Tag: Seanchai Library

It’s time to kick-off 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 Second Life home at Bradley University, unless otherwise indicated.

This week starts with a very spacial celebration – the Library’s ninth anniversary!

Sunday, March 26th Volume IX: Seanchai Library Anniversary

From the Seanchai Library website:

Nine years ago someone had an idea.  That someone was Derry McMahon, founder of Seanchai Library, which began its life at the West of Ireland Library and Cultural Centre in March 2008.

Nine years ~ 108 months ~ 3,287-ish days ~ Thousands of hours of stories ~ Hundreds of Authors ~ Dozens of Genres, and over $4000 in small cash donations to non-profits doing good works all around the world.

“We are not large-scale philanthropy, ” Library lead Caledonia Skytower discloses, “Giving back to the world community through small charitable gifts is just one aspect of what we do. Job #1 here is to inspire people with stories and literature, to enable or encourage them to read and to share the stories they love with others.  Stories are an intrinsic part of the human experience.”

It’s a little hard to conceive how to acknowledge such an achievement. The Library looked to polite society to see if there was a guide as to how to celebrate a ninth anniversary: willow and pottery in traditional observance, and leather in the modern.  “That’s it!” they cried, “It’s obvious! A virtual Chili Cook Off!” . . . and that, friends, is what they will present today in both Kitely and in Second Life.

Dual Video feeds and Local Chat “Simlinks” will connect the two parties, enabling celebrants in both grids to see the other party, and to communicate in local text chat.

Schedule

• 13:00 – Chili Cook Off: Stories and Recipe Exchange: drop a note card with your favourite chili recipe ahead of the event, or bring it with you and hand it to Caledonia
• 14:00 – Dancing under the Cook-Off Marquee: two hours of partying to the music of DJ Dano Bookmite.

SLurl and Grid Details

• Second Life: take the teleport poster link near the landing point 
• Kitely: hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Seanchai/60/52/23

Monday, March 27th 19:00: Enemy Mine

Gyro Muggins continues reading Barry B. Longyear’s novella which first appeared in a 1979 issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, before becoming the basis of the of the 20th Century Fox film of the same name, starring Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett, Jr. This led to Longyear producing an expanded version of the story, written with David Gerrold.

In the midst of an interstellar war between humans and Dracs (a race of humanoid reptilians), Willis Davidge, a human fighter pilot, crashes on a hostile planet after a dogfight with a Drac – who is also forced down on the same planet.

The two initially continue their hostilities towards one another. But the planet proves so hostile that Davidge and the Drac, Jeriba Shigan (whom Davidge nicknames “Jerry”), are forced to join forces in order to ensure their survival. Then Davidge learns Jeriba is pregnant – Drac being entirely asexual …

Tuesday, March 28th 19:00: Of Mice and Magic

Faerie Maven-Pralou reads the forst in the Ravenspell series by David Farland

More than anything, Benjamin Ravenspell wants a pet. But when he buys a mouse named Amber, he gets more than he bargained for. No sooner does Ben take her home, than Amber turns him into a mouse too.

You see, Amber has magical abilities, and it so happens that Ben is a familiar, a creature that stores magical energy. Together they each form half of a powerful wizard. Alone, they’re just vermin.

Soon Ben and Amber find themselves pitted in an epic battle against a magical enemy who is as crazed as he is evil, and the fate of the world will rest on them learning to work together.

Wednesday, March 29th 19:00: Wild at Heart (Explorer’s Club Romance #1)

Aoife Lorenfield reads selections from Clare Alexander’s2017 novel.

At 26 and unmarried, Nora Nicholson believes she has little choice but to follow her brother Edward away from England to West Africa. So it was that, having never set foot outside of the village where she had been born, she found herself boarding a Royal Navy frigate about to set sail for those exotic, distant lands.

Little did she know that she would find work illustrating birds for the naturalist and ship’s surgeon, John Sharples, or form the unlikeliest of friendships with Senhora Morena – or that she would meet Hugh Beaumont, naturalist and explorer, late of the 95th Rifles.

Once he led men in war, many of whom died in the field of battle. Now he desires to explore the rivers and forest of West Africa. But for Hugh Beaumont, leaving duty behind does not come easy. So it is he finds himself bringing criminals to justice and protecting Miss Nicholson, who is sorely in need of help. Then love enters the picture.

Thursday, March 30th 19:00: Scary Stories for Sleepovers

With Shandon Loring – sleeping bags provided! Also presented in Kitely.

