Author: Oleg Panczenko

  • Calvin K. Kobsa, 1927-2014

    Society member Calvin Kern Kobsa died at the age of eighty-six at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson on May 10, 2014. Calvin, the son of Charles J. Kobsa, a piano maker and tuner, and Marie Kern Kobsa, was born in Baltimore July 31, 1927. He was graduated from Polytechnic Institute and earned a bachelor’s degree…

  • A Mencken Cornucopia

    The Enoch Pratt Free Library continues to post pictorial treasures from its Mencken holdings on the Web and we encourage society members to take advantage of this cornucopia. Begin your explorations at the H. L. Mencken Room webpage.

  • Ninth Annual Mencken Grave-site Memorial Service, 2014-01-26 (Sun)

    The 9th Annual Mencken Grave-site Memorial Service will be held Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 2:00 PM at the Mencken family plot in Loudon Park Cemetery. Signs will point the way to the grave-site. After the brief (less than 10 minutes) ceremony, attendees are invited to Spirits West Country Club, 2601 Wilkens Ave. Loudon Park…

  • Bodine’s Industry: The Dignity of Work

    Seventy prints of images showing people at work taken by A. Aubrey Bodine, Mr Mencken’s professional colleague, will be on display at the Baltimore Museum of Industry (BMI) from October 15, 2013 to February 6, 2014. On November 7, 2013 from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm, Jennifer Bodine, Aubrey Bodine’s daughter, will present a lecture…

  • Update: Mencken Oktoberfest at the Goethe Institut Is Now Free

    The lecture and showing of Inherit the Wind at the Goethe-Institut are now free of charge but there will be no buffet and no Oktoberfest beer. Lunch may be had at any of the nearby restaurants. We hope to see you on Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 10:30 am. The registration deadline has been extended…

  • Oktoberfest With A Menckenian Flavor

    Problem: Your appetite for bratwurst and sauerbraten is getting sated but you still want to celebrate Oktoberfest. Solution: Enjoy a day of Mencken at the American Goethe Society of Washington, D.C. with an entertaining lecture (in English) by the renown Mencken scholar Marion Elizabeth Rodgers and a showing of the film Inherit the Wind (1960).…

  • Mr Mencken Recommends … Dragon’s Blood

    There is a nice illustrated version of Henry Milner Rideout’s Dragon’s Blood (Houghton-Mifflin, 1909) available from Project Gutenberg. From Smart Set 28(3):153-160 (1909-07) [546 words]: [Dragon’s Blood is] a novel of great merit and greater promise. A hundred journeyman fictioneers might have imagined the story it tells, but a distressingly small number, even among the…

  • Mencken Day 2013

    Mencken Day 2013 will be held on September 7, 2013 at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral St, Baltimore, MD. Schedule 10:30 a.m. — Mencken Society annual meeting 1:30 p.m. — The 2013 Mencken Memorial Lecture — “An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted and the Miracle Drug Cocaine” by Dr. Howard Markel.…

  • Mr Mencken Tweets

    HLMenckenBot

  • Mr Mencken on CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley

    Mr Mencken was used to introduce the final segment of the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley for 2013-08-05. The story was about Carol Ott of Baltimore who shames owners of run-down property in the city by posting their names and photographs of their falling-down buildings on her website http://slumlordwatch.wordpress.com/. The introductory part of the…