Opening EVE'S DIARY

In 1905, Mark Twain published something surprising.  His work in his later years tended more toward the critical and the vitriolic.  This piece was tender, heartfelt, innocent and emotional.  Having suffered the loss of his beloved wife Livy in 1904, Samuel Clemens reflected on his Edenic married existence in Eve’s Diary.

First found in the Christmas issue of Harper’s Magazine, Eve’s Diary was a short companion piece to his earlier comic story Extracts from Adam’s Diary.  A light comic burlesque on the Book of Genesis, Adam’s Diary focused on the grouchy chiselings of the first man vis-à-vis the troublemaker who sprung from his rib.  Eve’s Diary shows the first woman to be more open, honest and, frankly, smarter than her companion, and his life is all the better for her being there.   

It is fitting, then, that The Mark Twain House & Museum in collaboration with the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center and the World Affairs Council of Connecticut, welcome another open, honest and smart Eve to our little corner of the globe on May 6^th at Manchester’s Cheney Hall.  EVE ENSLER is, in many ways, the Darwinian evolution of the Bible (and Twain’s) Eve. 

Where Twain’s Eve is willing to endure much abuse out of love for her husband, Ensler has become an outstanding advocate for the world to end abuse against women.  Where Twain’s Eve will often sublimate her intelligence to make her male counterpart seem brighter, Ensler fights for women to own their intelligence and rebel against social and political patriarchies.  Where Twain’s Eve relentlessly pursues Adam, one cannot help but feel Ensler would say, “Enough of this!” and move to her own corner of Eden.

There are, however, indicators that Ensler and Twain’s Eve are still soul-sisters.  They both share an inordinate amount of compassion for other living beings.  They both love openly and unashamedly.  Both Eves are incredibly inquisitive and are not afraid to talk about their feelings.  And, they both write.

Maybe the biggest area of evolution comes with the concept of original sin.  Twain, perhaps in deference to his sainted wife, avoids mention of “the fall” in Eve’s Diary. Eve’s consumption of the apple and the subsequent banishment from Eden are skipped over in her diary.  Maybe he is assuming that this topic was adequately covered in Adam’s Diary:

“She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of that tree, and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education.  I told her there would be another result, too – it would introduce death into the world…I advised her to keep away from the tree.  She said she wouldn’t.  I foresee trouble.”

Of course, Eve eats and then tempts Adam, subsequently blaming him for their downfall.  And, of course, they cover up their genitalia with fig leaves out of a nascent sense of shame, something heretofore unknown in the Garden of Eden, a paradise from which they are about to be expelled. 

Ensler has, famously, ripped off the fig leaf covering women’s vaginas with her (in)famous Vagina Monologues.  She cries out against the mutilation of women’s genitalia and forced rape.  She has refuted that eating from the Tree of Knowledge is a bad thing.  She repudiates Adam’s curmudgeonly responses to Eve’s feelings with I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World.  She has sought to eliminate women’s sense of shame regarding their sexuality, their bodies, and, most importantly, their minds.  She has fought to create a better sense of parity between the genders. 

One gets the sense that maybe this Eve wouldn’t have lasted too long in Eden.  Rather than resting on her laurels as an artist, Ensler has become a world-renowned activist, advocate and agitator.   From Adam’s Diary: 

“About an hour after sunup, as I was riding through a flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or playing with each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they broke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was in a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor.  I knew what it meant – Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world.”

Ensler’s efforts to halt violence against women and to celebrate the female body and spirit have taken her to some of the most war-torn parts of the globe:  Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to name a few.  In effect, Ensler chooses to live in the world and change it rather than retreat to a Club Med-style Eden.  Instead of bringing death into those worlds, this Eve seeks to promote peace, life, love and education.  These are goals that, in the end, are shared with Twain’s take on the biblical Eve. 

We welcome both Eves back to the Garden with the quote Twain uses to end Eve’s Diary, tellingly written in the hand of Adam:

“Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.”

An Evening with Eve Ensler at Cheney Hall, sponsored by The Mark Twain House & Museum, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center and the World Affairs Council of Connecticut is Sunday, May 6^th at 7:30 p.m.  Tickets are $45.  A special ticket with VIP seating and a pre-lecture reception with Eve Ensler is $75.  Tickets can be ordered by calling (860) 647-9824.  There will be a book signing following the lecture.

"I Am an Emotional Creature" is Hartford Public Library's One Book - One Hartford selection for 2012.

Questions for Judy!

As you may or may not be aware, The Mark Twain House & Museum is presenting Judy Blume at the University of Hartford on the evening of June 21st. We're very excited to have her here-- we'll be interviewing her live onstage.

We'd love to include some of your questions (and, of course, your favorite Judy Blume memories), so please tell us-- if you could ask Judy one question, what would it be?

And which of her books do you love the most?

And do you remember where and when you read them?

Leave your memories and questions in the comments, and we'll refer to them as we prepare. Who knows; maybe we'll ask Judy YOUR question.

Tickets available here.

-- The Mark Twain House & Museum

Writing Weekend at the Twain House!

Our Writers' Weekend

APRIL 20-21: A Writers' Weekend at the Mark Twain House will offer talks, workshops and other events devoted to the craft of writing and its practitioners.

Novelists, authors of non-fiction, poets, memoirists and playwrights will be supplying a rich array of events. Participants include Lewis Lapham, Jon Clinch, Alfred Uhry, Bessy Reyna, Lary Bloom and A.R. Gurney.

The Friday-Saturday event begins with an April 20 early-evening reception followed by a keynote speech by legendary editor Lewis Lapham of Harper's and Lapham's Quarterly.

