Tag: Seanchai Library

It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in voice, brought to our virtual lives 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 below.

Sunday, July 5th, 13:30: Tea-time at Baker Street

Caledonia Skytower, Kaydon Oconnell and Corwyn Allen continue reading The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, originally published in 1894, and which brings together twelve (or eleven in US editions of the volume) adventures featuring Holmes and Watson, as originally published in The Strand Magazine. This week: The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual, first published in 1893.

“There are cases enough here, Watson,” said he, looking at me with mischievous eyes. “I think that if you knew all that I had in this box you would ask me to pull some out instead of putting others in.”

“These are the records of your early work, then?” I asked. “I have often wished that I had notes of those cases.”

“Yes, my boy, these were all done prematurely before my biographer had come to glorify me.” He lifted bundle after bundle in a tender, caressing sort of way. “They are not all successes, Watson,” said he. “But there are some pretty little problems among them. Here’s the record of the Tarleton murders, and the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant, and the adventure of the old Russian woman, and the singular affair of the aluminium crutch, as well as a full account of Ricoletti of the club-foot, and his abominable wife. And here — ah, now, this really is something a little recherche.”

Thus Holmes introduces Watson to one of the cases his took on before the two became friends, one involving an old acquaintance from Holmes’ university days, Reginald Musgrave, a vanished butler and maid and the mysterious Musgrave Ritual.

Monday July 6th, 19:00: The Martian Ascent

Elinor Caiman Sands is a UK science fiction author who is fully aware of Second Life – so much so, that earlier in 2015, she had her own stand at the Second Life Science Fiction Convention. She’s been published in Cosmos Online, the T. Gene Davis Speculative Blog and in the Strange Bedfellows Anthology of Political Science Fiction. Now listeners have the opportunity to become acquainted with one of her short stories, the Martian Ascent, first published in October 2014.

Humans are on Mars; three of them struggle to become the first to scale mighty Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the solar system, covering an area the size of Arizona. But they have to contend with more than just the hostile conditions of the planet. Their climb becomes haunted by eerie noises, and they begin to wonder if they are going mad. Does the mountain hold secrets they never imagined? Will they ever make it to the top?

Join Gyro Muggins to discover more.

Tuesday July 7th, “Summer” According to Saki

With Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday July 8th: 19:00: The Tail of Emily Windsnap Part 4

Faerie Maven-Pralou reads from Liz Kesseler’s series about a young girl who, having always lived on a boat but having been kept away from the water by her mother, finally gets to have swimming lessons. With them comes a remarkable discovery that leads her into another world…

Thursday July 9th

18:45: About Seanchais

A seanchai (sometimes also written as Shanachaie in English) is a traditional Irish storyteller / historian, as Shandon Loring explains as he delves into the tradition.

19:00: The Druid by Frank Delaney

He has been described as “the most eloquent man in the world”. In a career spanning three decades, BBC host and Booker Prize Judge Frank Delaney has interviewed more the 3,500 of the world’s most important writers.  He’s also an author in his own right, earning top prizes and best-seller status in a wide variety of formats.

His latest project is collectively called The Storytellers, and presents a series of short stories that follow the tradition of the seanchai: providing a crisp, concise tales of the world, and which also include his own notes on the history and craft of storytelling and the creation of myths.

Shandon Loring reads The Druid,  the first in the Storytellers series and a story from “Long, long ago, when the pigs ate the apples off the trees and the birds flew upside down,” and which features a Druid full of cunning and false magic, determined to win the hand of a beautiful girl.

Saturday July 11th, 12:00 Noon: Senachai Kitely Star Wars Saturday

With Shandon Loring and Caledonia Skytower, in Spaceworld (grid.kitely.com:8002/Inis Eirc).

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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 June / July is the The Xerces Society, at the forefront of invertebrate protection worldwide, harnessing the knowledge of scientists and the enthusiasm of citizens to implement conservation programmes.

Additional Links

• Seanchai Library (SL) blog
• Seanchai Library in this blog

It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in voice, brought to our virtual lives 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 below.

Sunday, June 28th

13:00 Tea-time at Baker Street

Caledonia Skytower, Kaydon Oconnell and Corwyn Allen continue reading The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, originally published in 1894, and which brings together twelve (or eleven in US editions of the volume) adventures featuring Holmes and Watson, as originally published in The Strand Magazine. This week: The Adventure of the Gloria Scott, first published in 1893.

He handed me a short note scrawled upon a half-sheet of slate gray-paper.

“The supply of game for London is going steadily up,” it ran. “Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, had been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant’s life.”

