THINGS-TO-DO

Mark Twain, famed Ozark Music Festival in focus at upcoming events

Aarik Danielsen
Columbia Daily Tribune

Two facets of Missouri's enduring cultural legacy will come into clearer detail and focus during upcoming events at the State Historical Society of Missouri. Here's what to expect from these two can't-miss moments:

Author discusses Twain, the social satirist

Mark Twain in a 1907 photograph by A.F. Bradley

One of Missouri's most abiding presences some 113 years after his death, Mark Twain will be the topic of an upcoming author talk. University of New Mexico professor Gary Scharnhorst, whose multi-volume biography of Twain was published by University of Missouri Press, will discuss the great American writer's role as a social satirist Thursday afternoon at the State Historical Society.

Writing for Open Letters Review, Steve Donoghue called Scharnhorst's series "a monument of careful and exhaustive scholarship" as well as a "masterwork for the scholars and the endlessly curious."

Scharnhorst's deep, wide bibliography also includes "Bret Harte: Opening the American Literary West" and "Owen Wister and the West."

Thursday's event takes place at 1 p.m., and is co-sponsored by the State Historical Society and MU Press.

Relive Ozark Music Festival through documentary

The Eagles before opening for the Rolling Stones in Milwaukee in 1975, a year after the Ozark Music Festival.

Sedalia, of all places, held a sort of Woodstock of its own in July 1974 — and the music has lingered long past the last act, for nearly 50 years.

The Ozark Music Festival is the subject of a documentary from Jefferson Lujin, which will be screened twice Friday at the State Historical Society. The film will be shown at 2 and 7 p.m.; between viewings, attendees can hear music from Missouri's own Pat Kay, Ben Miller and Emma Burney, learn more at Q&A sessions hosted by local music sage Kevin Walsh and eat from food trucks stationed in the parking lot.

Featuring the likes of the Eagles, Aerosmith, Jeff Beck, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bob Seger, the event drew as many as 350,000 people, an event description notes. The festival made a ruckus in more than one way; a subsequent Missouri State Senate report compared the happenings to the Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah.

Learn more about both events at https://shsmo.org/.

Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731.