January 2 is the day on which Isaac Asimov celebrated his birthday, and as a consequence it has now been embraced by many as Science Fiction Day. It seems like the perfect time for a brief g…
Just as the pathway nowadays to Alexander Hamilton by the masses has got to be Lin-Manuel Miranda, the way to Elmer McCurdy (1880-1911) will forever be David Yazbek, thanks to his musical De…
Also born of a New Year's Day, one of my favorite cartoonists, B. Kliban (1935-1990). Fun fact: Kliban despised his given name Bernard so much that he had it changed legally to B. To friends…
Cambridge scholar Sir James Frazer (1854-1941) was born of a New Year's Day: how perfect for him to have been born at this season of ritual renewal and rebirth, and (as it happens, here in t…
The small but hearty subculture of silent film lovers has lost a dear friend; the news just reached me by way of Thomas Gladysz of The Louise Brooks Society that Donna Hill has passed on (ye…
The December 31 birthday of Jule Styne (1905-1994) comes with its own holiday soundtrack " Styne wrote the tunes for "Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! (1945), "The Christmas Waltz" (19…
I debated holding this tribute for a year, when it will be producer Lloyd Kaufman's 80th birthday, but then we saw that his baby Troma Entertainment turned 50 years old this year, and there …
It was funny hearing Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan singing "Maggie's Farm" when I went to see A Complete Unknown yesterday. It was a favorite selection of Jimmy Carter's, and the former…
We are sad to report the inevitable: Jimmy Carter (1924-2024) has bought the peanut farm. I wrote about the late President at some length three months ago when he turned 100, and immediately…
More than usual, 2024 was a year of joys and sorrows for us here at Trav S.D. Laboratories. The sorrows you can guess at " they began around November 5. But most of the Travisian twenty-four…
Thanks, Eve Golden, for the intel that Catskills comedian Dick Capri (1931-2024) has packed his bags for the Great Mountain Hotel in the Sky. As they are wont to do, obituarians are unfailin…
I know the title of this post sounds like an American movie comedy from the 1940s, set in a small town, probably involving baseball. I'm sorry to disappoint you. Although I hope the portrait…
I never knew that Time magazine was in the business of naming "Top Ten Alaskans", but in 2009 the Iñupiaq actor Ray Mala (Ray Agnaqsiaq Wise, 1906-1952) made the list. The son of a …
Born 200 years ago, 19th century demi-mondaine Céleste Mogador (Élisabeth-Céleste Vénard, countess of Chabrillan, 1824-1909). A native Parisian, as a girl Mogador had suffered at t…
December 26, 2004 (20 years ago today) was one of the worst days in human history in terms of loss of life. Nearly a quarter of a million people were killed when a massive offshore earthquak…
The news biz would seem to be outside our beat here at Travalanche " and yet is it? Throughout the television era, broadcast news has steadily been adulterated with entertainment values, oft…
Today (Christmas, 2024), I'm pretty sure, marks the 50th anniversary of my participating in my boyhood church's annual Christmas pageant. It wasn't my first public performance (that was this…
It's tempting to lay the tone of the entire 1970s at the feet of writer Eric Monte (Kenneth Williams, born Christmas Day, 1942). I was a child throughout that decade, and Monte's creations (…
Brass bands and military marches have not been America's favorite form of music for over a century, so perhaps contemporary folks can be forgiven for not knowing a name that in his own time …
I'm a little stymied as to how I have not yet done a post on the great Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood songwriter Harry Warren (Salvatore Antonio Guaragna, 1893-1981). My best guest is I skipped…
Mike Curb (b. 1944) turns 80 today. Folks in the music biz will know the name. I hadn't particularly noted it until I came across it when researching TV variety shows. His outfit The Mike Cu…
99.99999% of the time I adamantly resist the despised designation "the most famous [x] you never heard of", mostly because young writers and editors seem to assign it to EVERYBODY, and almos…
Depicted above is the dig site at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, the remains of which is thought to be one of the oldest manmade religious structures in the world, dating to about 9500 B.C. I tell…
To be more precise, one of my two Godmothers has passed. My parents assigned my sister and I two sets of Godparents, both of whom we both share theoretically, though it's been many a decade …
The son's in town and yesterday we thought we'd note the upcoming holiday by making a pilgrimage to the incredible Christmas tree at the Metropolitan Museum, with all of its hand-covered ant…