On Saturday, there's a kickoff talk by novelist Jon Clinch (Finn, Kings of the Earth), a panel including playwrights Gurney (The Dining Room) and Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy), and nearly a score of workshops, talks and other sessions.

The event will run from 8:00 am to about 6:00 p.m.on Saturday. A box lunch will be provided, and the event winds up Saturday evening with a closing reception.

The cost of the Writers' Weekend for participants is $100. This includes the Friday night reception and lecture, all Saturday sessions, a box lunch and the Saturday night closing reception. Participants will also receive a voucher good for a tour of the Mark Twain House at any time. Space is limited, and advance registration and payment is a must: Call 860-280-3130 to register.

Eighteen panels, talks and workshop sessions will take place Saturday. No fewer than two winners of the Connecticut Book Award Lifetime Achievement Award holders will be participating in sessions at the Weekend: Lary Bloom, longtime editor of Northeastmagazine, columnist, author of many books, and sage teacher of writing at the Mark Twain House and many other places; and Bessy Reyna (Memoirs of the Unfaithful Lover), the beloved Cuban-born poet who has been called "a clear-eyed guide to the world we see but don’t see" by Martin Espada.

Among the authors slated to lead 50-minute sessions on Saturday are Susan Campbell(Dating Jesus), Susan Schoenberger (A Watershed Year) Suzanne Levine (The Haberdasher's Daughter), Denis Horgan (Ninety-Eight Point Six) Cindy Brown Austin (By the Waters of Babylon) and Wendy Clinch (The Ski Diva).

There will be sessions on blogging, the business of getting published, and new forms of storytelling unleashed by the existence of the Internet.

The Writers’ Weekend builds on the success of Writing at the Mark Twain House, the writing program that bears out The Mark Twain House & Museum's explicitly stated mission, promulgated in 1955, to develop a literary center. The program has offered fall and spring evening courses in memoir, non-fiction, and fiction over the past few years.

During the Writers' Weekend, a panel of faculty and students in the Writing at the Mark Twain House program will be discussing the ins and outs of teaching and learning writing.

Birth of a Nation Screening

Race, Rage & Redemption Film Series kicked off with The Birth of a Nation.

With the announcement of The Mark Twain House & Museum’s Race, Rage & Redemption film series, the selection that has drawn the most shock and concern is, surprisingly, almost 100 years old.  One could not rightly say that D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (screened on April 4th) is polarizing in the way that Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, a film we will be screening on June 13th, divides audiences.   There is no doubt that Griffith’s three hour silent film is an epic piece of moviemaking.  The Birth of a Nation has been inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry.  The American Film Institute declared it one of the top 100 films of all time.  Until the release of Gone with the Wind, it was the highest grossing film ever making $10 million and by 1950, it had earned $50 million total.  It was the first film in American History to be screened in the White House, for President Woodrow Wilson.

Much like Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Birth of a Nation was hugely popular and provoked controversy upon release.  While Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin supported the abolitionist cause and Twain’s Huckleberry Finn decried the backwards Jim Crow Era, the controversy surrounding this movie is the naked racism on display.  Blackface, examples of blacks as drunken and sexually aggressive brutes, and the glorification of the Ku Klux Klan make this landmark film a rarity today.  Of course, the fact that the movie is silent and runs slightly over three hours does not help.  

Founded in 1909, the NAACP protested the film’s release in 1915 with pickets and boycotts.  The movie was banned in some cities and incited riots in others.  It emboldened gangs of white men to attack blacks and is believed to have been the cause of a murder of a black teenager in Indiana.  The most damaging result of the film was likely the use of the movie as a recruitment tool for the KKK.  Some believe it inspired the group to reorganize in the 1920s after a post-Reconstruction lull.  He adapted the film from the 1905 novel and play, “The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan” written by Thomas Dixon, Jr., a Baptist Minister, playwright and state legislator.  The book, and its subsequent play,were written as a warning to Northerners against desegregation, portraying blacks as brutes and the KKK as necessary for law and order. 

D.W. Griffith’s father was a colonel was in the Confederate Army.  In a newsreel, when asked, “When you made The Birth of a Nation, did you feel as though it was true?”  Griffith responded, “The Klan at that time was needed.  It served a purpose.  Yes, I think it’s true.”  One year later, chastened by the protests and backlash, Griffith released the anti-prejudice film, Intolerance.  Of his masterwork, The Birth of a Nation, film critic and Mark Twain fan Roger Ebert says the following:

“"The Birth of a Nation is not a bad film because it argues for evil. Like Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil."

Two other interesting facts:  a sequel was released in 1916, directed by the Klansman novelist Thomas Dixon, entitled, The Fall of a Nation.  No prints are known to exist.  On May 17^th at 7:30 p.m., The Mark Twain House & Museum and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center will present “Rebirth of a Nation,” a remixed look at D.W. Griffith’s racist film.  With a hip-hop and electronic score by artist DJ Spooky, the film is 100 minutes long and will be preceded by a lecture with DJ Spooky himself and a Q&A.  We hope you will join us on May 17^th.  Tickets for the DJ Spooky lecture and screening of Rebirth of a Nation are on sale now at (860) 280-3130.

Clue: A Rip-Roaring Success

As you all know, we sometimes come up with nutty events here. While we work hard to present many exhibits and excellent educational programs, sometimes we want to just let our hair down and use our resources in a fun way that will draw new visitors to the house. Or, of course, pull back our members and repeat visitors to enjoy the house in a new way. That's why we initially started up our Graveyard Shift Tours (spooky nighttime tour with information on Victorian seances, and mysterious happenings in the house), and that's also why we decided to do "Get a Clue" tours, which are based on the wonderful board game Clue.

The tours launched this past weekend, and were such a success that we think we'll do them again over the summer. Let's give you a tour of some of the suspects... (pictures by Summar Elguindy of Sea Tea Improv!)