As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message, I saw Holmes chuckling at the expression upon my face.

“You look a little bewildered,” said he.

“I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror. It seems to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise.”

“Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine, robust old man, was knocked clean down by it as if it had been the butt end of a pistol.”

“You arouse my curiosity,” said I. “But why did you say just now that there were very particular reasons why I should study this case?”

“Because it was the first in which I was ever engaged.”

And so it is  – at last – that John Watson and Conan Doyle’s readers finally learn of the case that caused Sherlock Holmes to cease dabbling in matters of deduction, and make his career that of a consulting detective.

15:30: Special Performance: The Mask of Medusa

To launch a summer season of special hosted presentations, Seanchai Library welcomes the Cold Shot Players, a group of playwrights and readers. The season will feature presentations focused on the delights and drama of old time, classic radio shows.

The Mask of Medusa takes us back to the 1940s and the Mystery in the Air radio series starring Peter Lorre. The story, written by author Nelson S. Bond, focuses on Lorre’s character, one of 47 exhibits in a waxwork museum specialising in depicting murderers.

The waxwork is owned by one Aristide Zweig, a self-styled connoisseur of crime, who delights in regaling visitors in the art and artistry of his works and their exceptionally life-life appearance, all within earshot of Lorre’s character.

But the museum holds a dark secret, and Zweig is as much a monster as any of the figures displayed for Zweig’s delight and the titillation of patrons.

18:00 Magicland Storytime – Thomasina

Join Caledonia Skytower at Magicland Park as she continues reading Paul Gallico’s 1957 novel (and later a 1963 Walt Disney film starring none other that Patrick McGoohan, alongside Karen Dotrice – who also appeared in Disney’s Mary Poppins and The Gnome Mobile – and Susan Hampshire).

When Thomasina, young Mary’s cat, suffers injury, Mary’s veterinarian father and widower, is typically unsympathetic , and rather than treating the cat, has it put to sleep – earning himself the enmity of his daughter, who declares him dead to her.

Thomasina, meantime, finds herself in cat heaven, only to be returned to Earth because she has lived only one of her nine lives. Thus begins a series of adventures involving Thomasina, Mary, her father and a local woman regarded as a “witch” by the children, but who has a caring way with animals…

Monday June 29th, 19:00: Avimov’s Mysteries

Gyro Muggins reads a duo of classic short stories of the pen of Isaac Asimov. In What’s in a Name?, first published in June 1956 (albeit it under the title Death of a Honey-Blonde), we follow an unnamed detective as he investigates the mysterious death of a young woman at Carmody University.

First published in 1957, A Loint of Paw presents the theme of the story – that of a play on words – trough its title, as we follow a story of fraud, time-travel, justice, and the play on words upon which a judgement hangs.

Tuesday June 30th, Cat Night at the Library

Caledonia Skytower reads from her 2013 short story collection.

Meet “S” – a cat in the prime of her nine lives. From her superior feline perch, she swipes a paw at adventures in traveling, her favorite games, along with lessons in art and respect. A Trio of Cat Tales is a “feliniously” philosophical journey with plenty of insights and exploits for cat lovers and the “cat owned.”

Wednesday July 1st: 19:00: The Tail of Emily Windsnap Part 3

Faerie Maven-Pralou reads from the first volume in Liz Kesseler’s series about a young girl who, having always lived on a boat but having been kept away from the water by her mother, finally gets to have swimming lessons. With them comes a remarkable discovery that leads her into another world…

Thursday July 2nd 19:00: True UFO Stories

With 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 June / July is the The Xerces Society, at the forefront of invertebrate protection worldwide, harnessing the knowledge of scientists and the enthusiasm of citizens to implement conservation programmes.

Additional Links

• Seanchai Library (SL) blog
• Seanchai Library in this blog

It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in voice, brought to our virtual lives by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and all events in Second Life are held at the Seanchai Library’s home at Bradley University. Locations for events in InWorldz and Kitely are given within the write-ups for those events.

Sunday, June 21st 13:30: A Midsummer Celebration

Dress in white or summer colours, adorn yourself with flowers and join the staff and volunteers of Seanchai Library to celebrate Midsummer’s Eve with stories, dance and music.

“The solstice itself has remained a special moment of the annual cycle of the year since Neolithic times.  The concentration of the observance is not on the day as we reckon it, commencing at midnight or at dawn, as it is customary for cultures following lunar calendars to place the beginning of the day on the previous eve at dusk at the moment when the Sun has set.  In some countries still, Midsummer’s Eve is the greatest festival of the year, comparable only with Walpurgis Night, Christmas Eve, and New Year’s Eve.” – from the Seanchai blog.

