Poe Bicentennial Media Roundup Continued

Though Edgar Allan Poe's big week is regrettably eclipsed by the spotlight of the US Presidential inauguration, his bicentennial on Monday continued to gain high honors from some select sources. So, I couldn't resist doing another day of media roundups for a once in a lifetime event celebrating the often dour, but brilliant life of this writer.

• "Edgar Allan Poe at 200:" This "Paper Cuts" blog entry from The New York Times includes a few nice .PDF downloads from the paper's long history with Poe. A slide show of Poe's original works can be viewed, as well as a centenary piece by the times from 1909.
• "Bicentennial Bash at the Dank Tarn of Auber!" I somehow overlooked this excellent article on Poe from "The Cimmerian" blog. Author Steve Tompkins gives a lengthy and cleverly written tour of Poe viewed through the lenses of others. A little gallery of interesting images, as well as vital quotes on the nineteenth century writer, are collected here in one engaging package.
• "Baltimore Ravens-Pittsburgh Steelers: Edgar Allan Poe's Playoff:" Though seemingly out of place here, this sports article was too creative to neglect. A number of Poe puns are used throughout--often quite adeptly--to describe pending match ups with various teams. This marks an unexpected treat emerging from the blizzard of Poe related texts.
• "Poe Passion Hasn't Waned:" The Baltimore Sun produced another excellent article highlighting the reflections of a veteran Poe student and impersonator, John Astin. The actor won much respect throughout the theatrical and Gothic communities of previous decades for his very accurate portrayals of Edgar Allan. Not surprisingly, the opinions of Astin on a number of Poe subjects, as related by this article, deserve equal attention.

As an aside, I don't intend to spend an overwhelming amount of further entries on Edgar Allan Poe--at the moment. I do fully mean to make this whole year an expanded spotlight for the progenitor of all modern weird horror as we know it, here in my own little corner of cyber-space.

-Grim Blogger