
It's where I met Leopold.
It plays host to the Visionary Art Museum - one of the most undeservedly uncelebrated museum spaces in the entire Mid Atlantic. Seriously. If you're ever anywhere near Charm City you need to pay a visit.
There's the Baltimore Opera where I saw my first opera ever...and discovered that I actually really, like opera. Baltimore Opera audiences aren't all that different from the crowd at a baseball game. They're there to have a good time, see their friends and make sure that everyone else is enjoying themselves.
And then we get to the bar list (1) and that means it's time to get to my point.
The good people of Baltimore are once again earning their John Waters-fueled reputation as the Savannah of the north by holding a funeral for Edgar Allan Poe this weekend.
Yes. That Edgar Allan Poe. The author who died 160 years ago.
If you're not familiar with the circumstances surrounding Poe's death it sounds very much like something he would have written.
Poe returned to Baltimore from Richmond where he was discovered delirious and incoherent outside a tavern. He died shortly after and what had taken place was never determined.
Add a cousin who hid the death from the public, a quick, silent funeral, a runaway train (2), and a not-so-flattering obituary written by Rufus Griswold and you have the grim exit of the author who gave us The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart.
Events include an exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art, a horse-drawn carriage which will carry the "body" through the city, and a funeral service that will include actors playing individuals from Poe's life...including Griswold.
Note to the future: If there is ever any reason to hold a second funeral for me let's agree that we won't invite people who wrote really bad things about me the first time around.
Agreed?
1. Owl Bar!
2. Really.