11,833 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the 1931 Wheeler and Woolsey comedy Caught Plastered. In this one, the boys play a couple of failed vaudevillians who decide to help a l…
I much enjoyed the play Spinoza’s Ethics at Theater for the New City last night.  As I mentioned in this earlier post, the book this play references both solved and saved reli…
Today is the birthday of Wheeler Dryden (George Dryden Wheeler, Jr, 1892-1957). It was tempting to include him in both my Stars of Vaudeville and Stars of Slapstick series, but Dryden was ad…
A thoughtful agent friend noticed the growing snowball of posts on Travalanche about American history and my family’s role therein. As she intuited, I have been posting this raw materi…
I headed out to nearby Green-wood Cemetery for the annual Battle of Brooklyn Commemoration. Some snaps I took while I was there: Filed under: AMERICANA, BROOKLYN, HOLIDAYS/ FESTIVALS/ MEMORI…
Today is opening day of Theater for the New City’s annual Dream Up Festival. It’s great to see this festival still going strong after several years now. Many of the shows look in…
Yet another post triggered by working on The Iron Heel, this one less political than autobiographical and (quite literally) philosophical. One of my characters in the ensemble of the current…
My new feature about the Lightship Lilac and her current exhibition just hit this week’s Downtown Express. Read all about it here. As a bonus, here are are extra stray photos I took wh…
Today is St. Bartholomew’s Eve. Funny — despite having worked on this post for several days, I was thinking to myself only yesterday that August doesn’t really have a holid…
Today is the birthday of the great George Herriman (1880-1944). I almost just called Krazy Kat the greatest comic strip of all time — surely no strip has ever been greater — but …
“Why do Beft Always Go to the Left?” — Dr. Seuss Tonight, we plunge back into performances of The Iron Heel after a hiatus of several days and so it seemed a good ti…
Just heard that Arthur Hiller has passed away at the age of 92. I had been planning a post on this interesting director for a while. It occurred to me a few months ago that certain of his…
Great fun last night at the Chinatown Soup gallery for the gala opening of the one-week re-appearance of Rev Jen’s Troll Museum. The Museum (which contains more trolls than you will fi…
Today is the birthday of Davy Crockett (1786-1836). Because he has been so heavily mythologized I think there has been an unfortunate tendency to regard this important American figure as a t…
Today is the birthday of Fess Parker (1924-2010 — how did I not notice that he died so recently?) I would have been thrilled as a child to have known that I am distantly related to thi…
Was saddened yesterday to hear that Fyvush Finkel has passed at age 93. When a show biz figure dies at that age it is not unusual to be  surprised to learn that they are still alive, for …
Today’s Bob Woolsey’s birthday. Typically what I’ve done on the past on this day is re-post my blog on Wheeler and Woolsey, a neglected comedy team who’ve grown on…
Today is the birthday of Francis Ford (Francis Joseph Feeney, 1881-1953). Born in Portland, Maine to parents from Galway, Feeney served briefly in the Spanish-American War before bumming aro…
It’s that time again! The Jazz Age Lawn Party returns to Governor’s Island this weekend. Flappers! Hot Jazz! Hip Flasks! What’s not to love? Yet I think the people who actu…
Filed under: PLUGS, VISUAL ART Tagged: art models, Brickhouse Brewery, burlesque, drawing, Patchogue, sideshow sketch night
It’s that time again! Theater for the New City’s annual summer street production is under way. Read all about it in my article in this week’s Villager. As an added bonus, h…
Today is the birthday of Allen Hoskins (1920-1980) best known for his groundbreaking role as the character “Farina” in Hal Roach’s Our Gang shorts. Hoskins literally grew u…
Who knew it was International Day of Friendship in Brooklyn today? I didn’t until I was walking through Fulton Mall on my way today’s performance of The Iron Heel and passed a pa…
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Comedy, Hollywood (History), Movies, PLUGS, Silent Film Tagged: City Reliquary, Henry Lehrman, Nelson Hughes, Pathe Lehrman, silent comedies, Williamsburg
Tonight at New York’s IFC Center: opening night of the re-release of John Waters’ fully restored 1970 trashterpiece Multiple Maniacs! (With Waters there himself tonight) Wa…