Was it the Connecticut Yankee in the Drawing Room with the baseball bat?

... or maybe that CT Yankee was acting suspiciously in the conservatory?

Huck Finn in the Hall? His only weapon here seems to be an indomitable spirit.

The Duke in the Billiards Room with the Rope. He seems to be taking it oh-so-seriously.

Becky Thatcher in the Library with the Lead Pipe is the scariest Becky ever.

Katy Leary, the Clemens maid, is not really a suspect-- but she's inviting you into this house of mayhem.

Aunt Polly & The Prince/Pauper seem to have formed a cross-book friendship in the Bedroom, but what you can't see is that she's got a Revolver in her apron, and he's got a Knife under that crown.

Queen Morgan Le Fay: The Wench with the Wrench takes a second to check herself out in mirror by the Schoolroom .

Murders all over the place!

... but what would it all be without Muff Potter, normally hanging around the Kitchen looking for booze? We know from Tom Sawyer that he's harmless, but... everyone's a suspect.

Keep an eye out for our next installment in July! (Exact dates TBD.)

Wedding Expo at the Twain House

One of the loveliest perks of being a popular and beautiful historic site is the adoration of the public. For years, we've had our guests and local residents beg to hold small weddings here. However, our staff was too small and the schedule too inflexible to take on any weddings. 

But hark-- that day is over! We are now taking requests for weddings at The Mark Twain House. To kick off this new era of romance, we're partnering with estOccasions to bring a full-scale bridal event to the museum center. They'll be bringing in vendors of all kinds-- florists, caterers, photographers, the whole shebang. If you get your ticket online, it's free, otherwise it's a $5 donation at the door (which goes straight to the Twain House, so it works out great either way). 

Come by and see if you love the Twain House enough to marry it. Whoops, we mean marry at it. Freudian slip there. We love you, Sam Clemens!

-- The Mark Twain House & Museum

The LA Comedy Shorts Film Fest

Did you know that two of the staff members of the Mark Twain House & Museum are firmly ensconced in the comedy world?

Jacques Lamarre, the Director of Communication and Special Projects, is not only a playwright, but co-writes sketches, plays, and movies with the hilarious Varla Jean Merman. Here's a sample of one of his co-creations.

Not only that, but Communications Associate Julia Pistell is a founding member of Sea Tea Improv, a professional theatrical company that focuses mainly on improv comedy. With other members of Sea Tea, Julia was featured in a Funny or Die video (written by Sea Tea Improv member Kate Sidley).

You'll have a chance to see more from Jacques, Julia, and many others this upcoming weekend. From Friday, February 24th through Sunday, February 26th,The Connecticut Film Festival presents three days of short, funny films, workshops, and parties.

When the festival was looking for a place to screen the best comic short films, the home of America's favorite humorist seemed like an ideal choice!

Join us Feb 24 through 26 for the funniest, naughtiest and downright crazy short comedies.

Tickets for this East Coast Encore of the LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival, supported in part by FunnyOrDie.com, are on sale now.

Purchase an all-access festival pass, day passes or individual screenings or workshops. Rub elbows at our industry mixer or be there when we honor Mike Reiss, the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning writer for The Simpsons. Friday night will also feature local filmmakers, including Hartford's newest sketch-writing team, Asylum Attic. They've cooked up a new movie: come by on Friday at 8:30 to see what they've come up with. Here's one of their oldies:

Visit ctfilmfest.com for the complete schedule, tickets and info. See you this weekend!

-- The Mark Twain House & Museum

Memoir Time!

So, you want to be a writer. In fact, you're "supposed" to be writing right now, but you're trolling the internet for your favorite literary sites (physical and virtual). Let us help you get back on the writing wagon by reminding you that the registration deadline for our memoir class with Lary Bloom and Suzanne Levine is coming up.

Call Steve Courtney's desk at (860) 247-0998 extension 243. He'll tell you all about the eight-week course, which runs on Wednesdays, March 7-April 25, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The class is held in the Mark Twain Museum Center, 351 Farmington Avenue, Hartford. One session will be held in Mark Twain's library in the historic house. (Feel the literary vibrations!)

Watching Lary Bloom and Suzanne Levine teach their extraordinary joint class in memoir writing is a study in complementary creativity -- each teacher's style is so different, yet each builds on the other's work with grace and precision.

First there's Bloom -- eloquent, reminiscent, funny, surprising, with a real skill at drawing out the stories that the members of the class have often kept within themselves. Then there's Levine, who will gently rein in her co-teacher and partner with a quiet reminder that puts the class back on track. She, it's clear, revels in his ebullience; he revels in her skill at keeping to the rails.

And both teachers apply themselves with diligence and generosity to the work of their students, whether novices or Connecticut Book Award winners. Participants make real progress. "My first drafts usually seemed to please people, so I didn't need to go any further," said one student after taking the class. "Now I have your voices in my head and they won't go away."

Bloom and Levine will offer their famed eight-week Class in Memoir once again this spring at The Mark Twain House & Museum, the third time around for this much-waited-for event.

In 2010 the memoir class started the museum toward the fulfillment of its long-held goal of being a center for writing. This effort -- Writing at the Mark Twain House -- has blossomed since, with classes in fiction and non-fiction, individual talks and workshops by a range of writers, and a Writers' Weekend planned for April 20-21 this year.

A Class in Memoir offers writing instruction and workshops at the home of one of the American masters of the craft. The class will include intensive, hands-on work on the craft, with the goal of producing a short work by the end of the session to be published on the Writing at the Mark Twain House Blog. It will explore such aspects of the memoir craft as scene-setting, dialogue, character development and narrative.