Monday June 22nd, 19:00: Science-Fiction Shorts

Gyro Muggins reads Isaac Asimov’s 1966 science-fiction story The Billiard Ball, can anti-gravity be created and controlled? Could it even be used to kill someone during a simple game of billiards?

Tuesday June 23rd, The Great Gatsby, Part 5

Caledonia Skytower, Corwyn Allen and Kaydan Oconnell continue reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s magnificent 1925 novel.

In 1922, Nick Carraway arrives in New York to learn about the bond business. He rents a small cottage in West Egg, home of the newly-rich, only to discover the owner of the huge Gothic mansion next door, the deeply mysterious Jay Gatsby, is prone to throwing lavish parties every weekend, to which in seems everyone comes. Everyone it seems, except Nick’s cousin Daisy, who is married to Tom Buchanan. Together they live across the bay in the more fashion East Egg, where the “old money” resides.

Following a visit with them, Nick is slowly drawn into their world, both discovering Tom Buchanan has a mistress who lives in the Valley of Ashes, an industrial area lying between the Eggs and New York city, and finding himself increasingly attracted to the Buchanan’s friend, the beautiful, if cynically minded, Jordan Baker.

Then, one Saturday, Nick finds himself invited to one of Jay Gatsby’s great parties, and is thus drawn into an increasingly deep well of infatuation, lust, and tragedy, witnessing first hand a darker side of the so-called American Dream.

Wednesday June 24th 19:00: The Tail of Emily Windsnap Part 2

Faerie Maven-Pralou reads from the first volume in Liz Kesseler’s series about a young girl who, having always lived on a boat but having been kept away from the water by her mother, finally gets to have swimming lessons. With them comes a remarkable discovery that leads her into another world…

Thursday June 25th

19:00: Scottish Myths and Legends

With Shandon Loring.

21:00 Seanchai Late Night

With Finn Zeddmore.

Saturday June 27th 12:00 noon Seanchai Inworldz: X Minus One

Join Cale and Shandon as they read selected scripts from the NBC half-hour radio series X Munus One, originally broadcast between April 24th, 1955 and January 9th, 1958. this week: How-2, first broadcast in 1956, written by Clifford D. Simak, and Ray Bradbury’s Marionettes, Inc. (from his short story of the same name), first broadcast in 1955.

(https://inworldz/region/Sendalonde/217/144/28)

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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 June / July is the The Xerces Society, at the forefront of invertebrate protection worldwide, harnessing the knowledge of scientists and the enthusiasm of citizens to implement conservation programmes.

Additional Links

• Seanchai Library (SL) blog
• Seanchai Library in this blog

It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in voice, brought to our virtual lives by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and all events in Second Life are held at the Seanchai Library’s home at Bradley University. Locations for events in InWorldz and Kitely are given within the write-ups for those events.

Sunday, June 14th

13:00 Tea-time at Baker Street

Caledonia Skytower, Kaydon Oconnell and Corwyn Allen continue reading The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, originally published in 1894, and which brings together twelve (or eleven in US editions of the volume) adventures featuring Holmes and Watson, as originally published in The Strand Magazine. This week: The Adventure of the Stockbroker’s Clerk, first published in  March 1893.

For three months after taking over the practice I was kept very closely at work and saw little of my friend Sherlock Holmes, for I was too busy to visit Baker Street, and he seldom went anywhere himself save upon professional business. I was surprised, therefore, when, one morning in June, as I sat reading the British Medical Journal after breakfast, I heard a ring at the bell, followed by the high, somewhat strident tones of my old companion’s voice.

“Ah, my dear Watson,” said he, striding into the room, “I am very delighted to see you! I trust that Mrs. Watson has entirely recovered from all the little excitements connected with our adventure of the Sign of Four.”

“Thank you, we are both very well,” said I, shaking him warmly by the hand.

Holmes’ visit to the home of Dr and Mrs J. Watson is more than just casual; he wishes his friend to accompany him and one Hall Pycroft, a stockbroker, on a trip to Birmingham. It seems that said company had offered Mr. Pycroft a management position, albeit in France, and had sweetened the offer with a rather handsome £100 advance.

While his suspicions that all was not as it seemed had not prevented Mr. Pycroft from accepting the position, further events had drawn him to the conclusion that something rather odd was indeed going on. Thus, he had sought the assistance of Sherlock Holmes, who had decided a further visit to the firm’s Birmingham offices to be in order. He had also deduced that the case would be sufficiently engaging to warrant the involvement of his chronicler and friend, John Watson.

