Thursday, May 16, 2024
We’ve marked Music Hall and Variety Day here in the past because we think it is a marvelous idea. Today, I hope you will forgive me if I hijack the occasion for my own nefarious variety pu…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:32AMWednesday, May 15, 2024
May 15 was the birthday of Joseph A. Campbell (1817-1900), founder of the Campbell Soup Company (est. 1869). We take the product for granted now, especially since it has been overtaken by be…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:32AMTuesday, May 14, 2024
New Yorkers! Tomorrow night, Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn is rolling out a rare treat: a 30th anniversary screening of the downtown indie cult film Cracking Up (1994). This is quite a differ…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AMMonday, May 13, 2024
Today (May 13) is opening day of the 2024 summer season at The International Clown Hall of Fame and Research Center in Baraboo, Wisconsin. The current season of Top Chef is in Wisconsin this…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:36AMSaturday, May 11, 2024
Wales has produced some of the world’s finest actors, Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, a long list, but surely none more beloved than Bernard Fox (Bernard Lawson, 1927-2016). You can’t i…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:18AMFriday, May 10, 2024
Well, I’m in a super Las Vegas kinda place at the moment, and I know why. The third season of Hacks is out, and I just posted on Pete Barbutti, who still performs regular shows there, and …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:32AMThursday, May 9, 2024
It’s been a while since I have plugged Brent Walker’s indispensable reference book Mack Sennett’s Fun Factory here but I absolutely must do so today for it made possible this post on K…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMWednesday, May 8, 2024
May 8, 1824 was the date of birth of doctor, lawyer, newspaper editor, adventurer, and illegitimate President of Nicaragua William Walker. A nephew of Philadelphia Enquirer founder and U.S. …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AMMay 8, 1886 was the date on which Dr. John Pemberton (1831-1888) first sold Coca-Cola to a local Atlanta drug store, thus marking its debut on the world stage as a publicly available soft dr…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:36AMTuesday, May 7, 2024
Friday, May 10, 2024 at 5:30pm EDT Admission FREE75 minutes UNDER St. Mark’s Theater94 St. Mark’s Place, just east of 1st Avenue, NYC Every theater-lover should know the story of the Ast…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AMMonday, May 6, 2024
May 6, 1937 was the day of the Hindenburg disaster. Your correspondent has always been a big fan of the stately majesty of airship travel. I not only love the beauty of it, I love the PACE o…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:06AMSunday, May 5, 2024
Happy National Cartoonists Day! A good a time as any to peruse the comics and cartoons section of Travalanche, with its 180 or so posts. It’s not our main bailiwick, so be prepared for a b…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:06AMSaturday, May 4, 2024
Never mind Star Wars Day, May the 4th is the birthday of Pete Barbutti (b. 1934). How this performer would have throve in vaudeville! Barbutti is a comedy musician, a raconteur who tells lon…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:06PMFriday, May 3, 2024
Born 100 years ago today, the great stage director Tom O’Horgan (1924-2009). Few who emerged from what used to be called Off-Off Broadway flew higher than this man, though his work is bett…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:18PMThursday, May 2, 2024
May 2 was the birthday of Catherine II of Russia (1729-1796), popularly known as Catherine the Great. Catherine is one of history’s most storied monarchs, renowned as much for her legend a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:24AMWednesday, May 1, 2024
Well, it’s May Day! We’ve visited the topic a few times in the past; see links for related writings on: May Poles, May Baskets, the Green Man, Renn Fests, Robin Hood, and May Day Eve. To…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:02PMBorn 100 years ago today: announcer, quiz show host, news anchor, and actor Art Fleming (Arthur Fleming Fazzin, 1925-1995). It was Fleming’s bad fortune to have his most notable accomplish…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AMTuesday, April 30, 2024
I was invited to attend the TCM Festival a few days ago (they screened a bunch of old Vitaphones featuring the original technology) but I wisely opted to pass at the last minute, as I had (a…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:06PMGut Walpurgisnacht! I was shocked — shocked! — to discover that I have never even mentioned this holiday on this blog, despite having gotten AWFULLY close, by writing about May Day, whic…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:36AMMonday, April 29, 2024
April 29 is the birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810), considered by many to be one of the principal fathers of modern ballet. Most (if not all) of the 80 ballets he created are lost …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:36PMBert Woodruff (1856-1934) is best known (to some of us anyway), for his iconic role as Pop, New York’s last horse-drawn trolley driver, in Harold Lloyd’s Speedy (1928). Speedy was one of…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:24AMSunday, April 28, 2024
Born 100 years ago this day, Margrethe Blossom Dearie (1924-2009), known professionally as Blossom Dearie. She is not to be confused with Blossom Seeley or Blossom Rock! H’m…I used to th…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 07:06AMSaturday, April 27, 2024
I’ve just realized a long-standing goal by reading the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885). I’ve wanted to do that since reading about them in Mark Twain’s own memoirs many decades…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 06:12AMFriday, April 26, 2024
Some 50 episodes after my last appearance (Look at Chicolini), I had the good fortune this week to return as a guest on the Marx Brothers Council Podcast to talk about my new book The Marx B…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:42AMSynchronicitously, I learned about Renate Müller (1906-1937) from two trusted sources within days of each other a few months back. One was Eve Golden, who wrote terrific articles about the…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:24AMThursday, April 25, 2024
As we wrote in our recent send-off to Robert McNeil, hard journalists are generally outside of our biographical wheelhouse on Travalanche. But celebrity journalism is a horse of a different …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:24AMWednesday, April 24, 2024
The 20th century produced so many great Southern chroniclers of crackerdom (William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Tennessee Williams, Harper Lee and childhood friend Truman Capote, James Agee, Kat…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32AMTuesday, April 23, 2024
With late April and all of May clogged with events, your correspondent has been hard at work trying to get some events on the calendar for June. A couple of new book talks are in the works, …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:48AMFor obvious reasons, I was going to wait and launch promotion of my newest book at Marxfest next month, but, like a thief in the night, sales have already begun online, and today being World…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:36AMApril 23, 1896 was a pivotal date in the histories of both live vaudeville and cinematic exhibition. On that day, Koster and Bial’s Music Hall topped off their presentation of six variety …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:32AMMonday, April 22, 2024
Like the man says — that anniversary is today! And I’d love to share a little article about it here with you…but for the fact that I’m presenting a talk on that very topic this Sunda…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:18PM 