It's a particularly appropriate genre for the home of Mark Twain, whose Autobiography, released recently after a century under wraps, became a surprise bestseller.

Will we see you there?

-- The Mark Twain House & Museum

New Season, New Table Setting, New Exhibit

Our intrepid curator, Patti Phillipon, has changed the setting in the dining room table. We change the table settings often to reflect the season, or some historical element that we would like to highlight on our tours. This change is no exception. We thought you, dear readers, might like some inside knowledge on how and why we curate certain aspects of the house. Ready to put your history-caps on? (Then take them off-- you're going into a party with ladies, for heaven's sakes.)

The dining-room, where the party took place

The new table setup is based on a letter written by Margaret (Daisy) Warner to her father, dated Hartford, March 20th, 1887.

 “Susy Clemens was fifteen years old yesterday [March 19, 1887] and she had a lovely party.  The two Twichell girls, Mary and Hattie Foote, Cousin Lilly, Ward Foote, Hattie Whitmore, and Fannie Freese, and Lucy Drake, and I were all there to supper.  Mrs. Clemens had her beautiful big, round dinner table, and at each place was a lovely bunch of beautiful roses.  Three or four at each place, and we all put them on.  And also, at each place was a lovely little glass dish of candy, tied around with pretty ribbons and a little Japanese card with our names on it, on the top of the dish.  In the middle of the table, was a kind of pyramid of nasturtiums and then there were other vases, of roses.  And those tall silver candles were on the table, too and the whole thing was so lovely… We then had soup, then turkey, and with it some little potato-cakes and jelly – Then salad, and then straw-berries and ice cream, and cakes (lady-fingers etc.) and then the big birthday-cake was brought on, with fifteen lighted candles.  It was very pretty.  Of course we had some of it; and then we had fruit and candy.  After supper we danced and had charades.  Mr. Clemens read some “Uncle Remus” to us and Mama and Frank, and Aunt Lottie, came in after supper.  And altogether we had a DELIGHTFUL time."

The table is set for eight guests a la Russe.  This means that there would be no food on the table when the dinner guests arrived.  Food would be served either from the sideboard or brought out from the kitchen, and be presented to the diners.  In our setup, the turkey stands on a side table waiting to be carved and served.  The “little Japanese cards” on the table have the names of 8 of the children who attended the party – Susy, Daisy, Susan Twichell, Julia Twichell, Mary, Hattie, and Ward Foote, and Fannie Freese. We don't have quite enough room to fit all eleven mentioned place settings in-- if we did, there'd be no room for tours to go through. So if you're coming through this season you can simply imagine yourself as guest number nine. Don't touch the collection objects, though!

The dinner plates are Wedgwood bone china, dated approximately 1895.  The glasses are Bohemian cut crystal with etched poppy designs on the body, foot and rim.  They were purchased in Europe – not by the Clemens family -- during the 1880s or 1890s.  We are showing the water glasses on the table. 

The majority of the silverware is the Gorham “Rosette” pattern introduced circa 1867 and sold by Tiffany & Company.  They are engraved “Olivia L. Langdon” on the handles.  The knives, which are of a different pattern, have mother-of-pearl handles.   According to one source, “…knives were not always considered part of a flatware service before the 1890s…Knives, with mother-of-pearl, silver, ivory, or plastic handles, were often sold separately, although they could be obtained with a set.”  

A large cake for the dessert course is shown on the sideboard, which would have been typical for the time Cake and sweets were popular and often served at children’s birthday parties, as shown in both Daisy Warner’s letter and the attached photo of a Victorian children’s party.  Other parts of the dessert (strawberries and candy) are in the Butler’s Pantry waiting to be brought out.

In the library, on the small table to the left of the fireplace, is a copy of Uncle Remus.  Sam read excerpts from this book to the children following the dinner party. The reason we're putting up this table setting, and its accompanying details, a couple of months early is that we're talking about Uncle Remus in our upcoming exhibit, A Sound Heart and a Deformed Conscience. 

On the center table of the main room are all sorts of tools used to bake Susy’s birthday cake (mixing bowls, wooden spoons, eggs, egg whisk, and more).  On the small table under the windows is a basket of nasturtiums and roses that are also seen on the table.  There is an additional corsage of roses being put together.  On the stove, potatoes are boiling in a pot for the potato cakes. In the Scullery, there is a colander with lettuce and tomatoes draining to be used for the salad course. In the Butler’s Pantry, George is plating strawberries and candy for the dessert course.  The dessert plates are also waiting to be brought out.  They are polychromed, painted porcelain. 

As you can see, when we work on the interior details of the house, we try to make sure we do a complete job. This one little letter from a girl named Daisy allows us to accurately fill in details of nearly every room on the first floor of the house, and informs our exhibition programming. We're happy to share all of these historical tidbits with you today-- all because one little girl took the time to hand-write a letter to her dad.

-- Patti Phillipon, Chief Curator, and Julia Pistell, Communications Associate

Christmas Punch

Sometimes Christmas cheer can be a little grating, we admit. So we've cooked up a batch of Christmas punch for you this year:

CHRISTMAS PUNCH

An Evening of David Sedaris’ Holidays on Ice

featuring actress Debi Freund, 

actress Angie Joachim, 

The Hartford Courant's Frank Rizzo, 

WNPR's Chion Wolf 

and special guest TheCutMag.com's Tracy Wu Fastenberg

Directed by Jacques Lamarre

Tickets - $15 / $10 MTH&M Members & Let’s Go

(860) 280-3130 for tickets

The Mark Twain House & Museum spikes your Christmas punch with four tawdry tales from the semi-twisted mind of humorist David Sedaris. Drawn from Sedaris’ collection "Holidays on Ice," this one-night-only event will feature the Hartford Courant’s Frank Rizzo reading “Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol,” a vicious theatre critic’s reviews of children’s Christmas pageants. WNPR’s Chion Wolf will play a highly competitive gift giver who gives a whole lot more than he bargained for in "Christmas Means Giving." Debi Freund read's the story of a slick Hollywood mover and shaker shaking down a church full of country bumpkins called “Based on a True Story” rounds out the quartet. New Orleanian actor Angie Joachim tells the tale of a holiday homemaker turned into a homicidal hausfrau with an assist from Tracy Wu Fastenberg, a.k.a. "Asian Persuasion."

