On April 14, 1894, the first Kinetoscope parlor in the world opened, at 1155 Broadway in Manhattan, not far from Madison Square Park and the Garden. Originally, my headline was more specific…
Word has just come down that the conjoined Schappell twins, Lori and George (b. 1961) passed away on April 7. Wait! You're already a little confused, I bet. How can identical twins be differ…
When I was a kid, grown-ups spoke of a fabled time long before I was born when there were as many as FOUR American tv networks operating simultaneously, keeping me spellbound in much the sam…
April 12 was the birthday of the film actor known as Chief Thundercloud (1899-1955). As it happens, there is a "thundercloud" surrounding the actor's true identity. His real name has been gi…
If I look crazy in the photos above it's because I must be! I booked two very involved and very different events back to back in two geographical locations that are both far from my house an…
I went to my local woods to witness the eclipse a couple of days ago vaguely hoping something magical would happen. Something most assuredly did, though nothing so crassly obvious as, say, a…
With the exception of Charles Manson, surely no public figure has ever looked so unhinged in so many photographs as Valerie Solanas (1936-1988). You can actually feel the simmering intensity…
I try, very consciously, never to glamorize guns, but this is the only picture of our subject I could find that made me pay attention to what I was looking at. John Gavin (1931-2018) was a v…
I'm fairly ecstatic at the advent at Morgan Neville's new two-part documentary about Steve Martin, not just because it filled me with such mirth and pleasure to reconnect with memories of th…
The title of this post of course because yesterday in the Northeast we experienced an extremely rare earthquake that measured 4.8 on the Richter scale, which is roughly a once in a century e…
Warning: I include spoilers. Chronic back pain combined with the flu (ugh!) sidelined me yesterday so I took the opportunity to finally catch up with Killers of the Flower Moon. To my mind i…
April 6 was the birthday of stage and screen actress Victory Bateman (1865-1926). She was named after the triumph of the Grand Army of the Republic over the Confederacy; Lee's surrender was …
A reference on Robin Williams' 1979 album Reality…What a Concept was my first introduction to Lord Buckley (Richard Buckley, 1906-1960). Buckley was gone long before I came into the world,…
L.A. Friends, this jumped out at me as something worth attending, and, as Wilford Brimley used to put it, "the right thing to do". Today at 1pm Pacific time the remains of Hungarian-American…
We've had call to mention Craig T. Nelson (b. 1944) a half dozen times or more here " I'm an unabashed Craig T. Nelson super-fan and I don't care who knows it! And, happily, I can open this …
Exciting news for lovers of sideshow and the variety arts! The Sideshow Hootenanny (previously known as the Southern Sideshow Hootenanny), now celebrating its tenth year, and making its NYC …
The title of this post is to clarify that it's not about Janicza Bravo's terrific 2020 road movie with Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun, and Colman Domingo, which is high…
There's something highly appropriate about Edmond Rostand (1868-1918), having been born of an April Fool's Day, given the holiday's history in his native country and Rostand's revival of the…
March 31 was the birthday of blues piano player Big Maceo Merriweather (1905-1953), and 2024 (as I write this) marks the centennial year of when he moved from his native Georgia up to Detroi…
A decade has passed since my initial stab at a post on Warren Beatty (b. 1937). It is focused on one of his more obscure movies, Mickey One (1965) mostly because this blog was narrowly focus…
Greta Thyssen (1927-2018) lived at the center of a Venn Diagram that included the overlapping categories of a) Hollywood blonde bombshells of the Marilyn Monroe / Jayne Mansfield/ Mamie Van …
Good Friday seems the ideal time for this post, and though there's still a good deal of uncertainty around the topic, I'm going to forge ahead anyway. It concerns a different long-haired and…
Born this day, King of the Hillbilly Piano Players Aubrey Wilson "Moon" Mullican (1909-1967). Fittingly, in some years, his birthday falls on World Piano Day. Mullican is one of those musica…
Yes, it's true " it's MLB opening day…and shaping up to be a rain day here in NYC. But it seemed like a good time to let you know about an upcoming new biography of pro baseballer and some…
March 28 was the birthday of Jimmie Dodd (1910-1964), a.k.a. Jimmie from The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-1959). Don't get any funny ideas! I'm about a decade too young to have watched this class…