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

The featured charity for March April is Project Children, building peace in Ireland one child at a time.

It’s time to kick-off 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 Second Life home at Bradley University, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, March 19th 13:30: Tea Time Mysteries!

Seanchai Library launches a Tea Time series, featuring everything non-Holmesian from Christie to Hamett, classic sleuthing to hard-boiled detectives of the noir-ish hue.

This week: more Agatha Christie with Caledonia, Kayden, Corwyn and John.

Monday, March 20th 19:00: Enemy Mine

Gyro Muggins continues reading Barry B. Longyear’s novella which first appeared in a 1979 issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, before becoming the basis of the of the 20th Century Fox film of the same name, starring Dennis Quaid  and Louis Gossett, Jr. This led to Longyear producing an expanded version of the story, written with David Gerrold.

In the midst of an interstellar war between humans and Dracs (a race of humanoid reptilians), Willis Davidge, a human fighter pilot, crashes on a hostile planet after a dogfight with a Drac – who is also forced down on the same planet.

The two initially continue their hostilities towards one another. But the planet proves so hostile that Davidge and the Drac, Jeriba Shigan (whom Davidge nicknames “Jerry”), are forced to join forces in order to ensure their survival. Then Davidge learns Jeriba is pregnant – Drac being entirely asexual …

Tuesday, March 21st 19:00: Of Mice and Magic

Faerie Maven-Pralou reads the forst in the Ravenspell series by David Farland

More than anything, Benjamin Ravenspell wants a pet. But when he buys a mouse named Amber, he gets more than he bargained for. No sooner does Ben take her home, than Amber turns him into a mouse too.

You see, Amber has magical abilities, and it so happens that Ben is a familiar, a creature that stores magical energy. Together they each form half of a powerful wizard. Alone, they’re just vermin.

Soon Ben and Amber find themselves pitted in an epic battle against a magical enemy who is as crazed as he is evil, and the fate of the world will rest on them learning to work together.

Wednesday, March 22nd 19:00: Poems Aloud

With Caledonia.

Thursday, March 23rd

19:00: From The Hearth

Celtic Darkness, Tales from the otherworld with Shandon Loring (also presented in Kitely, and InWorldz).

21:00 Seanchai Late Night

With Finn Zeddmore.

Sunday March 26th: Volume IX

Senchai Library’s anniversary celebrations, licking-off at 13:00 SLT. More details in my preview next week!

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

The featured charity for March April is Project Children, building peace in Ireland one child at a time.

It’s time to kick-off 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 Second Life home at Bradley University, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, March 12th

13:30: Tea Time Mysteries!

Seanchai Library launches a Tea Time series, featuring everything non-Holmesian from Christie to Hamett, classic sleuthing to hard-boiled detectives of the noir-ish hue.

This week: more Agatha Christie.

18:00: Magicland Storytime

How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse continues with Caledonia Skytower at the Golden Horseshoe In Magicland.

Monday, March 13th 19:00: Enemy Mine

Gyro Muggins starts reading Barry B. Longyear’s novella which first appeared in a 1979 issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, before becoming the basis of the of the 20th Century Fox film of the same name, starring Dennis Quaid  and Louis Gossett, Jr. This led to Longyear producing an expanded version of the story, written with David Gerrold.

In the midst of an interstellar war between humans and Dracs (a race of humanoid reptilians), Willis Davidge, a human fighter pilot, crashes on a hostile planet after a dogfight with a Drac – who is also forced down on the same planet.

The two initially continue their hostilities towards one another. But the planet proves so hostile that Davidge and the Drac, Jeriba Shigan (whom Davidge nicknames “Jerry”), are forced to join forces in order to ensure their survival. Then Davidge learns Jeriba is pregnant – Drac being entirely asexual …

Tuesday, March 14th 19:00: Save Room for Pie: Food songs and Chewy Ruminations

Comic writer Roy Blount Jr has been a life-long eater of food. He’s not sure where his attraction to food began, but he knows that eating isn’t always easy – beyond the sitting doing, chewing and swallowing, that is: those most assuredly are the easy parts.

But, what effect is the global climate and the ups and downs of the economy – local and global – having on the food he eats? How much does his own sinusitis, with its deadening of his sense of taste and smell, impact on his actual enjoyment of eating and food?