Chion Wolf is a voice actress, producer, photographer, songwriter, and is best known for her hijinks on Connecticut Public Radio’s “The Colin McEnroe Show.”

Debi Freund is a local actor and director, most known for her long-standing association with the Little Theater of Manchester. She appeared as the lead in Jacques Lamarre’s play "Gray Matters" and in 2009 was named to Manchester, CT’s Arts Hall of Fame for her dramatic work.

Angie Joachim is an actor recently transplanted from New Orleans to Connecticut. She has appeared in Market Street Theater's "The Clean House" and Hole in the Wall's recent "Jacques Lamarre Has Gone Too Far."

Frank Rizzo is the principal theatre reporter and critic for The Hartford Courant, where he has written on various arts beats for almost 3 decades. He is also the New England theatre critic for Variety and has contributed to American Theatre Magazine.

Tracy Wu Fastenberg is a contributor to the online journal of all things wack about Connecticut, thecutmag.com, as well as an occasional guest on The Colin McEnroe Show on WNPR.

Sherlock Holmes

Of all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's mysteries, we love this one best: how did the brilliant actor William Gillette have such an incredible impact on our 21st century idea of Sherlock Holmes?

This week at the Twain House we explore that question. The East Haddam Stage Company will perform a "Sherlock Holmes: From Page to Stage" directed by Kandie Carle. It will be performed here at our place, and is presented by The Mark Twain House & Museum and The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center.

We will find out: how did Hartford’s own William Gillette go from the well-heeled Nook Farm neighborhood of movers and shakers to the New York stage and beyond? How and why did this fine Victorian actor go from farce to historical drama to the defining role of Sherlock Holmes? Follow William Gillette from Hartford to San Francisco to New York and London as he played in and wrote quintessential Victorian comedies. Then hear how the stars aligned for the fateful meeting with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and how Gillette brought to life the super sleuth Sherlock Holmes.

The East Haddam Stage Company is known for producing original works and their motto of Minimal Set, Maximum Connection, is perfect for the intimate auditorium at the Mark Twain Museum. 4 actors portray 10 characters in the life of William Gillette, from boyhood to the opening of the play that would change his life forever!

Tickets - $20; Call (860) 280-3130

Holiday House Tours!

The Friends of  The Mark Twain House & Museum Annual Holiday House Tour

Sunday, December 4, 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

One of the lovely homes decorated in 2009

Now that you're full up on your Thanksgiving feast, why not get into the holiday spirit with one of our favorite events of the year? Visit the Twain House in its holiday best, and get a unique chance to tour private homes decked out for the season as well.

The Mark Twain House is decorated with garlands and gifts, and area homes are open to your visit in a rare opportunity to savor architecture and décor usually kept behind closed doors. Visit some of the grand houses built by prominent local architects in the late 1800s, when Twain lived here, and the early 1900s; and wonder at a house filled entirely with trees. With music and festivity to go along with it, this event has been a Hartford holiday tradition for more than thirty holiday seasons. Organized to a T by our active Friends of The Mark Twain House & Museum group!

Gorgeous floral arrangements

Advance tickets are $30 each and can be purchased at The Mark Twain House and from several local businesses. Tickets will be $35 each on the day of the tour and can be purchased at the homes. For more information or to purchase tickets, call 860-280-3130 or visit www.marktwainhouse.org. Proceeds from the tour will benefit the continued restoration, preservation, and education programs of The Mark Twain House, which is a National Historic Landmark.

See you there! (Or here!)

The most wonderful time of the year!

We've got puppets!

We've been loving our Steampunk Bizzare: The Unknown exhibit, but our latest exhibit just adds to the thrills of visiting our museum center. We recently installed throughout our beautiful marble building a number of puppets from the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry. Guess which Twain work they refer to?

That's right-- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. In 1996, the Connecticut Repertory Theatre mounted a large-scale puppet production of this Twain classic. We're lucky enough to host these fellows in our museum all the way until March 5th, 2012. The puppets range from royals to ordinary folks, like pig boy and his pigs.

If you haven't read Connecticut Yankee (and don't feel bad, lots of people haven't-- put it on your bucket list), you might not know that it's rife with familiar characters from King Arthur's Court. Grinning knights and sassy Morgana; and once in a while, Merlin pops up. 

Last Saturday was our "Free Hartford Day," and so we invited the fine folks from Ballard to come and give a live presentation of how the puppets work. They also spoke a bit about the design.

Thank you so much to the fine folks of the Ballard institute paying us a visit. Now we hope you will-- there are way too many amazing puppets to describe here! For more information on the exhibit and the museum, please visit our website.

-- The Mark Twain House

MICHAEL MOORE: ASKING FOR TROUBLE

By Jacques Lamarre

Shortly after my arrival at The Mark Twain House & Museum, I started brainstorming ideas for exciting speakers to have come to Hartford. As the Director of Communications and Special Projects, it is my responsibility to program two lecture series: The Clemens Lecture and A Pen Warmed Up in Hell Lecture. The Clemens Lecture series has brought distinguished leaders in the fields of the arts, journalism and letters including Hal Holbrook, Bob Schieffer, Morley Safer, David Baldacci, and, most recently, the legendary newsman Ted Koppel. A Pen Warmed Up in Hell is the bratty cousin of The Clemens Lecture. This series spotlights authors, artists and journalists who use their work and humor to address social issues in a provocative manner.

