Happy New Year! We are quite excited as we welcome another year – our sixth at Ce Soir Arts. To say that we have been enjoying our Second Lives would be an understatement of major proportion, as we truly love the creativity it sparks…the friends we’ve made…the music, art, poetry, and theatre we have experienced. It has definitely been an adventure!

BEFORE I DIVE INTO THAT STORY…look what we have planned for our return from the holiday hiatus! We had a wonderful holiday season and were honoured to take part in Seanchai Library‘s annual The Dickens Project. The lovely Caledonia Skytower, who reads for us at The Magic Tree, was kind to invite us over. We so enjoyed sharing information about Ce Soir Arts with visitors, having a special reading by our Poet Laureate/Artist-in-Residence/Musician Extraordinaire Russell Eponym. Caledonia and her collaborators created a beautiful London winter sim with a theme straight from Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol.

Come join us for a marvelous evening of music and celebration this Thursday at Château Ce Soir! We have three of our favourite regularly performing musicians gracing the stage for three hours of musical magic! BAZ is up at 5 PM, and he is amazing – a professional musician, composer, and arranger, his sets are always something special. At 6 PM, ANJ GUSTAFSON brings his stellar style and musical talents to rock the castle for an hour to remember, and then NUVOLINO, our Aussie fave, CHILLS us out to end the night in a very cool fashion!

Here’s the schedule! Come on over and join us…your party sleigh is HERE…

BACK TO THE STORY…

When we arrived in-world in January 2009, we had little idea about what to expect. We imagine most “newbies” arrive in much the same state, even today (although we bet there are at least a few more savvy folks logging in for the first time these days). We began exploring straight away, although I admit we were a bit hesitant that first outing. Of course, the trepidation faded quickly as we met people and started jazzing up our rather plain avatars. In fact our first friends were owners of a well-known shoppe for skins and clothing for both male and female avis. The proprietors were incredibly friendly and supportive, even allowing us to logoff and land on their property as we sorted the whole situation and prepared to buy land, etc. Their guidance was invaluable, and through them we became acquainted with clothing lines such as the wonderful gothic wear at RFyre and AOs and other animation goods from the talented folks at VISTA Animations.

We started wandering about – all decked out in our finery and gorgeous skins – and began discovering the many aspects of life in Second Life®. It was an education, to say the least! After we got our first home – a few parcels on the Mainland – we set up house and enjoyed decorating the place, having a garden, hosting parties…and getting married in-world too. My cousin joined us as Best Man and my BFF logged in too as Matron of Honour. It was a grand wedding and we settled in. Soon, we got itchy feet and started going way past simple shopping for activities, mostly because we discovered ART GALLERIES and LIVE MUSIC VENUES! It was a glorious time and we met our dear friend Russell Eponym then; he was the first person to pronounce my French name correctly – without assistance!

Of course, we enjoyed Russell‘s music, and when we discovered his paintings, we were truly amazed at his Renaissance Man qualities. Little did we know (but were soon to discover) his poetic leanings as well. We attended loads of his shows at various venues and readings (which were then often at Circe’s sweet garden location). We met more people, made more friends, and developed a strong social life. We longed, however, for more privacy (living next door to my cousin was a HOOT – and oh, the fun we had! More on that later!) We wanted to be more permanent and so we acquired a homestead sim, bought another  house, and sunk roots so deeply that we still have that same sim in our family!

Time wore on and we enjoyed every login. Through my cousin, we discovered the magnificent work of one Alia Baroque at Fallen Gods. We were enchanted, to say the least, and expanded our circle of shoppes and friends. One night in November of 2011, we were shopping at Fallen Gods and literally stumbled upon an advertisement of some absolutely beautiful castles! We decided, right then and there, to buy all three of those structures…not having clue one about what we might do with them. Impetuous? Perhaps. Intuitive? Definitely. Within hours we had the idea to open a venue of some kind. And we had no idea at all what we were doing…we were just going to do it!

We cast about for another sim. We wanted a full sim, this time, because we hoped to draw some crowds for…whatever it was we were going to do. We looked at several, but when we found Ce Soir, we knew. And so…that very night – just days following our castles purchase from Fallen Gods – we began building a location. Not being exceptionally savvy about things, we thought we should keep our private home at sim level and “float” the venue space up above. I set to work and within a few days, Ce Soir Arts was ready to open to the public! I had LOTS of help from brilliant builders like Garvie Garzo, Speed Delight, and others we had met at places like the amazing Builders Brewery (that is still going strong in teaching builders the tools of the trade today). My cousin helped too, and he and I took many a class at the BB, cutting up and having a grand time learning from excellent instructors who – somehow – had the patience to teach the two of us!

I have gone on and on…and for that I apologise. I’ll rush ahead a bit and note the obvious – we changed the sim all around a couple of years back, bringing the main venue spaces down to the sim itself – and creating another level for a sweet wintry retreat we enjoy all year long. We do love The Conservatory and The Oracle Parlour, both surrounded by snow and woodland beauty. We have the main venue at Château Ce Soir, the forested reading spot dedicated to Poet Laureate Russell Eponym – called The Magic Tree – the Dover Beach Theatre where we sometimes bring in students and others for various performances, and three art gallery spaces where many fine artists of various media have shared their work with us, PLUS the cemetery and dungeons…. And it keeps growing! Read back in earlier postings for much more detail if you like.

Here’s to 2018! May it bring us more fun than we can dream…and more love than our hearts can hold!