In poems and songs, limericks and fake (or sometimes true) news stories, Blount talks about food in surprising and innovative ways. In these pages he ruminates on everything from bacon froth to grapefruit, Kobe beef to biscuits. He defends gizzards, mullet, okra, cane syrup, watermelon, and boiled peanuts; he seeks imagined observations from Frederick Douglass to Louis Armstrong to Blaze Starr. There’s even an imagined conversation between Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden.

And we shouldn’t forget the shampooed possums and carjacking turkeys! With Kayden OConnell.

Wednesday, March 15th 19:00: Celtic Tales

Fairy Tales and Stories of Enchantment with Caledonia (also presented in Kitely).

Thursday, March 16th 19:00: From The Shadows

Celtic Darkness, Tales from the otherworld with Shandon Loring (also presented in Kitely, and InWorldz).

---

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

The featured charity for March April is Project Children, building peace in Ireland one child at a time.

It’s time to kick-off 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 Second Life home at Bradley University, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, March 5th, 13:30: Tea Time Mysteries!

Seanchai Library launches a Tea Time series, featuring everything non-Holmesian from Christie to Hamett, classic sleuthing to hard-boiled detectives of the noir-ish hue.

This week: Agatha Christie’s Four and Twenty Blackbirds and Wasp’s Nest with Kayden, Cale, and John.

In Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Hercule Poirot is dining out with an old friend, when the habit and ritual of a lone diner at the restaurant sparks his interest more than does his own meal.

The man in question has dined at the restaurant like clockwork for a decade – so much so that Poirot’s friend – also a regular at the restaurant –  can predict precisely what the gentleman will order. Poirot’s interest is further piqued when he learns that despite being a patron of the establishment from all that time, no-one so much as knows the gentleman’s name, referring to him simply as “Old Father Time” on account of his looks.

When their waitress informs Poirot and his friend that during a recent visit, “Old Father Time” actually ate a different meal, interest turns to curiosity. And when he learns, a few weeks later that “old Father Time has apparently deserted the restaurant, Poirot’s instinct tells him that a murder most foul has probably been committed…

Wasp’s Nest relates one of the early cases for Hercule Poirot. While visiting a friend, John Harrison, Poirot admits his visit is not merely casual; rather he is investigating a murder – or rather, a murder yet to be committed, at least, and one he hopes to prevent.

During their convoluted conversation, which involves wasp’s nests and their disposal, Poirot drops sufficient hints to warn Harrison that he is potentially the intended murder victim. The detective then leaves, promising to return at the time Harrison expects to meet with the man seemingly intent on his demise. But is everything really as it seems?

Monday, March 6th 19:00: The Crucible of Time

Gyro Muggins concludes reading the fix-up by John Brunner. First published as two-part story which appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, it’s an ambitious tale of alien intelligence which grew to a series of six linked tales pushed as a single novel in 1983.

Far off in space is an alien race which is so much like us, yet so un-alike. From the birth of their earliest civilisation through to their attainment of star flight as their star system passes through the galaxy, we follow their development through the ages.

Aquatic by nature, this race presents some significant challenges well outside the realms of anything encountered by humanity. But they are also driven by all too familiar hopes, fears, desires, needs, wants, prejudices, impact of religious ideologies, and the quest for knowledge we have experienced in the growth of our own civilisation.

Charting six periods of time, each a thousand years after the previous, the six stories focus on the efforts of a group of individuals in each era as they face one or more challenges, their success in overcoming these challenges inevitably leading them towards a greater understanding of their planet’s plight, and ultimately, the ability to deal with that plight and the survival of their civilisation.

Tuesday, March 7th 19:00: Save Room for Pie: Food songs and Chewy Ruminations

Comic writer Roy Blount Jr has been a life-long eater of food. He’s not sure where his attraction to food began, but he knows that eating isn’t always easy – beyond the sitting doing, chewing and swallowing, that is: those most assuredly are the easy parts.

But, what effect is the global climate and the ups and downs of the economy – local and global – having on the food he eats? How much does his own sinusitis, with its deadening of his sense of taste and smell, impact on his actual enjoyment of eating and food?

In poems and songs, limericks and fake (or sometimes true) news stories, Blount talks about food in surprising and innovative ways. In these pages he ruminates on everything from bacon froth to grapefruit, Kobe beef to biscuits. He defends gizzards, mullet, okra, cane syrup, watermelon, and boiled peanuts; he seeks imagined observations from Frederick Douglass to Louis Armstrong to Blaze Starr. There’s even an imagined conversation between Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden.

And we shouldn’t forget the shampooed possums and carjacking turkeys! With Kayden OConnell.