The title of the series comes from Twain himself. It appears in a letter written shortly after he completed his masterpiece A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court:

"Well, my book is written--let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library--and a pen warmed up in hell."

In time, Twain would abandon such restraint and use his pen warmed up in hell to attack war, politics, hypocrisy, religion, and more. The Pen Warmed Up in Hell Lecture series provides audiences with the opportunity to meet modern day provocateurs who work in this same manner. Past guests include Spike Lee, Henry Rollins, Kinky Friedman, Charles P. Pierce, Andy Borowitz, and Rolling Stone’s national correspondent Matt Taibbi.

To my mind, there was one man I could ask who pretty much defines the spirit of this lecture series: Michael Moore. Has any contemporary filmmaker had a larger, ongoing impact on political discourse in this country? Five of his films - Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine, Sicko, Capitalism: A Love Story, and Roger & Me – appear in the list of the top 25 highest-grossing documentaries of all time.

When Moore released his first film in 1989, it was greeted with the following review from Vincent Canby in The New York Times:

“A Twainlike Twist for Flint, Mich.” by VINCENT CANBY
America has an irrepressible new humorist in the tradition of Mark Twain and Artemus Ward. He is Michael Moore, the writer, producer and director of the rude and rollicking new documentary feature ''Roger and Me.'' Much in the manner of those 19th-century forebears, Mr. Moore celebrates the oddities of the American frontier, once defined by the historian F. J. Turner as 'the meeting place of savagery and civilization, where democracy is strengthened.'

I started working on getting Moore to Hartford two years ago. We had a close call when he said “yes” at the time he was gearing up for the release of Capitalism: A Love Story. His promotional schedule ramped up and life got hectic for Mike, so he had to postpone. Subsequent attempts to schedule an appearance did not pan out, until recently. Mike emailed me out of the blue; he was book touring to support his new memoir Here Comes Trouble. Little did I know, the title of his memoir would be so apropos.

We knew that many of our valued sponsors would be leery about having Mike come here. We contacted them in advance and felt them out on the opportunity ahead of us. Without exception, they viewed the opportunity to present Michael Moore as a coup for the museum. Of course, we couldn’t expect them to sponsor his appearance, but they wouldn’t withhold their usual support for house preservation and restoration, our educational and other programmatic efforts. For their vision and generosity, we are most appreciative.

Not everyone at the museum is a Michael Moore fan. Some are quite the opposite. Same with our board. Again, without exception, they felt it was important to present him to the public.

When the announcement of Mike’s upcoming appearance hit the Hartford Courant, we received angry calls, letters, emails and comments on the Courant article. When we posted the event on our Facebook page, one MTH&M fan called him a “horrible man.” Many of the comments on the Courant page called him “un-American” and that the MTH&M was making a horrible mistake in bring Michael Moore to Connecticut. An email from a conservative fellow halfway across the United States, made sure that we were aware that he brought our betrayal to the attention of Rush Limbaugh. Many of the derisive comments surrounded Moore's looks, which is petty in the extreme and makes one wonder if the authors find the political views of supermodels more palatable. By far, we have taken more heat for this lecture than any that we have previously hosted (including Kurt Vonnegut, who let loose with his thoughts on the Iraq War only days after it began).

Have we made the wrong move in inviting someone who is so polarizing? Quite simply, Michael Moore is the epitome of our Pen Warmed Up In Hell series. You may not agree with his politics. Or you may believe he is a genius. You may think he is a hypocritical propagandist. Or you may find discomfort in his pointing out things we do not like to discuss. You may think he is a traitor who hates America. Or you may believe that he is a patriot exercising his free speech. But, ultimately, you could say many of the same things about Twain. Like Moore, Twain was no stranger to controversy.  One only need read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  Moore's new memoir Here Comes Trouble even mirrors the non-linear approach Twain adopted for his own autobiography.  And both men use humor to set their scorching bonfires. Sure, bonfires produce smoke and make our eyes sting, but they also provide light and much-needed heat. The perfect environment for warming up one’s own pen in hell.

We welcome Michael Moore to the University of Connecticut’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, November 18th at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $25-$45 and can be ordered by visiting jorgensen.uconn.edu or calling (860) 486-4226.  The lecture will be followed by a book signing.

Meet Mallory Howard

Name. Mallory Howard

Where are you from? New Britain, CT

What school did you go to? Central Connecticut State University

What is your job at The Mark Twain House & Museum? Museum Assistant

Were you initially drawn to the Mark Twain house because of an interest in Twain as a writer? I’ve always been a huge fan of Twain’s work and had visited the house many times over the years. I actually came to the Twain house initially trying to volunteer and perhaps get an internship since I was a history major in school. I ended up falling in love with the place and never left!

How long have you been working at the Mark Twain House? It will be 4 years in January!

What is your favorite part about working at the Mark Twain House? That’s a really tough question to answer. There are so many marvelous things about working at this place since there are always fascinating people to meet, stimulating educational programs or lecture to attend, and amazing events to enjoy. However, my favorite thing about working here are the truly incredible people I get to work with. Some of us are history geeks; some are talented writers, comedians, and playwrights. No matter what our individual strong points are we all respect each other for what we bring to the table. Everyone works together to make this museum a success and I’ve never met such wonderful hard working people.

Do you like Mark Twain more having worked here? I have always been a Twainiac and a fan of the amazing pieces of literature he has produced, but my love for him has drastically increased since working here. I know him more now as Sam. I love his family, his heart, and even his temper. I feel sadness and sympathy for him during tragedy and hard times. I am elated during his triumphs. I get defensive when he is attacked and proud when he is admired. He has become a huge part of my life and I’m lucky to have him.

