We may soon reach the point where posts about The Great Gatsby will require their own section here on Travalanche, which is funny because it is not my favorite novel by a long way. I certain…
100 years ago today (April 28, 1925), Ralph Spence's spook comedy The Gorilla opened on Broadway. We've come absurdly close to writing about this semi-classic on Travalanche in the past. For…
Today is the office pub date of Lisa Stein Haven's new book Early Buster Keaton: From the Vaudeville Stage to Comique Films: 1899-1920. This book is of especial interest to this reader as it…
April 27 was the birthday of stage actor Dan Marble (1810-1849). Marble was one of the great "stage Yankees" like Ezra Kendall, John E. Owens, Cal Stewart, Charles Mathews, James Hackett, Ge…
Sam Patch (1807-1829) was America's first daredevil. A little math will tip you off that he died young, as all the best (yet worst) daredevils do, and yet his memory lived long. He became se…
April 26 being the birthday of Anita Loos, I thought I would take the opportunity to look at her best known work, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which turns 100 years old this coming November. I …
When I first heard there was an actor named Walt Whitman (1849-1928) my first take was "You can't do that!" But of course he could. After all: a) it was his real name; and b) at the time he …
New York hot jazz lovers! I'm already booked tomorrow so I'm telling YOU so you can attend this for me! My friends from Archeophone Records Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessy will be at the …
Penguins International tells us its World Penguin Day " and who are we to squawk? We observe the day with this honor roll of penguin related characters from pop culture. We were surprised to…
It's quite true " there once was a director and producer named Orville O. Dull (Orvid Oscar Dull, 1888-1978). The jokes just write themselves, and I'm shocked that Bob and Ray didn't seize o…
Cindy Adams (b. 1930) turns 95 years old today " which means that she has never been young the entire time she has turned out her New York Post column. She started it in 1979 when she was on…
Reuben "Rube" Bloom (1902-1976) was a writer of rags and tin pan alley songs, a band leader, accompanist, and on occasion a singer. His name was pronounced "Ruby" by some back in the day. Th…
Today is Yom HaShoah, Israel's official Holocaust Remembrance Day. It takes place on the 27th day of Nisan (sundown April 23 into April 24). This is distinct from International Holocaust Rem…
April 23 being World Book Day, it seemed the ideal time to let you know about the upcoming Coney Island Book Fair, taking place at Coney Island USA on May 10! All hail Lady Aye (Ilyse Carter…
Thanks Eve Golden and Mel Newhouse for calling my attention to Sylvia Lewis (b. 1931), whom I'd certainly seen onscreen many a time without connecting all the dots. Her most prominent credit…
The recent world takeover by billionaires has inspired nothing so much in me as a desire to rub elbows at the People's Playground, Birthplace of the Nickel Hot Dog. So look for me at Coney I…
We've known she's been in hospice for weeks but I've been dreading this day for years, not because I obsess about Rochelle Denton, whom I'm mourning the loss of today, but because I'm the mo…
Wow, are the stars ever crazily aligned today. Massachusetts and a few other states celebrate Patriots Day today, a holiday that commemorates what would be called the Birth of America if we …
What a cluster of symbolically weighted days we are in the midst of. The Revolutionary anniversaries of April 18 (Paul Revere's Ride) and April 19 (Lexington and Concord) combined with yeste…
Johnny Tillotson (1938-2025) passed away back on April 1 " but that's kind of a fraught date on which to announce anything, so I figured I'd leave this little tribute to his birthday, which …
This would appear to be a rare case of Travalanche scooping both Wikipedia and IMDB. Today would have been the 92nd birthday of character actor Monte Landis (Monte Landstein, 1933-2024) had …
Born 100 years ago today, magician Harry Albacker (1925-1994) " his oft-told tale that he was born on Halloween, 1926, right after Houdini died, was a show biz fib. A lifelong native of the …
Well, I wish I was on Lexington Green today watching the re-enactors re-create what happened there 250 years ago, but c'est la guerre. I do have my "eyes on the ground" in Lexington and Conc…
A quarter of a millennium ago, on April 18, 1775, occurred Paul Revere's famous ride to alert the slumbering Minutemen to an eminent crackdown by British leaders on the rebel Patriots at Lex…
April 17 was the baptismal day of Jacobean playwright John Ford (1586-ca. 1639). That's my copy of his collected plays above. (If you're looking for the director of Hollywood westerns, go he…