Info Island Libraries this week
This week we have an exhibit opening and book discussion in Caledon, the Grand Opening of the Talis SF and Fantasy Center, a Genealogy Program, and an opening at the Info Island art gallery.
Caledon Branch
To celebrate the opening of Caledon’s new sim, Caledon VictoriaCity, the Caledon branch has an exhibit on 19th century London. The exhibit, London – City of Cities, explores some of the wonderful web resources available for understanding the phenomenon that was London between 1800 and 1900 – both the city itself, and the place it held in the imagination of the 19th century world.
The branch’s Author-of-the-Month program continues this month with George Eliot There will be a Book Discussion of Eliot’s novel Silas Marner at the branch on November 20th, at 6pm SLT, led by Information Island’s own Maxito Ricardo. All interested readers and literary schmoozers are cordially invited to attend. Copies of the novel are available at the library, and a wonderful html implementation can be found at http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/e/eliot/george/e42s/ . The library has also created a “webliography” of resources about the author’s life and works (look for the old fashioned Telegraph machine on the branch’s shelves to access the resources) and a display of images and quotations for the novel can be seen in the upstairs gallery of the library.
Talis SciFi and Fantasy Portal Have Grand Opening
Saturday, November 18. Noon to 4 pm SL time
A Second Life Library 2.0 Initiative Come celebrate the opening of a new resource center for Sci Fi & Fantasy readers, writers, and researchers! Tour our new building and hear presentations from special guest speakers: Ravyn Christensen, SamBivalent Spork, Fleet Goldenberg, and Salazar Jack. For more information contact Floria Hand or Michael Maitland. Genealogy Program on Info Island
Genealogy
We will host a program on genealogy on November 15 at 6 pm sl at the outdoor auditorium. Craig Roberts Scott, M.A., is the CEO and President of Heritage Books, Inc., a genealogical publishing firm with over 2,600 titles in print located in Westminster, Maryland. The bookstore division Willow Bend Books is the largest genealogy bookstore in the world. A professional genealogical and historical researcher for more than nineteen years, he specializes in the records of the National Archives, especially those that relate to the military.
A New Show Opens at the Art Gallery on Info Island
Nov. 17 at 6 pm sl
Czar Nicholas is the SL avatar of the RL writer, poet, artist and eccentric genius Albert De Lorenzo. Ok, ok…the eccentric Albert De Lorenzo. LOL.
Artist’s Bio
Albert was born in Zell Am See, Austria 55 years ago, lived in Livorno, Italy for a while and crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a ship in 1956. Leaving home at the age of 13, he spent decades on the road exploring the North American continent. He has lived in New York City, Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia. Miami, Florida, New Orleans, Lousiana, Dallas, Texas, Denver, Colorado, San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Big Sur, Carmel, Monteray, Santa Cruz and, San Francisco, California, Seattle, Washington and Honolulu, Hawaii. He has lived on the streets, in apartments, in a tree house, in a cabin in a redwood forest, in a 10,000 square foot mansion, in a VW van, and on a twenty-five foot sail boat.
Over the years he worked in a tobacco warehouse, picked cotton, ran a hot lead type machine in a letterpress, bussed tables, became a TV repairman, had a stint as a male model, drove a taxi, stuffed envelopes, washed dishes, worked as a midway carney, managed movie theatres, ran a museum gift shop, became a bookkeeper, fathered four children, rose to general manager of a chain of bookstores, and is now considering going back on the road for the rest of his life.
Mostly self educated he decided in his late forties to add formal education to the mix and has earned an AA degree graduating Phi Theta Kappa and is currently finishing a BA in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Asheville. He wants to go on and earn a Masters in Liberal Arts but the call of the road is awful strong.
At the age of forty he began painting and writing seriously. He has finished the first draft of a novel and is currently re-writing and polishing the work. The paintings that he has uploaded into SL to date are a small sampling of his work and he plans to upload the majority of his work over time.
Albert enjoys gardening, beekeeping, hiking, bike riding, swimming, sailing, whitewater rafting and skydiving and will try most anything several times before deciding if he likes it or not. Almost always cheerful and happy, there is only on thing that really bugs him, mortality. He lives his life in a way that is summed up nicely by the following paraphrase of British artist Francis Bacon: “Life is but a spasm of conciousness between two voids …[and] that being the case one may as well be extraordinary.”