not step through without flying!).

Beyond the doors the labyrinthine effect of the installation is greatly enhanced: great shafts and tunnels seeming to run outward to infinity, standing like great tower blocks interlinked by giant enclosed bridges and walkways, all stretching off into the distance, spherical shuttles scooting along them or rising and descending through them. It’s a giddying display, particularly if you just cam out over the lip of the doorways and cam up / down and around.

Gem Preiz: Sapiens

So what is to be made of all this? Gem offers an explanation in the notes accompanying the installation, which might be summarised as an expression of growth, of overcoming limitations and the shadows of primal (and other fears) we individually and as a race have and do confront. Just as this is a maze of walkways and elevators, so to is the human mind a maze of thought processes which run this way and that, sometimes intersecting, sometimes looping back on themselves, sometimes offering glimpses of what might be. And some lift us a step at a time towards greater understanding, greater abilities, even as we are shadowed by fears (these in the form of the black hands stretching out towards / over some of the catwalks); until finally, we’re ready to break free of the shadows and fears and achieve.

This latter point is beautifully presented on the upper level of the installation’s catwalks, where a golden figure sits, cowering beneath the outstretched hand of primal and other fears – but which offers the way for us to become human, to become reasoned thinkers and creators – as indicated in the final scene of this installation (which also contains for catalogues of the fractal images used within / which inspired the build a teleport cube for returning to the landing point).

Gem Preiz: Sapiens

Complex and challenging, Sapiens offers a commentary on human growth and understanding. It is a theme, Gem informs me, which will be expanded upon in a second build Demiurge, which should open in late February / March time. I’m already curious to see if it will embrace either the Platonic of the Gnostic views of the word – or perhaps combine them both.

Note: fellow blogger Diomita Maurer offers her thoughts on Sapiens, and kindly makes mention of me.

SLurl Details

  • Sapiens (LEA 29, rated: Moderate)

2018 SL UG updates #2/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

D o X; Inara Pey, December 2017, on FlickrD o X – blog post

Update, January 10th: Subsequent to this post being published, the deployment plans for the RC channels were revised, and details have been add below to reflect this. My thanks to Kyouko for drawing my attention to the updated server deployment thread.

Server Deployments

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news and updates.

There are no planned deployments for 2018 week #2. All channels remain on the same server release 17#17.12.01.511131. However, the Main (SLS) channel was restarted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2018.

There was no deployment to the SLS Main channel on Tuesday, January 9th, 2018, leaving it on  server release 17#17.12.01.511131. The channel was, however, restarted.

Following the original publication of this update, the server deployment thread was updated to indicate there would be a deployment to the major RC channels on Wenesday, January 10th: server maintenance package 18#18.01.08.511751, comprising internal logging improvements.

SL Viewer

The Alex Ivy RC viewer was updated to version 5.1.0.511732 on January 9th, 2018. All other viewers currently remain as per the end of week #1:

No Copy Exploits Update

An area of concern / upset for content creators has been the use of server exploits to generate copies of No Copy items. While a long-standing problem, the issue has gained a lot more coverage of late due to the frequency with people have been using various exploits to illegal copy and then sell gacha items. In November, the Lab closed one exploit used in generating No Copy items, and reported this, and the steps they put in place to help recognise when someone might be attempting to use it (see: Exciting Improvements to SL Fee Updates to Enable Even More).

Since then the Lab has continued to work on issues (see my SL project update from 2017 week #47). However, there have been mistaken claims that the Lab stated it had resolved “the” exploit, which is not the case – see the Lab’s blog post above), which Oz and Simon sought to correct in the meeting, with Oz Linden stating:

We never said we were sure we’d fixed all possible exploits, and we won’t say that because we might not know about them all.

Simon then added:

I know that statement and we deliberately and clearly said it wasn’t done. There was more work but we were making progress. I know a lot of people reading it probably wanted it to say (and mean) we fixed everything. We know we haven’t.

In terms of what more is being done, Oz said:

If I were to tell you now that we’re working on “method X” for object copying, I’d be letting people who might not know about it that it existed, and telling those who know how to use it to hurry up while the getting is good.

Other Items

  • New Linden: the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, January 9th was joined by Bugsly Linden. A new member of LL’s QA team, he joined the Lab around a month ago – and is a former Second Life resident.
  • Group chat issues: there has been a noted uptick in group chat issues. Commenting on this, Simon Linden said, “We looked into group chat recently and did a few things that should have helped. [In the meantime] for group chat lag problems, please send in a support ticket – the group name is crucial as its most likely a specific server needs attention. Also [give the] time it happens, and the region you’re on. Sometimes it’s the region’s issue.”

