Author: Oleg Panczenko

  • Mr Mencken on Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn

    Mr Mencken on Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn as performed by Dr John C. “Chuck” Chalberg, professor of history at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, MN. For more on Mr Mencken’s opinion of Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn, see “Mark Twain: Popularity Index” and “Our One Authentic Giant” in William H. Nolte, H. L. Mencken’s Smart…

  • Oliver Platt reads Mr Mencken’s “The Politician” (1940)

    Oliver Platt reads Mr Mencken’s “The Politician”. The piece can be found in the Chrestomathy and is an adaptation of Mr Mencken’s lecture before the Institute of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, January 4, 1940.

  • Mencken on Drinking Alcohol

    In this excerpt from an interview conducted by Donald Kirkley on June 30, 1948, the ombibulous Mr Mencken comments on alcoholic beverages and offers timeless advice on how to enjoy alcohol.

  • Marion Rodgers on Mencken and the Red Scare

    Marion Elizabeth Rodgers will speak on Mencken’s writings concerning “The Red Scare.” “In the deportation of radicals after the Red Scare, of April 1921, Mencken reminded his readers that “probably two-thirds of those allegedly Reds were wholly innocent, and even the guilty ones were not fairly tried.” Though by no means sharing the views of…

  • Mr Mencken’s “Hatrack”, Part 1

    Eighty-seven years ago subscribers to the American Mercury were receiving the April number of the magazine little knowing that 2,943 words occupying not quite four-and-a-half pages would create an anti-censorship tempest-in-a-teapot. The banning in Boston of the article titled “Hatrack” made the front page of the Sun but was sent to pages in the mid-twenties…

  • Tour the Mencken House With Marion Rodgers

    Johns Hopkins’ Odyssey Program offers two tours of the Mencken House on Saturday, April 20, 2013, conducted by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers. The course fee is $30 for either the morning or the afternoon tour. There is a $3 entrance donation to benefit the Friends of the H. L. Mencken House at the door. Section 01…

  • How to Drink Like a Gentleman

    Mr Mencken observed that “[d]rinking with skill and taste is no more a natural art than love; either it must be learned by the onerous proc­ess of trial and error, or it must be taught. Plainly enough, the latter way is the better” and offered a short tutorial which appeared in Liberty magazine of January…

  • The 2013 Mencken Graveside Memorial Service

    The eighth Mencken Graveside Memorial Service will again be conducted by Oleg Panczenko. When: Sunday, January 27, 2013 at 2:00 PM Where: Mencken Family Gravesite, Loudon Park Cemetery, 3620 Wilkens Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21229 Mr Mencken’s grave is in Lot W 224 North Half, Space 4, N 39° 16.693′ W 76° 40.683′ (39.278217°, -76.678050°). Google…

  • Arthur J. Gutman, 1911-2012

    Arthur J. Gutman, president of the Mencken Society from 1979 to 1999 and former Vice President of Warfield-Dorsey Insurance passed away Monday evening, November 26, 2012. He was interred at the Oheb Shalom Congregation Cemetery, 6130 O’Donnell Street, Baltimore, on Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 2 PM.

  • Mencken Society Election Year Tee Shirts

    Show your sympathies with a handsome garment suitable for wearing both before and after the Elections. The Mencken Society’s handsome tee shirt shows the Society’s logo on the front and “No one in this world, so far as I know … has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the…