Do you find yourself talking to friends and family about Mark Twain? I talk about Mark Twain constantly to my friends and family. I’m sure I drive most of them absolutely nuts! I find myself running into friends and the first thing they say is. “How are you? How’s Mark Twain?” He has suddenly become an additional best friend, parent, brother that everyone asks about. I never hesitate to fill them in on the latest and greatest in the Twain world. One of the best things that happened is my Dad’s deeper interest in Twain, his literature, and American history in general. I’ve turned him into a little history geek and that makes me proud!

What is your favorite room in the house? My favorite room in the house is the library. It is absolutely beautiful and there’s something so sweet, innocent and sentimental about it. I love to imagine the family sitting together listening to Twain tell a story, or enjoying a book while looking over the Park river, maybe even watching their butler George have a jungle adventure in the conservatory with the Clemens’ girls.

If you could make one improvement to the house or museum what would it be? I would love to have the mahogany room and 3rd floor guest room restored. Though I love our beloved museum center, I wish we had more noise control!

Based on your knowledge of his personality, do you think you and Mr. Twain would be friends? I truly believe that Mark Twain and I would be the very best of friends. I adore his wit, humor, little eccentricities, brilliant mind, and sarcasm. What else could you ask for in a friend? I often wish I could have one night to hang out with him. The drinks we would have, the conversations, the stories, I would beg him to tell me! I can’t think of anyone better!

What is the museum’s biggest challenge? I think the museum’s biggest challenge is trying to get people to come explore our site during an economic recession. I also think, though we’ve done an excellent job so far, we will have to constantly come up with new and exciting programs to bring in a different audience and to keep those who have been before always coming back.

What would you think Mark Twain’s comments would be on the management of his home and the museum? I would like to think that Mark Twain would be proud of us. Everyone here works extremely hard to make sure we are keeping his legacy alive in the most inventive, educational, and often humorous ways. He would appreciate our passion, dedication, and drive to making this museum a success.

What is your favorite Mark Twain piece? My favorite Mark Twain piece is tricky. I would have to say his personal book collection. We have over 200 books owned by the Clemens family in our archives, several of which have marginalia. Twain would often times scrawl opinions, thoughts, and even grammatical changes on the pages of the books he was reading. This gives us an insightful and personal look into his mind.

Statement from The Mark Twain House & Museum

STATEMENT FROM GREGORY BOYKO, PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE MARK TWAIN HOUSE & MUSEUM

August  5 ,2011

On June 22, 2010, The Mark Twain House & Museum discovered that a long term employee of the institution, the former controller, Ms. Donna Gregor, had been misappropriating funds for a number of years and shielding these misdeeds from detection by the auditors. 

Ms. Gregor was terminated by the MTH&M that same day.  Jeffrey Nichols, our Executive Director, notified me and I, in turn, notified the other Trustees. We immediately contacted law enforcement and notified the press. Following a review of the matter, we implemented additional controls to better safeguard our assets and put in place new financial reporting mechanisms. We contacted many of our donors and other supporters and are deeply thankful for their understanding and continuing support.

We hired a forensic auditing firm and shared its completed review with law enforcement.

We also filed an insurance claim in relation to the losses which resulted in a payment to the MTH&M of $500,000 which we received in October of 2010. This recovery was reported in the MTH&M’s IRS Form 990 and serves to restore all affected funds since 2008.  MTH&M continues to explore other potential claims and sources of recovery for the $580,000 of unrecovered funds from earlier years.  The total amount Ms. Gregor defrauded the MTH&M is approximately $1,080,000.

Concurrently with MTH&M’s efforts, law enforcement has been investigating this matter and we were advised of a guilty plea by Ms. Gregor today August 5^th in the Federal Court in Bridgeport, Connecticut. We understand her plea includes admissions of wire fraud and tax evasion. We also understand her plea agreement includes restitution to MTH&M.

The Trustees and the staff were devastated by this event, particularly in light of its occurrence during a period when hundreds of supporters and other committed people worked so hard and selflessly to bring the Mark Twain House & Museum from a large structural deficit just a few years ago to a current modest operating surplus.

Despite the significant unrecovered losses from 2002 to 2007, we want to assure everyone that our current financial condition is sound and we recently received an unqualified opinion from our auditors.

Because of the heroic efforts of our staff, a record number of visitors, 71,500, came to the House in 2010 vs. 59,000 the year before. And, we hosted more than 50 successful events to make the institution a key tourism destination in Connecticut.

Our mission is to preserve the home where Twain wrote his most important works and, more importantly, to preserve his place as America’s greatest writer. We are more committed than ever to this mission.

The trustees have noted and are deeply appreciative of the fact that throughout this past painful year, Executive Director Jeff Nichols and his entire staff of full and part time employees and volunteers have kept their single focus on what is good for the institution. They succeeded despite enormous distraction and pain.

Also, I must also commend the Trustees who have stepped up and been a resolute and determined force throughout this ordeal. To a person, they all stayed and supported the institution with funds, guidance and support.

On behalf of the entire Mark Twain House & Museum family, we want to thank our supporters and donors for their understanding and support and we pledge to continue to make the institution stronger for many generations to come.

