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Baltimore: This Weekend Is Mencken Weekend
Filed under: On the Spot Tagged: events, George Jean Nathan, H.L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken’s 128th birthday has come and gone (it was Wednesday). We may have missed it, but the Mencken Society has a slew of rousing events scheduled this weekend celebrating the great freethinking writer and editor. You’ve got to love a crank so cranky he published a book dedicated to criticizing himself; it was called Menckeneanea: A Schimpflexikon. (Schimpflexikon is German and means something like “dictionary of disgrace.”)
There’s a lecture on Mencken and George Jean Nathan, there’s a preview of the George H. Thompson Mencken Collection, and former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis will be speaking.
Most of the events seem to be on Saturday, September 15. You can contact the society’s president, Edward A. Martin, for more info. —Martin Schneider
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Reviews: theater writing (for Time Out Chicago)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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Comments
My little brother Henry was named after H.L. Mencken when Wolfgang Amadeus was vetoed by my mother! We always assumed H.L. must have been an awful man, since our dad loved him so much. (Dad loves nothing but Beethoven, Mozart, Nixon, Reagan, Fox 5 News, his own “hard earned” money, William F. Buckley, and the Marine Band). But knowing he’s done his own “dictionary of disgrace” makes us feel a little better about him. :)