11,746 stories by "Trav S.d."
Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of one of Charlie Chaplin’s best known and best loved comedy shorts Easy Street (1917). Easy Street was made and released at…
Today is the birthday of Samuel Spencer “Samri” Baldwin (1848-1924) . Originally from Cincinnati, Baldwin became inspired to become a magician by studying the Davenport Brothers,…
Travalanche was dark yesterday in observance of the National Tragedy. Rather than rubberneck at the slow motion car wreck in Washington we opted to go to our nearby Brooklyn Museum, where th…
Just hitting the stands now in the Villager/ Downtown Express/ Chelsea Now, my feature on AdA: Author Directing Author, opening at La Mama later this week. Read the article here.  For …
I am a big fan of witty illustrator R. Sikorak, who is especially adept at aping the styles of classic era comic books. Tomorrow night from 6 to 8pm he will be one of the thousands providing…
Today is the last day in office of the best President I will probably ever see in my lifetime — certainly the finest man to serve as President. The Right has a weird tendency to speak …
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Contemporary Variety, Music, PLUGS Tagged: Barbes, Charming Disaster, Curtis Eller
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS, SOCIAL EVENTS Tagged: Freddy's Brooklyn, Nasty Women and Bad Hombres, Planned Parenthood
Today is the birthday of Providence poet, essayist, Transcendentalist and Spiritualist Sarah Helen Whitman (nee Power, 1803-1875). I first learned about this fascinating person from our frie…
Tomorrow at 7:30am (EST), Turner Classic Movies will show the Wheeler and Woolsey comedy Cockeyed Cavaliers (1934), directed by Mark Sandrich. This is rated one of the team’…
Today is the birthday of Daniel Webster (1782-1852), statesman, constitutional lawyer, Congressman, Senator, leading figure of the Whig Party, Secretary of State, and three time Presi…
Today is the birthday of Margaret Irving (1898-1988). Those Baby Boomers who remember Irving as an old lady on television will be astonished to know that she started out as a Broadway Beauty…
Today is the birthday of Olga Isabella Nethersole (1867-1951). The daughter of a London solicitor, Nethersole arrived on the professional stage in the English provinces in 1887, making her W…
Three cheers for Winnie Lightner: Tomboy of the Talkies, historian David Lightner’s new book about the stage and screen star who bears his name (if not his genes). As David put us righ…
All month long, TCM is devoting Tuesday nights to prison films. Tonight (actually the wee hours of tomorrow) they’ll have these three “comedy classics” with jailhouse setti…
Filed under: Jazz (miscellaneous), Music, PLUGS Tagged: Berlin, Brian Newman, jazz, trumpet
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The day has added meaning this year. There are only three days left in the administration of our first black President; he is being replaced by a success…
Tonight at Midnight (Eastern) TCM will be screening several silent comedy shorts featuring the incomparable Mabel Normand: The Bangville Police (1913) The Bangville Police is the c…
HEY RUBE! That’s what you yell when the circus is in trouble, when it’s all hands on deck, when it’s time to start a bucket brigade, or pull up stakes, or generally come to…
It’s National Hat Day!  In light of that, a little picture essay inspired by this quote from my book No Applause: Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous. R…
I was heartened this morning when my eyes happened to sweep over my bookshelf and happened on the title of Noah Diamond’s book: Love Marches On. A very timely time to get some “L…
Okay, they’re officially dropping faster than I can pump these out. My normal rule is I only bother with a tribute if I have things to say, but I may have to amend that. At any rate, I…
Today is Hal Roach’s birthday — what could be more perfect than opening my mailbox just now and finding a copy of Our Gang: A Racial History of the Little Rascals by Julia …
In the midst of so many horrible precedents, and history being made in so many undesirable ways, something truly amazing happened. The great Barry Lubin, best known as the Big Apple Circus&#…
Tomorrow morning (January 15, 2017) at 6:00am Eastern, Turner Classic Movies will show the 1934 Warner Brothers musical Dames, co-directed by Busby Berkeley and Ray Enright. Dames is …
