Sunday, December 17, 2023
As it happens today (December 17) is International Day to End Violence to Sex Workers. I mention this more to marvel at the synchronicity than to imply that Filthy Lucre, Jonny Porkpie's bur…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:12PM[SHARE]Just a brief squib to mark the 130th anniversary of the birth of the great German stage director Erwin Piscator (1893-1966). Along with his sometime colleague Bertolt Brecht, Piscator was on…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:54AM[SHARE]A look today at the much-neglected progressive Southern author Erskine Caldwell (1903-1987), born 120 years ago today. Caldwell was decidedly not neglected in his own time; that's the whole …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:54AM[SHARE]Saturday, December 16, 2023
A proper post today on Sir Noël Coward (1899-1973), our previous one being of the perfunctory sort from the early days of the blog when I was much less ambitious about the sort of things …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:02AM[SHARE]Friday, December 15, 2023
I've been sitting on this news impatiently for months and am so glad to have the greenlight to leak it (with the aid of Noah Diamond's premium artwork): May 2024 will see a bright, shiny, ne…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:18PM[SHARE]1923 was a crucial year in the life of young John Henry Hammond II (1910-1987). That was the year the precocious young lad went on a family trip to London and saw the all-black show From Dix…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:54AM[SHARE]Thursday, December 14, 2023
You heard it right, folks! This may be the only blog on the planet that has TWO posts about tv comedian Morey Amsterdam (the previous one is here) and we've even got a third one planned! Wat…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:42PM[SHARE]Just got the message in my in-box that this is the last week of shows at the Kraine Theatre, at least under the management it has known for the past however-many years. I've known the day wa…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:42PM[SHARE]On this day in 1934 Hal Roach released his deeply twisted Christmas classic Babes in Toyland a.k.a. March of the Wooden Soldiers starring Laurel and Hardy et al. It's the day of the year whe…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:33PM[SHARE]December 14 was the original air date of the first remake of the holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street in 1955. Oddly, we learn that the release date of the original 1947 was in June, and w…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Among those few who've even heard the name Larry Parks (1914-1975) there is a tendency to know just two or three things: that he made a big splashed playing Al Jolson in The Jolson Story …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:36AM[SHARE]Just got the unhappy news that Andre Braugher (b. 1962) has passed away at the young age of 61. News report are vague as to cause, mentioning only a "brief illness". Typically we write about…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 12:54AM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 12, 2023
I raved my my spiritual soul sister Kathy Biehl's previous Eat, Drink and Be Wary here two and a half years ago. And as it happens, my own next book release won't be until early '24, so Ima …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:48AM[SHARE]Multiple benchmarks go toward justifying today's spotlight on the late Bob Barker (1923-2023). He was born 100 years ago ago today; he passed away back in August, just a couple of months shy…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:42AM[SHARE]I've done posts on Young Frank and Old Frank, but not one yet on Middle Frank, which is arguably the peak of his art. To be accurate, Late-Middle Frank is probably the real peak. Early-Middl…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:36AM[SHARE]Monday, December 11, 2023
December 11 was the birthday of a distant relative of mine, Caleb Chase (1831-1908), who, with partner James Solomon Sanborn (1835-1903) formed the Chase and Sanborn Coffee Company in 1862. …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 01:03AM[SHARE]Sunday, December 10, 2023
I don't know how such things happen, but somehow I managed to do posts on Ray Henderson and Buddy De Sylva a decade ago, but their songwriting partner Lew Brown (Louis Brownstein, 1893-1958)…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:24AM[SHARE]Saturday, December 9, 2023
December 9 was the birthday of English actress and comedian Elsie Randolph (1904-1982). Wasn't it lucky that just a couple of nights ago I was re-watching the early Alfred Hitchcock film Ric…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 03:32AM[SHARE]Friday, December 8, 2023
December 8 was the birthday of a Southern coffee broker by the name of Joel Owsley Cheek (1852-1935). Cheek's chief claim to lasting fame is that in 1892 he convinced Nashville's Maxwell Hou…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 02:24AM[SHARE]Thursday, December 7, 2023
On the off chance that you thought things were getting too treacly 'round here, here's news of a show that really puts the "X" back in "X-mas". Burlesque jack-of-all-trades Jonny Porkpie is …
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:02AM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 6, 2023
For whatever reason, we are ringing the Christmas bell hard this year. Some years it scarcely seems to exist; this year we have jumped in with both feet, having already posted on Oneofus' Ch…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:24AM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 5, 2023
We first posted on "Little Richard" Penniman (1932-2020) back in 2012, and have had occasion to mention the long, tall shadow he cast on American music over 50 times on Travalanche. As a tee…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:12AM[SHARE]The release date of the motion picture Serpico (1973) was 50 years ago today. We went back and re-watched this classic of my youth a few months ago, prompted by Isaac Butler's excellent book…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AM[SHARE]Don't get confused! I don't mean Blythe Danner or Tyne Daly, but just what I said, Blythe Daly (1901-1965), although I've seen many spelling permutations of same, including Blyth Daly, Blyth…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:06AM[SHARE]This is not a review but just a notice that today is the release date for the new documentary A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps. Full disclosure: I have a dog in this hunt! My so…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 08:06AM[SHARE]Monday, December 4, 2023
In spite of the fact that I have done posts of Max Baer, Sr., as well as The Beverly Hillbillies, Paul Henning, Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, and Nancy Kulp I'm pretty certain I'd never have done…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 09:12AM[SHARE]Sunday, December 3, 2023
As promised a few days ago, I traveled out to Park Slope to see the first performance of the 25th Anniversary season of Dzieci Theatre's Fool's Mass last night. This is the second of a proje…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 05:54PM[SHARE]Today would have been the 90th birthday of talk show host and actor Les Crane (Lesley Stein, 1933-2008). There is an Icarus-like quality to Crane's brief fame. He was nationally prominent fo…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:24AM[SHARE]Saturday, December 2, 2023
Well, I'm still grinning from ear to ear. I was one of the lucky few hundred who were at last night's invited dress for ONEOFUS's latest holiday panto at the Abrons Arts Center, Sleeping Bea…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 11:12AM[SHARE]Friday, December 1, 2023
Yes, it's true, Sarah Silverman (b. 1970) has the same birthday as Woody Allen, Bette Midler, Richard Pryor, and Dick Shawn. Did she just decide to become a combination of all of them? She k…
SOURCE: Trav S.D. at 10:18AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