Wednesday, March 8th 19:00: Politically Correct Bedtime Stories

Bedtime stories. We all know them, whether about the Wicked Witch, the Evil Goblin, the Nefarious Fairy, the Wayward Wolf or some other creature with mischief and badness on its mind. But did you know all of these tales are in fact the product of a few, elite minds, isolated from the rest of the world, who would discuss worldly affairs as their own skewed perspective on all things presented them?

Did you know these views and ideas were never supposed to leave the inner sanctum of the club in which they were first spouted, but somehow they did? Worse, that they somehow became the foundation of the tales we tell our children at bed time, leaving creatures and witches and fairies and all much maligned?

‘Tis true! Honest!

Luckily for us, James Finn Garner has carried out an intense investigation of this situation, and offers – through the voice of Faerie Maven-Pralou – twelve properly adjusted, politically correct bedtime stories for the modern era. Thus we have witches who are “kindest impaired” and the Emperor who went “clothing optional”, and more!

Thursday, March 9th

19:00: Is That You, Boy!

Shandon Loring returns to Noel Magnier’s 2001 selection of stories more formally known as Is That You Boy?: Humorous short stories of growing up in Cork, Ireland in the 1940’s and 50’s.

Within it, Magnier recounts the exploits of a young street gang in the Cork of the 1940s and 1950s as they scheme and scam to generate pocket-money for themselves – generally (for the reader) with hilarious results. Written with wit,  and an ability to weave a good yarn in a manner guaranteed to light up winter evenings, Noel Magnier brings what could at times be the hard years of 1940s and 1950s Ireland vividly and warmly to life.

Also in Kitely.

21:00: Seanchai Late Night

With Finn Zeddmore.

 

---

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

The featured charity for March April is  Project Children, building peace in Ireland one child at a time.

It’s time to kick-off 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 Second Life home at Bradley University, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, February 26th

13:30: Tea Time Mysteries!

Seanchai Library launches a Tea Time series, featuring everything non-Holmesian from Christie to Hamett, classic sleuthing to hard-boiled detectives of the noir-ish hue.

This week: Raymond Chandler’s Red Wind  concludes with Kayden, Cale, and John.

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every boozy party ends in the fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband’s necks.

So opens Chandlers 1946 Red Wind. Regarded as one of the classic openings for a noir story, it follows Philip Marlowe who, initially a bystander in a bar, witnesses an odd exchange between a man and a bartender concerning a woman, whom the man describes in great detail.

The conversation ends when another man in the bar kills the questioner, and Marlowe decides to delve into matters himself…

18:00: Magicland Storytime

How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse continues with Caledonia Skytower at the Golden Horseshoe In Magicland.

Monday, February 27th 19:00: The Crucible of Time

Gyro Muggins concludes reading the fix-up by John Brunner. First published as two-part story which appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, it’s an ambitious tale of alien intelligence which grew to a series of six linked tales pushed as a single novel in 1983.

Far off in space is an alien race which is so much like us, yet so un-alike. From the birth of their earliest civilisation through to their attainment of star flight as their star system passes through the galaxy, we follow their development through the ages.

Aquatic by nature, this race presents some significant challenges well outside the realms of anything encountered by humanity. But they are also driven by all too familiar hopes, fears, desires, needs, wants, prejudices, impact of religious ideologies, and the quest for knowledge we have experienced in the growth of our own civilisation.

Charting six periods of time, each a thousand years after the previous, the six stories focus on the efforts of a group of individuals in each era as they face one or more challenges, their success in overcoming these challenges inevitably leading them towards a greater understanding of their planet’s plight, and ultimately, the ability to deal with that plight and the survival of their civilisation.

Tuesday, February 28th 19:00: Save Room for Pie: Food songs and Chewy Ruminations

Comic writer Roy Blount Jr has been a life-long eater of food. He’s not sure where his attraction to food began, but he knows that eating isn’t always easy – beyond the sitting doing, chewing and swallowing, that is: those most assuredly are the easy parts.

But, what effect is the global climate and the ups and downs of the economy – local and global – having on the food he eats? How much does his own sinusitis, with its deadening of his sense of taste and smell, impact on his actual enjoyment of eating and food?

In poems and songs, limericks and fake (or sometimes true) news stories, Blount talks about food in surprising and innovative ways. In these pages he ruminates on everything from bacon froth to grapefruit, Kobe beef to biscuits. He defends gizzards, mullet, okra, cane syrup, watermelon, and boiled peanuts; he seeks imagined observations from Frederick Douglass to Louis Armstrong to Blaze Starr. There’s even an imagined conversation between Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden. 

