Trains, Blogathons, and Other Stuff

I have a few odds and ends to catch up with today.

(Cartoon by my twin brother, John)

First, next week we’ll be celebrating my favorite holiday, National Train Day, which falls this year on Saturday, May 12th. It’ll be a week of trains and Jack Lemmon. On Monday, a look at his train scenes from “The Out of Towners” (1970), which brings us to a discussion of the decline of rail service in the 1960s and leads us to “It Happened to Jane” (1959) on Thursday, a delightful comedy about the disruption of train service to one small New England community, filmed in and around Chester, Connecticut. On next Tuesday the 8th, come to my New England Travels blog for a look at those same sites used in the movie as they look today.

The following Monday the 14th, we take part in the For the Love of Film Preservation blogathon with a look at the train sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” (1959).

Next, a photography exhibition showcasing the work of Gretje Ferguson has opened at the Wellesley Free Library in Wellesley, Massachusetts for the entire month of May. The title of this exhibit is called “Authors Among Us”. Black-and-white fine art portraits of 15 Massachusetts writers are included in the show. One of them is yours truly.

Next Wednesday, a reception celebrating Ms. Ferguson’s exhibition will be held, free and open to the public as an opportunity to meet the photographer and authors. I’ll be there, too, and if any reader of this blog in the Wellesley area can make this event, I’d love to meet you.

Time: Wednesday, May 9, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

Place: Wellesley Free Library, Wakelin Room
530 Washington Street
Wellesley, MA
781-235-1610 781-235-1610

Featured authors: Robyn Bradley, Lilian Cheung, Kyle Darcy, Steve Elman, Anita Diamant, Juliette Fay, Bob Halloran, Dello Iacono, Daphne Kalotay, Kathleen Burns Kingsbury, Jacqueline T. Lynch, William Martin, Peter H. Reynolds, Neal Sanders, Katrin Schumann, Alan Tolz, Gail Van Kleeck, Raffi Yessayan

See you there.

Finally, best wishes for a quick recovery to fellow classic film blogger Dawn at Noir and Chick Flicks, who recently announced her battle with breast cancer. Please visit her blog here, and consider donating to the Breast Cancer Society.