There is simply no better place to be in Ireland in October than Wexford, when the town becomes a hive of cultural activity to celebrate the annual Wexford Festival Opera. Now in its 72nd year, Wexford Festival Opera continues to amaze and delight in equal measure, when operatic performers from all over the world convene at the National Opera House for two weeks of world-class opera.
San Francisco literary lion Lawrence Ferlinghetti died Monday at 101.
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A prolific poet with more than 30 collections published over a half-century, Ferlinghetti was known for the central role he played in San Francisco’s literary universe, where he arrived in 1951 in search of bohemia. (Quite literally. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that, soon after arriving, he “asked a stranger to point him in the direction of the bohemian quarter in the city” and then moved in.)
Ferlinghetti and a partner launched City Lights as the country’s first all-paperback bookstore in 1953, as the city’s Beat renaissance unfolded in the city. The bookshop is still going strong in North Beach nearly seven decades later, though it was closed for the first part of the day on Tuesday in his memory.