However, questions remain: Mystery of 'Poe Toaster' revealed
For decades, a mysterious figure dressed in black, his features cloaked by a wide-brimmed hat and scarf, crept into a churchyard to lay three roses and a bottle of cognac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.
Now, a 92-year-old man who led the fight to preserve the historic site says the visitor was his creation.
"We did it, myself and my tour guides," said Sam Porpora. "It was a promotional idea. We made it up, never dreaming it would go worldwide."
Porpora is an energetic, dapper fellow in a newsboy cap and a checked suit with a bolo tie. He's got a twinkle in his eye and a mischievous smile, and he tells his tale in the rhythms of a natural-born storyteller.
No one has ever claimed ownership of the legend. So why is Porpora coming forward now?
"I really can't tell you," Porpora answered. "I love Poe. I love talking about Poe. I had a lot to do with making Poe a universal figure. I'm doing it because of my love for the story."
Porpora's belief that he resurrected the international fame of Poe, that master of mystery and melancholia, is questioned by some Poe scholars. But they do credit Porpora, a former advertising executive, with rescuing the cemetery at Westminster Presbyterian Church where the writer is buried.
"I don't know what to say," said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House in Baltimore, who has nurtured for years the legend of the so-called Poe Toaster. Confronted with Porpora's assertion that the whole thing is a hoax, Jerome reacted like a man who's been punched in the stomach by his beloved grandfather. He's sad. He feels betrayed. But he's reluctant to punch back.
"He's like a mentor to me," Jerome said of Porpora. "And I can tell you that if it weren't for him, Westminster Hall may not be there. But to say the toaster is a promotional hoax, well, all I can say is that's just not so."
...
Members of the Poe Society insist they recall members of the old congregation -- all now dead -- talking about the Poe toaster before Porpora says he made it up. Stories since the 1970s refer to older newspaper accounts about the visitor. Jerome found a 1950 newspaper clipping from The (Baltimore) Evening Sun that mentions "an anonymous citizen who creeps in annually to place an empty bottle (of excellent label)" against the gravestone.
Porpora's account isn't consistent. He said he invented the stranger in an interview with a reporter in 1967, but the story to which he refers appeared in 1976. Shortly afterward, the vigils and the yearly chronicles of the stranger's visits began. During the same interview, Porpora said both that he made the story up and that one of his tour guides went through a pantomime of dressing up, sneaking into the cemetery and laying the tribute on the grave.
Porpora acknowledges that someone has since "become" the Poe toaster.
"For us, it was a one-time thing. If I could have brought Edgar Allen Poe back to life, I would have -- that would have been the biggest promotion of all," he said. "But who would have thought people would jump on it the way they did?"
Jerome said the vigils will continue.
"Next January 19, I'm going to keep the vigil -- same as I've always done," he said. "Either he shows or he doesn't show. Either others join me or they don't. My guess is, this will not affect anything."
It is sort of funny that folks are so put out by the idea that the admirer might be a rather mundane affair. What did they think the answer to the mystery was? Some spectral image from a Poe short story rising up, knocking off a Baltimore liquor store, hitting the flower shop, and then visiting the cemetery before a chill wind blows it away as the winter dawn approaches? The answer was always gonna be some guy with a little too much time on his hands.
I'll admit, the need for wonder in our lives can be very strong, so it can be sad when yet another exotic mystery turns out to be rather pedestrian in nature. So, if you feel the need, just tell yourself that this mystery has not been solved at all, and that the true story must involve a conspiracy involving the Templars or something.
I think it is time for a little Poe:
Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain -
Quaintest thoughts - queerist fancies
Come to life and fade away;
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today.
No comments:
Post a Comment