Happy 200th birthday to Edgar Allan Poe! I once went to a concert at Yaddo, where he is purported to have written "The Raven."



I also have a cardboard cutout of his head on my desk, which my bro gave me back when he worked at a bookstore.



He even has a raven on his shoulder. The black cat is only a coinkydink. *g*

I grew up not far from Saratoga Springs, but it wasn't until long after I'd moved away that I visited Yaddo. I went there with my parents for a benefit concert by the Depasquale String Quartet, which was headed by my dad's best friend, Bill Depasquale. There was a young woman playing piano as well, some up-and-comer, but I don't remember her name.

Since it was a benefit, in Saratoga, in the middle of summer, there were a lot of hoity-toities there. I remember charming Marylou Whitney (as in Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney) by feeding paté to the cat. She thought that was adorable. I had no idea who she was at the time; my dad told me later.

That was the night of the Perseids meteor shower; I remember flashes of light, which I thought were camera flashes at first.

Yaddo is an artists' colony, and the only part of it normally open to the public is the rose garden. I have some pictures I took there years ago; I really should find them and scan them in. I have a nice one of the fountain.

I was reminded of all this by an article in the NY Times about a Yaddo exhibition at the New York Public Library, which mentions a lot of the famous writers and artists who have spent time there. I was disappointed that it didn't mention that Edgar Allan Poe was purported to have written "The Raven" there, though. That's pretty cool, don't you think?



Picture via http://www.saratoga.org/postcards/