18:00 Magicland Storytime – Thomasina Part 2

Join Caledonia Skytower at Magicland Park as she continues reading Paul Gallico’s 1957 novel (and later a 1963 Walt Disney film starring none other that Patrick McGoohan, alongside Karen Dotrice – who also appeared in Disney’s Mary Poppins and The Gnome Mobile – and Susan Hampshire).

When Thomasina, young Mary’s cat, suffers injury, Mary’s veterinarian father and widower, is typically unsympathetic , and rather than treating the cat, has it put to sleep – earning himself the enmity of his daughter, who declares him dead to her.

Thomasina, meantime, finds herself in cat heaven, only to be returned to Earth because she has lived only one of her nine lives. Thus begins a series of adventures involving Thomasina, Mary, her father and a local woman regarded as a “witch” by the children, but who has a caring way with animals…

Monday June 15th, 19:00: Science-Fiction Shorts

Gyro Muggins reads Isaac Asimov’s 1955 science-fiction crime story The Singing Bell, which involves murder, Moon rocks and justice. He turn turns to the Zelazny / Sheckley short, Star Light.

Tuesday June 16th, The Great Gatsby, Part 4

Caledonia Skytower, Corwyn Allen and Kaydan Oconnell continue reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s magnificent 1925 novel.

In 1922, Nick Carraway arrives in New York to learn about the bond business. He rents a small cottage in West Egg, home of the newly-rich, only to discover the owner of the huge Gothic mansion next door, the deeply mysterious Jay Gatsby, is prone to throwing lavish parties every weekend, to which in seems everyone comes. Everyone it seems, except Nick’s cousin Daisy, who is married to Tom Buchanan. Together they live across the bay in the more fashion East Egg, where the “old money” resides.

Following a visit with them, Nick is slowly drawn into their world, both discovering Tom Buchanan has a mistress who lives in the Valley of Ashes, an industrial area lying between the Eggs and New York city, and finding himself increasingly attracted to the Buchanan’s friend, the beautiful, if cynically minded, Jordan Baker.

Then, one Saturday, Nick finds himself invited to one of Jay Gatsby’s great parties, and is thus drawn into an increasingly deep well of infatuation, lust, and tragedy, witnessing first hand a darker side of the so-called American Dream.

Wednesday June 17th

06:00: Forever Erma

Erma Bombeck achieved great popularity for her newspaper column that described suburban home life from the mid-1960s until the late 1990s. She also published 15 books, most of which became bestsellers. From 1965 to 1996, Erma Bombeck wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns, using broad and sometimes eloquent humour, chronicling the ordinary life of a mid-western suburban housewife. By the 1970s, her columns were read twice-weekly by 30 million readers of the 900 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada

Join Freda Frostbite and Trolly Trollop as the delve into Erma’s wit and wisdom of everyday life, joined by Caledonia Skytower.

19:00: The Tail of Emily Windsnap Part 2

Faerie Maven-Pralou reads from the first volume in Liz Kesseler’s series about a young girl who, having always lived on a boat but having been kept away from the water by her mother, finally gets to have swimming lessons. With them comes a remarkable discovery that leads her into another world…

Thursday June 18th 19:00: Edgar Allan

Shandon Loring enters the world of the Master of the Macabre.

Saturday June 20th 12:00 noon Seanchai Kitely: The Adventures of Luke Skywalker

So, where were you in 1977?  Do you remember the first time you saw the first film?  The first 25 times you saw the first film?  Maybe you have never seen it at all.  Join Caledonia on Seanchai Library’s Spaceworld to enjoy for the first time (or re-live the joy) of those first adventures from an edition penned by Director George Lucas himself! – grid.kitely.com:8002/Inis Eirc.

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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 June / July is the The Xerces Society, at the forefront of invertebrate protection worldwide, harnessing the knowledge of scientists and the enthusiasm of citizens to implement conservation programmes.

Additional Links

• Seanchai Library (SL) blog
• Seanchai Library in this blog

It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in voice, brought to our virtual lives by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and all events in Second Life are held at the Seanchai Library’s home at Bradley University. Locations for events in InWorldz and Kitely are given within the write-ups for those events.

Sunday, May 31st

13:00 Tea-time at Baker Street

Caledonia Skytower, Kaydon Oconnell and Corwyn Allen continue reading The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, originally published in 1894, and which brings together twelve (or eleven in US editions of the volume) adventures featuring Holmes and Watson, as originally published in The Strand Magazine. This week: The Adventure of the Cardboard Box.

