You may be thinking what this blog has got to do with Mark Twain…well, not much, really. You may not know, however, that Mark Twain was a great cigar lover. In fact, according to SFGate, he smoked around 20 to 40 cigars a day! Can you imagine smoking that much today? Although I would love to, I don’t think that I can do it. Health reasons not withstanding, I also have to consider the financial aspect. I highly doubt that I can afford to smoke 5 cigars a day – much less 20 to 40!
Anyhow, here is some more information on Mark Twain, which you can learn from an exhibit which is due to open on December 1st at the UC Berkeley:
Titled “Mark Twain at Play,” it’s the first show in the new gallery of the revamped Bancroft Library, which was closed for seismic refitting in 2005 and will reopen in a few months.
The exhibit focuses on the writer’s leisure pursuits – from yachting and sketching to private social clubs and amateur theater – and how they influenced what he produced.
The exhibit, which features many items never seen before, was still taking shape Wednesday. It includes notebooks, photographs, letters, artifacts and a 1909 film with Twain in it.
The objects are as varied as the man himself. Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Missouri in 1835, he published more than 30 books and pamphlets as well as a few thousand newspaper and magazine articles before he died in 1910 at age 74.
I am going on out a limb here, taking the chance that some of you might be interested in Mark Twain. After all, he is one of the greatest literary figures of all time.