And we shouldn’t forget the shampooed possums and carjacking turkeys! With Kayden OConnell.

Wednesday, March 1st 19:00: Politically Correct Bedtime Stories

Bedtime stories. We all know them, whether about the Wicked Witch, the Evil Goblin, the Nefarious Fairy, the Wayward Wolf or some other creature with mischief and badness on its mind. But did you know all of these tales are in fact the product of a few, elite minds, isolated from the rest of the world, who would discuss worldly affairs as their own skewed perspective on all things presented them?

Did you know these views and ideas were never supposed to leave the inner sanctum of the club in which they were first spouted, but somehow they did? Worse, that they somehow became the foundation of the tales we tell our children at bed time, leaving creatures and witches and fairies and all much maligned?

‘Tis true! Honest!

Luckily for us, James Finn Garner has carried out an intense investigation of this situation, and offers – through the voice of Faerie Maven-Pralou – twelve properly adjusted, politically correct bedtime stories for the modern era. Thus we have witches who are “kindest impaired” and the Emperor who went “clothing optional”, and more!

Thursday, March 2nd: 19:00: HG Wells’ A Story of the Stone Age

Shandon Loring continues H.G. Wells’ 1897 short story set within the stone age and focusing on Ugh-lomi.

Attracted to the young woman Eudena, he kills his rival for her attention and the de facto leader of their tribe, Uya. Forced into exile as a result, Ugh-lomi becomes the first man to  fashion an axe using wood and stone, and ride a horse. His use of the weapon helps him survive a range of encounters with wild animals. Ultimately, he returns to his tribe and claims leadership for himself.

Also in Kitely.

---

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 is Heifer International, working with communities to end world hunger and poverty and to care for the Earth.

It’s time to kick-off 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 Second Life home at Bradley University, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, February 19th 13:30: Tea Time Mysteries!

Seanchai Library launches a Tea Time series, featuring everything non-Holmesian from Christie to Hamett, classic sleuthing to hard-boiled detectives of the noir-ish hue.

This week: Raymond Chandler’s Red Wind  continues with Kayden, Cale, and John.

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every boozy party ends in the fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband’s necks.

So opens Chandlers 1946 Red Wind. Regarded as one of the classic openings for a noir story, it follows Philip Marlowe who, initially a bystander in a bar, witnesses an odd exchange between a man and a bartender concerning a woman, whom the man describes in great detail.

The conversation ends when another man in the bar kills the questioner, and Marlowe decides to delve into matters himself…

Monday, February 20th 19:00: The Crucible of Time

Gyro Muggins concludes reading the fix-up by John Brunner. First published as two-part story which appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, it’s an ambitious tale of alien intelligence which grew to a series of six linked tales pushed as a single novel in 1983.

Far off in space is an alien race which is so much like us, yet so un-alike. From the birth of their earliest civilisation through to their attainment of star flight as their star system passes through the galaxy, we follow their development through the ages.

Aquatic by nature, this race presents some significant challenges well outside the realms of anything encountered by humanity. But they are also driven by all too familiar hopes, fears, desires, needs, wants, prejudices, impact of religious ideologies, and the quest for knowledge we have experienced in the growth of our own civilisation.

Charting six periods of time, each a thousand years after the previous, the six stories focus on the efforts of a group of individuals in each era as they face one or more challenges, their success in overcoming these challenges inevitably leading them towards a greater understanding of their planet’s plight, and ultimately, the ability to deal with that plight and the survival of their civilisation.

Tuesday, February 21st 19:00: A Monstrous Regiment of Women

Concludes with Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday, February 22nd 19:00: The Winter of Our Wodehouse

Trolley Trollop reads selections from P.G. Wodehouse.

Thursday, February 23rd

19:00: HG Wells’ A Story of the Stone Age

Shandon Loring reads H.G. Wells’ 1897 short story set within the stone age and focusing on Ugh-lomi.

Attracted to the young woman Eudena, he kills his rival for her attention and the de facto leader of their tribe, Uya. Forced into exile as a result, Ugh-lomi becomes the first man to  fashion an axe using wood and stone, and ride a horse. His use of the weapon helps him survive a range of encounters with wild animals. Ultimately, he returns to his tribe and claims leadership for himself.

21:00: Seanchai Late Night

Science fiction with Finn Zeddmore.

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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 is Heifer International, working with communities to end world hunger and poverty and to care for the Earth.