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The Mark Twain House And Museum Newsletter - May 24, 2023
Arts and Entertainment
May 24, 2023
From: The Mark Twain House and MuseumSam's Scribbles (Virtual)
CLEMENS CONVERSATIONS: Mark Twain in the Margins with MTH&M Assistant Curator Mallory Howard (Virtual)
Wednesday, May 24 at 12pm
Mark Twain had a lifelong habit of writing in the margins of the books he read – and it did not always matter whether the book actually belonged to him. He commented acerbically on the authors and their work – “by an ***” was a favorite phrase – and made other, longer comments that tell us about the man and his thoughts. His marginalia are his “conversations” with the books he was reading, and there are many examples of this in the library collection of The Mark Twain House & Museum.
Tickets are $6.50, but free tickets are reserved for museum members.
Dina Martina - Live!
DINA MARTINA: Chariots of Failure (Live & In-Person)
Wednesday, May 24 at 6pm; Performance at 7pm
Absolutely packed with ludicrous songs, horrifying stories and overburdened costumes, Dina Martina’s shows are impossible to adequately describe, other than that they’ve become synonymous with jaw-dropping pathos and mind-blowing comedy. She is hailed as “the most original drag performer working in America today” (Village Voice).
$45.00 includes a seat to the show and 2 drink tickets to sample the Mixologist submissions
$60.00 includes preferred seating to the show, 2 drink tickets, and VIP Meet & Greet following the performance (8:30 PM)
IN-PERSON EVENT!
Score a Hole-in-One for The Mark Twain House & Museum
Birdies for Charity 2023
Contribute today to The Mark Twain House & Museum through the Birdies for Charity program! We receive an additional 15% of each dollar you give, thanks to Webster Bank's support of the Bonus Bucks Pool.
Tee up your donation by CLICKING HERE.
Next Week:
In-Person & Virtual!
Jamie Loftus on RAW DOG: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs with Rebecca Castellani (Live & In-Person)
Wednesday, May 31 at 7pm
Part travelogue, part culinary history, all comedy—Raw Dog reveals what the creation, culture, and class influence of hot dogs says about America now. Join us for a delicious conversation with the author of Raw Dog, comedian Jamie Loftus, and Rebecca Castellani, local journalist and podcaster about the great American hot dog. ADDED BONUS! No Pork on Dis Fork Hot Dogs will be on hand to sell hot dogs before the program!
In-Person Event: $10 non-members, $5 members.
Livestream: $5 non-members, free for members.
Next Week: Virtual
Marcus Collins on FOR THE CULTURE: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be with Dawnie Walton, winner of the 2022 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award
Tuesday, May 30 at 7pm ET
The architect of some of the most famous ad campaigns of the last decade argues that culture is the most powerful vehicle for influencing behavior and shows us how to harness culture to inspire other people to share their vision. In For the Culture, Dr. Marcus Collins uses stories from his own life as a top marketer, from spearheading digital strategy for Beyoncé, to working with iTunes and Nike+ on their collaboration, to the successful launch of the Nets NBA team in Brooklyn, to break down the ways in which culture influences behavior.
Virtual Event! Free for members. Choose your own price for non-members.
Jennifer Neal on NOTES ON HER COLOR: A Novel with Vivian Nabeta
Thursday, June 1 at 7pm ET
One of Goodreads’ “Buzziest Debut Novel of the Year”, this debut novel swirls Florida kitsch with magical realism. Notes on Her Color is a lushly written story about Gabrielle, a young Black and Indigenous woman who learns to change the color of her skin. Having inherited that ability from her mother, she is told by her mother to pass into white. But this vital mother-daughter bond implodes when her mother is hospitalized for a mental health crisis. Separated from her mother for the first time in her life, Gabrielle must learn to control the temperamental shifts in her color on her own. Following her journey to a world beyond her family’s carefully-coded existence, this haunting tale shows how love, in its best sense, can be a liberating force from destructive origins.
Virtual Event! Free for members. Choose your own price for non-members.
Coming Soon
Howard Fishman on TO ANYONE WHO EVER ASKS: THE LIFE, MUSIC, AND MYSTERY OF CONNIE CONVERSE with The New Yorker's Sarah Larson (In-Person)
Tuesday, June 6 at 7pm ET
Connie Converse was a mid-century New York City songwriter, singer, and composer whose haunting music never found broad recognition. Fishman approaches Converse’s story as both a fan and a journalist, and expertly weaves a narrative of her life and music, and of how it has come to speak to him as both an artist and a person. Ultimately, he places her in the canon as a significant outsider artist, a missing link between a now old-fashioned kind of American music and the reflective, complex, arresting music that transformed the sixties and music forever. It’s a story and subject that is by turn hopeful, inspiring, melancholy, and chilling.
