About.com’s Indianapolis section features sight-seeing walking tours of the city… including one of the historic Lockerbie Square neighborhood. Here’s what the site has to say about one of the featured stops: “Herman Lieber built the cottage on Park Avenue in 1860, and it was purchased in 1868 by Capt. William Tarkington, brother of author Booth Tarkington’s grandfather and secretary to Gov. Oliver P. Morton.” Click through for a link to the site, which has a great photo of the house, taken by Ellie Snyder.

Truth is often becoming as strange as fiction… or drama. In a very interesting New York Times piece , David Mamet talks about his 2006 adaptation of a 1905 play. Amongst other literary names from 100 years ago, Tarkington also crops up: “Referring to photos taken after Mr. Madoff’s arraignment, Mr. Delbanco said the events ‘put me in mind of the arrogant Ambersons before they got what Booth Tarkington called their comeuppance. But the thing about Bernard Madoff,’ he added, ‘is that we have no idea what he was thinking.’” I daresay that a close reading of any kind suggests that Tarkington indeed might have had a pretty decent idea what Madoff was thinking. Tarkington may not have been a prophet, but he was observant… and history tends to repeat itself.

I reported last September on the annual fundraiser by the Indianapolis charitable organization The Penrod Society, which funds grants for local arts organizations. Then, in December, I ran across this report on the Internet: “The Penrod Society is reeling from news that one of its top volunteers allegedly absconded with $380,000 — every penny the organization earned from its annual art fair, plus reserves.” No word yet on whether the Society’s funds had been recovered, or whether in fact the alleged culprit was guilty. If anybody knows more, please feel free to drop me a line.

A while back, I ran across the web site Lit Between the Ears, which now apparently publishes an annual anthology of radio plays. The site reports that the second volume as due later this year: “As with ‘Volume One: Chekhov, O. Henry, Spear and Tarkington On the Air’, Volume Two will be an antholgy [sic] of our writing. However, unlike our first book, Mayonnaise in My Cake and Other Delights will be mostly original works. One of the few adaptations will be the work-in-progress ‘Splendor in Midland’ inspired by Booth Tarkington’s ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’.”

Google Books has a copy of the 1922 title The Stag Cook Book: Written For Men By Men, in which two “dishes” are recommended by Booth Tarkington. “My favorite dish is corn flakes,” demurs Tark. “They should be placed in a saucer or hollow dish, then lifted in both hands and rolled for a moment, then dropped back into the dish.” And that’s not the only culinary expertise he has to offer…

So far, I’ve yet to actually meet someone from Indianapolis who knows anything at all about Booth Tarkington, so it’s refreshing to run across the occasional Tark article in the Star. I’ve found it particularly interesting to track Sadler’s progress in restoring Tarkington’s home to its former, shall we say, luster, even though I’m no big fan of celebrity worship. In this story, Star features writer Cathy Kightlinger reports on a recent “Manhattan-comes-to-Indianapolis” event in support of a charitable foundation: precisely the kind of event Tarkington would have enjoyed.

In March at the Front Porch Republic, Bill Kaufman wrote a very interesting analysis of regionalism, its characteristics, and its effects. Late in the essay, he queried: “Contrast Reagan with Booth Tarkington… Booth chose Indiana; Ronnie chose Hollywood and Washington. Which man would a healthy conservative movement revere? Which man does the contemporary conservative movement revere? Funny world, isn’t it?”