Well, I didn’t end up able to make it this weekend after all; turns out the Friday show was canceled, I couldn’t make it Saturday, and today’s show was sold out. However, all is not lost; the show was extended through August 29, so I went ahead and bought a ticket for the 21st. Still, while it won’t be quite as timely almost a month after the roundtable, I can still pop back in here after that with a brief account of it…

Thank you for those two suggestions, Jen.

Given that somehow we have managed to do a Poe Roundtable *without* a Vincent Price film, my own plans for the weekend include a viewing of Vinnie doing An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe. And possibly the 1963 Raven (“What do I look like, a fortune-teller!?”).

I highly recommend the two following works. While both fictional, they present striking reexaminings of Poe’s life and work.

The Poe Shadow, by Matthew Pearl, presents the life of a young man (kinda a proto-goth) in ninteenth century Boston who reads and becomes obsessed with Poe’s works, and equally obsessed with resurrecting his reputation after his death. It presents, among other things, the theory that far from being a drunk, Poe tended to abstain from the Demon Rum, as he had an allergic reaction to alcohol that lead to the wild rampages and hallucinations associated with rampant alcoholism–but in actuality could be brought on by one glass of wine.

The second is a one man show I saw several years ago here in Seattle by Dawson Nichols, entitled I Might Be Edgar Allan Poe. It was brilliant, hysterical, and haunting and is a really good “new” reimagining of how effective Poe is. You should be able to find it at http.//wwwambitgroup.com/poe/ for the radio play adaption by the author.