Edgar Allan Poe, You Don't Look a Day Over 200

But in fact, you are 202 today!

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. During these
fits of absolute unconsciousness, I drank--God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the insanity.

from the Memoir of Edgar Allan Poe
For the past two years the mysterious "Poe Toaster" has failed to appear. For sixty years, a mysterious figure dressed in black left roses and a bottle of cognac on Poe's grave on his birthday, but not in 2010 or this year.
Theories abound that this fan has died. A shame there is no one to take up this mantle in his place... yet.
Still, enjoy remembering Poe today by rereading "Annabel Lee", "The Black Cat," "The Raven"- or just play with your Edgar Allan Poe finger puppet.

Kurt Vonnegut

And since I am just procrastinating instead of doing real work or NaNoWriMo, I may as well say that in all the chaos of life, I forgot to post that Wenesday the 11th was Kurt Vonnegut's birthday. Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle are some of my favorite banned books (for lists of the 100 most challenged classics and the most commonly banned books in recent decades check out ala.org and celebrate Banned Books Week the last week of September each year- I proudly wear my "I read banned books" pin). That was a long aside. I apologize.
For incentive to pick up some Vonnegut check out "15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better than Anyone Else Ever Has or Will". Be aware a few quotations contain some intemperate language. My link button is stil acting childishly, so copy/paste my friends, copy/paste:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/15-things-kurt-vonnegut-said-better-than-anyone-el,1858/
It has inspired me to read some of Vonnegut's earlier works.
So it goes.