Sansar thoughts: don’t ignore the power of a community platform

Posted on by Inara Pey
A Sansar Christmas – but what might 2018 and beyond hold for the platform

It is five months since the Sansar public Creator Beta opened. At the time it did I, along with many others, felt that maybe – from a “consumer” user perspective – the opening was perhaps a little premature: there was (and remains) little for general visitors to the platform to do – particularly those accessing platform via Desktop Mode – who would likely be in the majority. Of course, the aim of the Creator Beta was to … encourage more creators to the platform, rather than growing the platform’s user base.

In the five months since that launch, there have been developments and improvements to the platform – and I have remained interested in seeing how the platform builds out. The Desktop Mode – the means by which, frankly, the vast majority of people are liable to use for access Sansar for the foreseeable future – in particular has seen some important improvements, although there is still a long way to go.

Identifying other avatars in Desktop Mode was added to Sansar in the October / November Friends release. Just one of the updates Sansar has seen to improve usability

However, recently the Lab has indicated that in 2018 they’d like to start addressing issues of generally user attraction and retention – which is fair enough. What has surprised me, however, is the idea – floated at a recent Sansar Community Meet-up –  that some kind of “consumer launch” (consumer = non-creator user) is being considered for the platform in 2018.

This actually surprises me; there is still so much that needs to be put in place on a technical level alone which is needed to help encourage usability. There’s the whole permissions / licensing system – vital in allowing creators offer their goods on more flexible terms (e.g. modifiable); providing the means for avatars to interact – dance, sit, etc; offering a customisable avatar, and so on. The Lab has indicated much of this is complex work, and proving difficult to implement. Should this continue to be the case, then trying to push the platform to a broader consumer user base before the end on 2018 seems to be a tad optimistic at best; at worst, it could be self-defeating should people find that while Sansar looks good, there is really little for them to do.

Nor, I’d also suggest, are there just technical issues to be faced when considering drawing in a broader audience. Two things in particular have been on my mind for some time now.

The first is Sansar’s blog / forum / knowledge base environment. Currently, this is based on ZenDesk – which is singularly unsuited to the task to which it has been put. As I noted in a recently Product Meeting, the Lab has now recognised this in is looking at options, including possibly using the platform and tools used to build the Second Life “community platform”. This is actually good news, although as I noted in those Product Meeting notes:

Frankly, I’m still stunned that this wasn’t the route taken from the start given the Lab have the tools and the experience to use them, which could have been easily leveraged, rather than going for a tool entirely unsuited to the task and which presents information in a very unfriendly – and dare I say amateur – manner.

Simply put, the Lab has an ample investment in the SL community platform tools in terms of time, effort and development experience. That they apparently opted to ignore all of that to try to reinvent the wheel using a tool evidently unsuited to the task seems nothing short of an exercise in disconnected thinking.

Sansar needs and deserves a descent community environment. Yes, there is Discord, and yes, it is more ideal to have user-to-user interactions within Sansar experiences, rather than by people sitting in forums, etc. But the fact is, forums, blogs, a structured knowledge base, all supported by a decent search engine do far more than “just” provide a space for users to interact: the forum a core aspect of news and information dissemination, as such their value simply shouldn’t be under-estimated or dismissed as something to consider somewhere down the road.

There’s something more here as well. Not only can a decent community platform form the backbone for communications (via outwards blog posts, through forums discussions, the provision of documentation, etc), it can do much to help boost ta platform’s web presence and attractiveness to potential users. Again, right now Sansar’s website – beyond the initial splash screen – is both simplistic and confusing – and not a little bland. Surfacing blogs, forums, etc., immediately adds depth to Sansar’s website and presents the opportunity to draw people in to the platform – if done right.

There have been improvements to the Atlas – but frankly, finding experiences of interest / value is still less than easy

The second thing I’d like to see the Lab address when considering encouraging more “consumer” users into Sansar,  is that of the Atlas.

Again, we’ve already seen some improvements here: the ability search listed experiences and to list those offered by friends, and we have the promise of indicators for how many people are in any given experience. Even so, with over 700 experiences already listed, finding those which relate to a specific interest is hard. Of course, the idea with Sansar is for experience creators to be able to direct an audience to their experiences through their own web presence – and this will be more than enough for some of the markets the Lab hope (/ are?) attempting to attract to Sansar.

However, for the broader audience of potential users who may well come to the platform by way of the web, providing the means for creators to categorise their experiences and for users to group / select experiences based on those categories would be of and undeniable benefit – even with the complexities involved in defining / managing suitable categories. Additionally, providing a means for people to directly “bookmark” experiences that interest them within the Atlas would also be of enormous benefit.