In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. It is, however, unfortunately impossible entirely to separate the sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to his statement and so give a false impression of the problem, or he must use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him with. With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events.

So begins Dr, John Watson in re-telling one of Holmes’ more grisly cases, which was first published in The Stand Magazine in 1892, before forming a part of the Memoirs anthology in the UK, and His Last Bow in the United States.

The affair begins when Miss Susan Cushing of Croydon receives a grisly parcel of two severed human ears, packed in salt. Inspector Lestrade is convinced that the parcel is a prank on the part of three medical students Miss Cushing was forced to evict from her lodgings due to their unruly behaviour. Lestrade points to the parcel as coming from Belfast – the home of one of the former lodgers – as reason for his suspicions.

On examining the parcel, however, Holmes is certain that they are dealing with a far more serious crime, involving tormented minds and extra-marital relationships…

18:00 Magicland Storytime – Thomasina Part 1

Join Caledonia Skytower at Magicland Park as she commences reading Paul Gallico’s 1957 novel (and later a 1963 Walt Disney film starring none other that Patrick McGoohan, alongside Karen Dotrice – who also appeared in Disney’s Mary Poppins and The Gnome Mobile – and Susan Hampshire).

When Thomasina, young Mary’s cat, suffers injury, Mary’s veterinarian father and widower, is typically unsympathetic , and rather than treating the cat, has it put to sleep – earning himself the enmity of his daughter, who declares him dead to her.

Thomasina, meantime, finds herself in cat heaven, only to be returned to Earth because she has lived only one of her nine lives. Thus begins a series of adventures involving Thomasina, Mary, her father and a local woman regarded as a “witch” by the children, but who has a caring way with animals…

Monday June 1st, 19:00: Science Fiction with Gyro Muggins

This evening Gyro reads from two short stories. In Isaac Asimov’s 1956 story, Pâté de Foie Gras a goose is discovered which actually lays golden eggs. Meanwhile, in If at Faust You Don’t Succeed by Roger Zelazny, Robert Sheckley, the contest between the forces  of Good and Evil for control of the  universe resumes, but Mephistopheles has mistakenly signs up a  medieval cutpurse named Mack the Club, thinking him the  learned Dr. Faust. And that’s just the start of Mephisto’s problems…

Tuesday June 2nd, The Great Gatsby, Part 2

Caledonia Skytower, Corwyn Allen and Kaydan Oconnell continue reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s magnificent 1925 novel.

In 1922, Nick Carraway arrives in New York to learn about the bond business. He rents a small cottage in West Egg, home of the newly-rich, only to discover the owner of the huge Gothic mansion next door, the deeply mysterious Jay Gatsby, is prone to throwing lavish parties every weekend, to which in seems everyone comes. Everyone it seems, except Nick’s cousin Daisy, who is married to Tom Buchanan. Together they live across the bay in the more fashion East Egg, where the “old money” resides.

Following a visit with them, Nick is slowly drawn into their world, both discovering Tom Buchanan has a mistress who lives in the Valley of Ashes, an industrial area lying between the Eggs and New York city, and finding himself increasingly attracted to the Buchanan’s friend, the beautiful, if cynically minded, Jordan Baker.

Then, one Saturday, Nick finds himself invited to one of Jay Gatsby’s great parties, and is thus drawn into an increasingly deep well of infatuation, lust, and tragedy, witnessing first hand a darker side of the so-called American Dream.

Wednesday June 3rd

06:00: Forever Erma

Erma Bombeck achieved great popularity for her newspaper column that described suburban home life from the mid-1960s until the late 1990s. She also published 15 books, most of which became bestsellers. From 1965 to 1996, Erma Bombeck wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns, using broad and sometimes eloquent humour, chronicling the ordinary life of a mid-western suburban housewife. By the 1970s, her columns were read twice-weekly by 30 million readers of the 900 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada

Join Freda Frostbite and Trolly Trollop as the delve into Erma’s wit and wisdom of everyday life, joined by Caledonia Skytower.

19:00: The Night Fairy

With Faerie Maven-Pralou.

Thursday June 4th, 19:00: The Night’s Ocean

Shandon Loring reads from the 1936 short story by H.P. Lovecraft and R.H. Barlow.

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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 April / May is Habitat for Humanity, with a vision of a world where everyone has a decent place to live – a safe and clean place to call home.

Additional Links

• Seanchai Library (SL) blog
• Seanchai Library (SL) SLurl
• Seanchai Library in this blog