Unsurprisingly, the focus around here for the past week was Bloomsday. Everything went really well; thank you to all of you who packed the house for Ulysses 101 on Monday, Declan Kiberd’s talk on Tuesday, and for the readings themselves yesterday. The fact that we moved to our Bloomsday rain location spared the city from …
First off, a very Happy Birthday to Maurice Sendak, who turns 82 today. Perhaps we can all celebrate by reading a Sendak book–there are scores to choose from. My son’s favorite is Pierre, from the Nutshell Library, while my daughter likes the Little Bear series. Or for the visual among us, check out this clip …
I hope everyone enjoyed the lovely weather over Memorial Day weekend. As you probably know, the holiday was originally known as Decoration Day and it originated as a way of honoring the Civil War dead. Although most of us no longer visit cemeteries on Memorial Day, the parades and speeches that many of us attend …
First of all, I think Smithsonian magazine must be stalking the Rosenbach. I noted in a previous blog post that the April issue features a look at Lewis Carroll and then what should I find in the May issue–a story on William Henry Ireland , whose Shakespeare forgeries are currently on display in Friend or …
Great minds think alike! No sooner had I posted my Bloomsday heads-up, when I received a guest blog post about Ulysses from Rosenbach trustee Steven Rolfe, MD. He has some very helpful and practical suggestions on how to survive and enjoy reading Ulysses, so read on for his post: “I came to Ulysses relatively late …
Amazingly enough, it is almost the end of May, which means that Bloomsday is just around the corner. If you haven’t already marked your calendar for Wednesday, June 16, get out your red pencil now and circle it! On that glorious day the readings will run from noon to 7 PM, so you can stop …
It’s been a quiet week at the Rosenbach. Most of the collections staff has been away, either on vacation or out in Wyoming, installing a traveling Sendak exhibition at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. I have spent the week hunched over my computer, learning the intricacies of Chenhall Nomenclature and editing object information in …
Meet Bethany Chisholm, The Rosenbach’s manager of special events. Bethany has been in fundraising her entire working career. After growing up and attending school in the Boston area, she moved to Philadelphia. She began interning at The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coordinating special events and their young professional group. As we know at The …
It’s been a busy week at the Rosenbach. We started out the week with the annual docent trip, which focused this year on two of our hometown treasures: the rare book department at the Free Library and Bartram’s Garden. Monday morning did not look auspicious, as the rain poured down during the morning rush hour, …
T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Waste Land, may describe April as the cruelest month, but that’s only because National Poetry Month hadn’t been established yet. National Poetry Month was inaugurated in 1996 to “highlight the extraordinary legacy and ongoing achievement of American poets” and to”introduce more Americans to the pleasures of reading poetry,” among other laudable …