Road Trip to the Mencken House
The Washington Post recently ran an article in the “Road Trip” column, Robbie Whelan, “Sage Scribe H.L. Mencken’s Baltimore” (2008-05-04, p. N06), describing a day trip to Baltimore to visit Mr Mencken’s favorite places.
We offer this corrective: the article states that “efforts to resurrect the Mencken House as a museum have all but fallen by the wayside.” The reporter cannot be faulted for thinking so, as the effort to reopen the House is low-keyed and slow. But the effort indeed continues.
Mencken’s Pseudonymous Writings
S. L. Harrison has collected thirty-seven pieces by such authors as Major Owen Hatteras, John F. Brownell, William Fink, William Drayham, and W. L. D. Bell, all names unfamiliar to standard literary biographies. All of these authors are the same man, H. L. Mencken and their (or do we say his?) writings are assembled in aka H. L. Mencken: Selected Pseudonymous Writings (Wolf Den Books, 2003). The book also contains a bibliography of Mr. Mencken’s pseudonymous writings.
Mencken Day 2007
Well, what happened during Mencken Day in Baltimore? Sharon Hamilton gave a superb lecture on, “Mencken and Nathan’s Smart Set and the Making of Modern New York.” She showed Mr. Mencken’s mostly unrecognized role in turning literature from being dominated by moralizing Protestants and promoting those who wrote about life as it is. … More
(Posted: Mon Oct 29 22:26:39 EDT 2007; upated Tue Oct 30 11:23:15 EDT 2007)
Garrison Keillor Visits Mencken House
Garrison Keillor, best known for A Prairie Home Companion, was recently in Baltimore to promote his latest book, Pontoon. He is also a Mencken fan and did not spare mentions of the Sage of Baltimore.
Mr Keillor broadcast his radio program, A Prairie Home Companion, from the Hippodrome Theatre on Saturday, October 13. In one of the skits Keillor, as Guy Noir, Private Eye, in Baltimore on a case, meets Mr Mencken’s ghost and the two retire to a nearby bar for discussion.
The following day, Sunday, he read from Pontoon at the Enoch Pratt Free Library.
On Monday morning, Mr Keillor toured the Mencken House with Mencken biographer Marion Rodgers as his guide. Mr Keillor observed that Mr Mencken was a powerful writer who is still readable today, in constast to his contemporaries. Ms Rodgers gave Mr Keillor a copy of her The Impossible H. L. Mencken.
That afternoon, from 1:00 to 2:00, Mr Keillor was guest on WYPR’s Marc Steiner Show. He mentioned the Mencken House at the beginning of the program.
Thanks to Phil Hildebrandt and Oleg Panczenko for doing the uncelebrated work at the Mencken House that makes for success. Thanks to Brigitta Fessended for providing transportation to the House for Mr Keillor and Ms Rodgers.
(Posted: Tue Oct 16 16:19:29 EDT 2007; updated Wed Oct 17 08:09:57 EDT 2007)
Mencken Discussion Board Is On-Line
Click on the link on the left or link directly using http://www.mencken.org/phpBB2/index.php
The Artist
We present Mr Mencken’s The Artist, as originally written, with hyperlinks to annotations here.
(Posted: Mon Sep 24 15:15:16 EDT 2007)
In Memoriam
The Mencken Society regretfully notes the passing of Muriel B. Fecher, wife of Charles A. Fecher, on June 16, 2007 and the passing of Mayo Ruth DuBasky on August 22, 2007.
(Posted: Mon Sep 24 15:14:51 EDT 2007)
A Glorious (Der) Tag 2007
The business meeting of the Mencken Society began at 10:20 on Saturday morning (09-17) and was quickly and efficiently conducted by President Martin. The item of interest to a general audience was the announced increase in dues from $25 to $30 annually. … More
(Posted: Mon Sep 17 21:27:59 EDT 2007)
Mencken House Break-In Frustrated
Early in the morning of September 14, an attempted break-in into the Mencken House was frustrated when the piercingly loud alarm of the House’s security system was triggered at 6:25 AM by an intruder (or intruders).
The intruder was attempting to enter the house through the breezeway door on the east side of the house and had carefully removed the moulding around the pane of glass closest to the doorknob. Police found the pieces of moulding neatly placed in a pile against the wooden fence and the pane upright next to it. The sound of the alarm apparently frightened the intruder away.
Phil Hidlebrandt, of the Friends of the H. L. Mencken House, the group which is de facto caretaker of the House, responed to the alarm company’s call and was at the House at 6:30 AM. Baltimore City police arrived and filed a report.
(Posted: Fri Sep 14 17:09:10 EDT 2007)span>
Johns Hopkins Acquires 6,000-Item Mencken Collection
The Johns Hopkins University has acquired, partly by purchase and partly by gift, nearly 6,000 books, articles, letters, photographs and other items which were collected from 1962 until 2006 by George H. Thompson. Mr Thompson, who died in 2006, was an accountant most recently of Cadiz, Ohio. His may be the largest privately held collection of items by and related to the Sage of Baltimore.
The collection encompases Mencken’s multiple editions, printings, and translations, complete issues of magazines which contained artiles by Mr Mencken, Mencken letters, photographs, printed ephemera, reprinted Mencken works, and books which mentioned Mencken or were inspired by him.