MARK TWAIN: POTTY MOUTH

On Friday, August 5th and Saturday, August 6th at 8 p.m. at the Hole in the Wall Theater in New Britain, Sea Tea Improv will be performing R-RATED TWAIN – an evening of Twain’s naughtiest writings. The texts include speeches, poems and prose that cover such unsavory topics as masturbation, farting, sexual relations, among other unmentionables. We take a moment to consider how “The Lincoln of our Literature” occasionally took the low road…

It should come as no surprise that Samuel Clemens would have in his possession an impressive array of words. As an extremely prolific author with dozens of novels and hundreds of other written works (poems, plays, letters, speeches, articles and short stories), Twain had a prodigious vocabulary. His verbiage could be high-minded and eloquent, endearing him to the cognoscenti and literary elite. His writing also could effectively paint a portrait of the lowest echelons of society. His characters in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Pap and Huck being examples, exhibit his masterly grasp of colloquial terms and rough dialects. So, really, it should shock no one that Mark Twain had one hell of a potty mouth.

Twain stated in his Notebook, “If I can’t swear in heaven, I shall not stay there.” Since he was unsure how his salty tongue would be received in the afterlife, the author seemed bent on peppering his phraseology here on Earth. In his letters to William Dean Howells, Twain did not help his case in making it to Heaven when he wrote:

“Sir to you, I would like to know what kind of goddam government this is that discriminates between two common carriers and makes a goddam railroad charge everybody equal and lets a goddam man charge any goddam price he wants for his goddam opera box.”

Phew! Alfred Bigelow Paine’s biography of Twain quotes the vitriolic master as saying, “In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.” Apparently he was overcome by many desperate circumstances in his home as his daughter Clara quotes him in her book My Father – Mark Twain with the following invective: “By the humping, jumping Jesus!” His lovely wife Livy put his lips on lockdown when it came to swearing, but even she was not able to keep the consummate master of cussing from unleashing his tongue in the house. Paine recounts how Twain, who generally curbed his tongue around his wife, let fly with some scorcher of a curse that occurred within earshot of Livy. She confronted him by repeating his remark to which Twain responded:

“Livy,” he said, “did it sound like that?”

“Of course it did,” she said, “only worse. I wanted you to hear just how it sounded.”

“Livy,” he said, “it would pain me to think that when I swear it sounds like that. You got the words right, Livy, but you don’t know the tune.”

Twain’s potty mouth also translated to a potty pen when he created some filthy fun in some of his private writings. The bawdy burlesque 1601, an imaginary gathering of Tudor England’s elite getting blown away by a fetid odor, was written by Twain for his best buddy Rev. Joseph Hopkins Twichell. A letter to a group of wealthy men who enjoyed fishing turns into a downright naughty tribute to male endowments. A speech written for a Parisian group, The Stomach Club, goes South of the border with a salute to self-gratification.

Considering his rough-and-tumble Tom Sawyer-esque adolescence, his career on riverboat docks and his time out in the Wild West, it should not be a shock that Twain could be so shocking. To be honest, we love this stuff and we are delighted to take a time to salute the type of things Twain wrote and said that you wouldn’t learn in school. We hope you join us for an evening of R-Rated Twain that would make your mama wash your mouth out with soap.

Tickets for R-RATED TWAIN are on sale now and can be ordered by calling (860) 229-3049. Tickets will also be available at the door at the Hole in the Wall Theater, 116 Main Street in downtown New Britain.  The performance includes West Hartford playwright David Ryan Polgar’s short comedy Mark Twain: Ladies Man. Tickets are $15.  Info and directions:  www.hitw.org.

Meet Beth Miller

Name. Beth Miller

What is your job at the Mark Twain House & Museum? Director of Development

How long have you worked at the Mark Twain House & Museum? A year and five months

Where are you from? Rocky Hill, CT

Where did you go to school? Trinity College, BA ’00 & MA’03

Why did you decide to work at the Mark Twain House? I was attracted to the Mark Twain House & Museum for a few reasons. It's an important local and national cultural institution, and the staff is talented. The leadership at the organization has combined frugality with creativity and invested in marketing and events to increase stability and success. The momentum here is palpable and it is a very exciting place to work.

What is your favorite Mark Twain Book? Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but I have lots more to read still.

How did you become interested in Mark Twain? The wit and satire of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn made me very interested in Mark Twain – that he wrote this book, in the way he wrote it, at the time he wrote it. It is stunning and very, very important.

What is the strangest fact you know about Mr. Twain? That his voluminous moustache and that he seldom smiled were to hide his bad teeth (according to his daughter, Clara.)

Hopes for the future of the House. There are many specific projects I would like to see happen with the historic properties – and all of those projects could be realized if we had a more substantial endowment.  What I hope to see in the future is a $20 million endowment so we have the operating expenses to focus on raising funds for projects in the house.

Favorite room in the house. A beautiful little room: the butler’s pantry.

Favorite Tour Story. I love the story of the Scottish fireplace mantel: it was found because a tour-goer heard the tale of the missing mantel and realized his family had it in their barn.

Have you ever received a question you have yet to find the answer to? What did George Griffin look like?

How did you learn everything you know about Mark Twain, his life, and his house? I am reading, asking questions, and listening all the time.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about Mr. Twain? I think because Twain was such a great humorist there is a perception that he had a very jolly and happy life. Parts of it certainly were, but he suffered a stunning amount of tragedy at all stages of his life and from all quarters. For all his fame and notoriety, Twain was very human – he suffered and was as flawed as any of us.

Do you like Mark Twain more having worked here? Yes – getting to know him as a husband, father, and friend has made me admire him even more.

Do you find yourself talking to friends and family about Mark Twain? I think they are all really getting annoyed with all the Twain quotes I lob into any conversation at the slightest provocation.

Based on your knowledge of Twain’s personality, do you think you and Mr. Twain would be friends? Yes, but he might have turned on me at any point.

What do you think Mark Twain’s comments would be on the management of The Mark Twain House & Museum? He would say that we have kept pace with his struggles and success, but he would have said it way funnier than that.