Ted Widmer

Virtual Speaker Series — Athenaeum Wednesdays

The Providence Athenaeum presents Ex Libris, a series of programs featuring authors and scholars, early evening on Wednesdays. This week, cultural historian and literary scholar Tatiana Holway will be discussing the Amazon River’s largest waterlily, Victoria regia. In the pantheon of Victorian flora, one plant is by any measure a standout. With flat, round, leaves …

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Very Tall Man At Granoff

(4.25) Brown University presents an evening with screenwriter Ian Maxtone-Graham and historian Ted Widmer. (We’ve written about Widmer before. Resumé includes: President Clinton speechwriter; Martin Van Buren rehabilitator; Lord Rockingham of Upper Crust fame.) The recipient of seven Emmy Awards, Maxtone-Graham (Class of ’83) will share observations from his work in television. He has written …

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Conversations With Ted Widmer — Tuesdays At Brown

Historian and former Upper Crust guitarist, Ted Widmer, has been conducting a short series of conversations — Climbing Down from the Ivy Tower — Tuesdays at Brown University. This week he hosts Alex Kingsbury, the deputy ideas editor at the Boston Globe. The Globe has been running a well-deserved victory lap this year following the …

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Someone Needs To Write A History Of Ted Widmer

Although . . . his story could make for a very terrible television show. (Mild-mannered historian by day/Perfumed fop-rocker by night!) Signed copies of Ted Widmer’s new book “Brown: The History of an Idea” are available at the Brown Bookstore. Thumbs up from Tony Horwitz so that’s all you need to know. “Through the wobbly …

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Lord Rockingham To Advise State Department

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” So opens the L.P. Hartley novel The Go-Between. If true, then who better to advise Secretary of State Hillary Clinton than the former Lord Rockingham of 90’s rockers the Upper Crust, a.k.a. Ted Widmer. Widmer steps down today from his current position as director …

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“Scrodliness is next to Godliness”

It’s funny because it’s true.  For more utterly sublime lyrics like this, head out of town tonight to see the band declared Boston’s worst from 1989 to 1994, Mente.  Guitarist, Edward van Mente is Providence’s own Ted Widmer, former Clinton speech writer, head of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, and former member …

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