Mr Thompson assisted Dr Richard J. Schrader with his H.L. Mencken: A Descriptive Bibliography (1998).
The collection is at the George Peabody Library, 17 E. Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore, MD and may be visited on Mencken Day.
More at the George Peabody Library’ website.
Mencken Weekend, September 15-16, 2007
Dr Sharon Hamilton
(Courtesy of Dr Hamilton) |
The Mencken Society will meet at Wheeler Auditorium on Saturday (09-15) morning at 10:00 AM and will have two speakers: at 10:30 Dr Sharon Hamilton will speak on “The First New Yorker: Mencken’s and Nathan’s The Smart Set Magazine and the Making of Modern New York” (It took two non-natives to show native New Yorkers how to be New Yorkers) and at 11:30 Mr David Donovan will speak on “H. L. Mencken: Musician and Music Critic”.
From 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM, Cynthia Horsburgh Requardt will offer an informal preview of the George H. Thompson Mencken Collection at the George Peabody Library, 17 East Mt Vernon Place.
At 2:15 in the afternoon, the Memorial Lecturer will be Anthony Lewis, a man well-known to readers of The New York Times, who will be speaking on “Beyond Scorn”.
The New Mencken Room at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, normally open only by appointment, will be open to the general public. The room has been decorated with a drawing, and paintings and portraits. New exhibits are “H. L. Mencken and the Combs Family” and “Children’s Books of the Mencken Family.”
A vicinity map showing the locations of the places of interest on Mencken Day is available for download here.
[Correction: An earlier version of this item referred to “two Baltimore boys.” An alert reader reminds us that George Jean Nathan (born in Fort Wayne, Indiana) is, of course, a New Yorker. I do know better and can only plead a lapse in my effort for effect.—OP]
A Mencken Opera
A special event starting at 5:00 PM will be the production of Mr Mencken’s opera (yes, you read that right), The Artist: A Drama Without Words, with score by Louis Cheslock (heavily derived from Ludwig van Beethoven), and directed by Roger Brunyate of the Johns Hopkins Peabody School of Music with performers from the Peabody Opera Company. The opera will run about twenty-five minutes and will be performed at the Maryland Historical Society, which is a short (~1/4-mile) walk from the Enoch Pratt Free Library.
On Mencken Day David S. Thaler will publish The Artist: A Drama Without Words. The book features a foreword by Mr Thaler and essays by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers and Roger Brunyate. The price is $20 and all proceeds will go to the Enoch Pratt Free Library and the Maryland Historical Society. Those with good memories will recall that Mr Thaler wrote “H. L. Mencken and the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute”, Menckeniana 87:10-13 (1983 Fall).
Mencken House to be Open for a Day
On Sunday, 09-16, The Mencken House will be open to the public from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. The effort to reopen the house as a museum is ongoing.
“Speaking of Mencken” at Mercy Ridge
In the evening of August 16, Mencken Society member John Dausch spoke for over an hour before approximately one hundred retirees at the Mercy Ridge retirement community in Timonium, MD.
Mr Dausch contrasted the serious Mencken with the playful Mencken. The man who introduced the American public to such now literary and philosophic standards as Joseph Conrad and Friedrich Nietzsche, who was involved in the Scopes Monkey Trial, and who was a critic of the New Deal could also exchange very funny faux reminiscences of Old Baltimore with George Jean Nathan (collected in the book Do You Remember?) and celebrate a “A Neglected Anniversary”, also known as ‘The Bathtub Hoax’.
The audience was attentive and responsive and Mr Dausch agreeably went beyond the hour set aside for the talk.
Schrader update, June 2007
The current cumulative set of updates to Dr Richard J. Schrader’s invaluable H. L. Mencken: A Descriptive Bibliography is dated June 2007 and was previously updated January, 2007. The additions and corrections can be downloaded as a pdf format file from http://www2.bc.edu/~schrader/mencken.pdf.
Mr Mencken before the Doctors
On June 7 at the Maryland Club, Mencken Society member John Duasch was the dinnertime speaker before the Edwin J. Wylie Society, the alumni association of vascular surgeons who trained at the University of California–San Francisco. Mr Dausch was invited to speak on a topic of local interest and chose Mr Mencken.
Mr Dausch, a “born and bred Baltimore boy”, works professionally for an agency of the United States government but his great avocation is living history. In addition to portraying Mr Mencken, which he did at the City Life Museums Mencken House for many years, he also portrays a Prussian military observer of the period 1861-1865.
A gracious note sent subsequently by Dr Kenneth Cherry, president of the Wylie Society, thanked Mr Dausch for his “… wonderful presentation concerning H. L. Mencken” and added that “I can’t tell you how many people came up to me and told me how much your talk added to the evening and to their enjoyment of the whole trip to Baltimore. I had already appreciated Mr. Mencken and now appreciate him even more after listening to you.”
Cdr Norris K. Combs, USN (Ret.), 1915-2007
The Mencken Sociey notes with sadness the death of long-time member Cdr Norris K. Combs, USN (Ret.). … More
The truth about “Ventures Into Verse”
It is common knowledge that Mr Mencken considered his first published work, a collection of his poetry, to be so bad that he bought all the copies he could and destroyed them.
Common knowledge is wrong. … More