SALEM — Welcome to Camelot.
If you're one of those people who can't get enough of the Kennedys, you're in the right place at the right time.
For the past 10 days, Kennedy fans have been filing through the doors of the Peabody Essex Museum to see fashion photographer Richard Avedon's photos of President-elect John F. Kennedy and his family, taken early in 1961 just days before they moved into the White House.
The exhibit of photos that Avedon shot for Harper's Bazaar and Look magazines, which runs through July 18, is drawing strong crowds, a museum official said.
"Our feeling is the exhibit is going to do quite well," said Jay Finney, chief marketing officer at the PEM. "We are in Kennedy country, and these works have never really been seen outside the Smithsonian."
Tonight, Salem State College gets into the act when Ted Kennedy Jr. takes the stage at the O'Keefe Sports Center to talk about his family and his own work as an advocate for the disabled. The college signed Kennedy to its speaker series not long after he delivered a moving eulogy at his father's funeral last August.
Tickets will be available at the door for the 8 p.m. program.
On Sunday, the author of a new book on Jacqueline Kennedy will speak at 3 p.m. in Morse Auditorium at the PEM. Ellen Fitzpatrick, a college history professor and regular contributor to public television, will discuss "Letters to Jackie," a collection of 250 letters written to Kennedy's widow after the 1963 assassination.
Fitzpatrick culled the letters from more than 1 million that were written to the first lady and which remained sealed away for more than 40 years. Many of them are moving.
"The coffin was very small," one girl wrote, "to contain so much of so many Americans."
The lecture is free with museum admission.
The PEM has other programming planned around the Kennedy photo exhibit. On Saturday, May 8, photography curator Phillip Prodger will give a gallery talk on Avedon's photos.
And on Friday, June 4, performance artist Karen Finley will deliver her one-woman show "The Jackie Look." For the PEM show, the notorious Finley, who once smeared her naked body in chocolate, will take a more conservative approach. She will come dressed as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in sunglasses, pearls and a pantsuit.
Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. show are $30 ($25 for museum members). A Champagne reception will follow.
Despite having all of these Kennedy events over a few weeks in one small city, it appears that neither the PEM nor Salem State was fully aware of the other's plans. This Kennedy-orama, it seems, owes a debt to serendipity.
"We had no idea," college spokeswoman Karen Cady said. "... At least, I don't think anybody did. ... It was just one of those coincidences."
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