H. L. Mencken’s 128th birthday has come and gone (it was Wednesday). We may have missed it, but the Mencken Society has a slew of rousing events scheduled this weekend celebrating the great freethinking writer and editor. You’ve got to love a crank so cranky he published a book dedicated to criticizing himself; it was called Menckeneanea: A Schimpflexikon. (Schimpflexikon is German and means something like “dictionary of disgrace.”)
There’s a lecture on Mencken and George Jean Nathan, there’s a preview of the George H. Thompson Mencken Collection, and former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis will be speaking.
Most of the events seem to be on Saturday, September 15. You can contact the society’s president, Edward A. Martin, for more info. —Martin Schneider