I admit to remaining unconvinced that Sansar is really ready for a “consumer” audience. However, if the Lab is determined to move in that direction, I at least hope that things like updating the forums / blog environment and making the Atlas more amenable for users to locate / record the kind of experience they’d like to visit, is given as much attention as issues of presenting improved “in scene / experience” capabilities.

The supernatural, the future, ecology and a phantom

Posted on by Inara Pey
Seanchai Library

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.

Monday, January 8th 19:00: The Wolfen

Whitley Strieber is perhaps best known for his book for Communion, a non-fiction account of his alleged experiences with non-human entities. However, his is also a writer of horror fiction, with The Wolfen being his first published novel (1978).

When two New York Police Department uniformed officer are violently killed, detectives Becky Neff and George Wilson are tasked with investigating the incident and bringing the perpetrator/s to justice. The evidence reveals the two uniformed officers were quickly and brutally attacked by some kind of animal – so rapidly, in fact, neither were able to fire their service handguns – one even had his hand and gun ripped from his arm before having time to open fire on his attacker. Worse, both men were disembowelled, their organs devoured.

Gathering the evidence from the crime scene, Neff and Wilson start their investigation by trying to understand what kind of animal might have left the bloody paw prints around the bodies. This leads them down a path that touches on the issue of police corruption which involves Neff’s policeman husband is taking money from certain groups. As more bodies are discovered, Neff and Wilson are drawn into a world where the natural meets the supernatural: the forgotten parts of New York where the abandoned of the city live – and are preyed upon by the Wolfen.

Join Gyro Muggins as he takes us inside Neff and Wilson’s investigations.

Tuesday, January 9th 19:00: Fractured Symmetry

In the future and 1,000 light years from Earth, a woman of action works for a reclusive, enigmatic genius…

Blair MacAlister is an expert at Judo, a credible AI hacker, and a certified pilot of craft atmospheric and interstellar. Her favourite weapon is sarcasm, or failing that, her ever-present blaster. Her boss is Terendurr the Black Stone: technical wizard, expert in the ethnography of myriad races, fancier of rare foods and wines, and even rarer fractalites. An Entharion Quadromorph, exiled from his homeworld and under constant threat of assassination, he is also somewhat irritable.

Together they investigate mysteries based on science, in a setting that brings them into contact with all the main races of Civspace: The mysterious Junn, the affable but biologically intense Raylics, the chaotic and powerful Oro-Ka, the commercial minded Keret, and the cynical Phair.

At the centre of their cases are transformative genetic therapies, unlikely fossils, the linked neurology of symbiotes, and more. Terendurr is over 300 years old and has seen and endured the worst and strangest the galaxy has to offer. Will Blair prove as durable as her boss?

Join Corwyn Allen as he reads selections from Fernando Salazar’s 2017 novel.

Wednesday, January 10th, 19:00: Old Mother West Wind

It’s been over a century since readers first ventured into the Green Forest to encounter Reddy Fox, Grandfather Frog, Jimmy Skunk, and other winsome characters. American author Thornton W. Burgess’s first published work, Old Mother West Wind, and its 1911 follow-up, Mother West Wind’s Children have been delighting readers for 107 years. These gentle stories offer children, and adults a like, enduring lessons about ecology and respect for wildlife.

Join Faerie Maven-Pralou as she continues reading this timeless piece.

Thursday, January 11th

19:00: The Phantom of the Opera Part 2

Shandon Loring continues reading Gaston Leroux’s 1909 / 1910 story The Phantom of the Opera, which would be immortalised on stage and screen.

In 1890s Paris, the Palais Garnier is believed to be haunted by an entity known as the Phantom or the Opera Ghost. One day, the stage hand, Joseph Bouquet, is found hanged, presumably by the Phantom, after boasting about him to the corps de ballet.

At the same time, Christine Daaé, a young Swedish soprano, has been tutored by what she believes to be the Angel of Music, sent by her deceased father. On the night of the gala performance for the old manager’s retirement, Christine is called upon to sing in the place of the Opera’s leading soprano, Carlotta, who is ill, and her performance is an astonishing success.

The Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, who was present at the performance, recognises her as his childhood playmate, and recalls his love for her. He attempts to visit her backstage, where he hears a man speaking to her from inside her dressing room. He investigates the room once Christine leaves, only to find that there’s no one else in the room … could he have heard the Phantom speaking with her?

Also presented in Kitely (hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Seanchai/144/129/29).

21:00: Seanchai Late Night

Contemporary science fiction with Finn Zeddmore.

And to mark Phantom of the Opera (and because, well, Antonio Banderas…)

 

Please check with the Seanchai Library’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule.

The featured charity for January / February 2018 is Reach Out and Read,  giving young children a foundation for success by incorporating books into paediatric care and encouraging families to read aloud together.

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