Toasting Amontillado to being grown-up weirdos in broad daylight.
This weekend, podisodd and I attended a fancy costume-encouraged benefit for the impending re-opening of the Poe House museum in Baltimore, held at the former church and burial ground housing the author's grave. The title of the event was "Cask of Amontillado Wine Tasting Among the Bones", and there was both imported Amontillado and a catacomb tour, along with dramatic readings and spooky dancing ladies and live music and wine tastings and a silent auction. The event was lovely and a great deal of fun and just as morbidly decadent as one can possibly get on a sunny Spring day. After a few hours of splitting our time between the performances and catching up with friends over veggie-friendly snacks and as many tiny tastes of dry sherry as we could get our grubby fingers on (and apparently getting our pictures in the Sun paper), we took the very interesting and educational tour then left, skipping out on our own costume prizes over tipsily sugar-crashing for a proper meal and constantly sneezing grave dust. If there's a gothic enough excuse to skip out on such a thing, that was it.
Poe House has suffered a great deal in the past couple of decades, being Poe's own tiny old family house in what devolved into a rather derelict and dangerous part of town that is now, co-incidentally, being revived. In the meantime, it has been shuttered for lack of funds and the dedicated museum curator has been spending his effort elsewhere. The Poe Toaster stopped visiting the grave site years ago, his ritual offering of roses and a half-bottle of Cognac on the author's birthday became enough of a spectacle fueled by last-ditch efforts of local historical society folks to bring attention to the place that after sixty years the mysterious old fellow wandered off. This city may have named its football team after Poe's most famous work, but it has not given much time or effort to the man buried at the corner of Fayette and Greene streets, nor his artifacts or occasional home. But there are a few new young faces around, drumming up support from corners the original curators never quite hooked. As the local freak scene of goths and Renfaire rats ages into respectable adults with some spare change in our pockets, events like this are drawing us out in celebration of being real grown-up weirdos who still care. A local street artist of burgeoning Banksy-like fame has been donating art for auction and bringing in another sort of unlikely patron. If they keep getting the word out and having these sorts of fabulous parties, I think I may be able to scrounge up some hope for our spooky little corner of history after all.
Poe House has suffered a great deal in the past couple of decades, being Poe's own tiny old family house in what devolved into a rather derelict and dangerous part of town that is now, co-incidentally, being revived. In the meantime, it has been shuttered for lack of funds and the dedicated museum curator has been spending his effort elsewhere. The Poe Toaster stopped visiting the grave site years ago, his ritual offering of roses and a half-bottle of Cognac on the author's birthday became enough of a spectacle fueled by last-ditch efforts of local historical society folks to bring attention to the place that after sixty years the mysterious old fellow wandered off. This city may have named its football team after Poe's most famous work, but it has not given much time or effort to the man buried at the corner of Fayette and Greene streets, nor his artifacts or occasional home. But there are a few new young faces around, drumming up support from corners the original curators never quite hooked. As the local freak scene of goths and Renfaire rats ages into respectable adults with some spare change in our pockets, events like this are drawing us out in celebration of being real grown-up weirdos who still care. A local street artist of burgeoning Banksy-like fame has been donating art for auction and bringing in another sort of unlikely patron. If they keep getting the word out and having these sorts of fabulous parties, I think I may be able to scrounge up some hope for our spooky little corner of history after all.