In-Person Event: $10 non-members, $5 members.
Just Announced Events!
CLEMENS CONVERSATIONS: "Without Money or Moneyed Friends:" Mark Twain, Charles Ethan Porter, and Art Patronage in the Gilded Age
Wednesday, June 7 at 12 PM (Noon) ET
This program will explore the relationship between Mark Twain and Charles Ethan Porter, a prominent Black painter in Gilded Age Connecticut. New research has enriched what we know about this relationship and its connections to changes in art patronage and philanthropy in the Gilded Age, including the influence of Candace Wheeler, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Karl Gerhardt, and Livy Clemens.
$6.50 per virtual connection, free for museum members; REGISTER HERE.
Nook Farm Neighborhood Block Party
Saturday, June 10 from 11 AM – 3 PM
- Live Music
- Ice Cream
- Family Fun with…
- Lawn Games,
- Arts Activities
- And More…
Cost: Free; No RSVP Required
The Trouble Begins Lecture Series presents Imaging Indian Maidens in Pure Springs: Race and Nation in Nineteenth Century Spa Towns with Will Mackintosh (IP & V)
Wednesday, June 14 at 7pm ET
This lecture traces the origin stories that nineteenth-century Americans told themselves about the mineral springs and spa towns where they took their vacations. Elite Europeans had traveled to mineral and hot springs for pleasure and health since the 17th century. In the late colonial period, elite Americans began to imitate this practice, establishing nascent American spa towns, often named after their British forbears. But after independence, the explicit anglophilia of places like Bath, Virginia became problematic. As a result, Americans began to tell themselves that their mineral springs had Native American origins, rather than British origins, despite the fact that their architecture, medical discourse, and social rituals remained far closer to British examples than to any actual Native American practice. It turned elite leisure into a strategy for cementing the cultural appropriation of Indian lands and Indian social practices.
This is a FREE HYBRID event sponsored by CT Humanities and the Center for Mark Twain Studies in Elmira, New York.
In-Person Event: FREE. REGISTER HERE.
Livestream: FREE. REGISTER HERE.
Upcoming Events
V = Virtual Event; IP = In-Person Event
May 24 at 12pm - CLEMENS CONVERSATIONS: Mark Twain in the Margins (V)
May 24 at 6pm - Dina Martina: Chariots of Failure (IP)
May 30 at 7pm - For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be with Marcus Collins (V)
May 31 at 7pm - Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs with Jamie Loftus (IP & V)
June 1 at 7pm - Notes on Her Color: A Novel by Jennifer Neal (V)
June 6 at 7pm - To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music and Mystery of Connie Converse with Howard Fishman (IP)
June 7 at 12pm - CLEMENS CONVERSATIONS: "Without Money or Moneyed Friends:" Mark Twain, Charles Ethan Porter, and Art Patronage in the Gilded Age
June 8 at 7pm - A Living Remedy: A Memoir with Nicole Chung (V)
June 10 11am-3pm - Nook Farm Neighborhood Open House (IP)
June 13 at 7pm - Quietly Hostile: Essays with Samantha Irby (V)
June 14 at 7pm - The Trouble Begins - Imaging Indian Maidens in Pure Springs: Race and Nation in Nineteenth Century Spa Towns with Will Mackintosh (IP & V)
June 15 at 7pm - Wannabe: Reckonings With the Pop Culture That Shapes Me with Aisha Harris (V)
June 20 at 12pm - The Dress Diary: Secrets from a Victorian Woman's Wardrobe with Kate Strasdin (V)
June 22 at 7pm - The Summer of 1876: Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends of The Season That Defined the American West with Chris Wimmer (V)
Saturday, June 24 - Get a CLUE Tours of The Mark Twain House
September 23 - The Bark Twain Bash...It's the Cat's Meow fundraiser with Kenway's Cause (IP)
To see all event information and registration, CLICK HERE.
To preorder books for our upcoming events, CLICK HERE. Signed books will be mailed after the event. Please note that we cannot ship outside of the U.S. at this time.
Your donation to The Mark Twain House & Museum helps us meet our mission to preserve the home and legacy of Mark Twain. Thank you for your generosity!