11,506 stories by "Trav S.D."
And now, since it's both National Rhode Island Day as well as the Halloween season, news of a spooky film set on a small island in the smallest state. I caught The Block Island Sound (2021) …
Ecstatic to report that I am finally realizing my long-cherished goal of doing a book event at Atomic Books in Baltimore this October 26, 2024, at 7pm. I first visited that cool emporium abo…
October 3 is the birthday of the grea drag star, singer, performance, actor Joey Arias. Born in Fayetteville, N.C. (recently hard hit by Hurricane Helene) Arias moved to L.A. with his family…
Thanks, Bob Greenberg for the very good idea to do a solo post on Bud Abbott (William Alexander Abbott, 1897-1974). The reasons for doing one (and doing one now) are multiple: 1) the many po…
100 years ago this day and this month: the birth of Surrealism (a few years longer if you count Apollinaire's coinage of the term in 1917). Yvan Goll published an obscure Surrealist Manif…
'tis the season for spooky, and I'm way into it this year, so expect plenty of horror and horror/comedy content here throughout the Halloween month. First out of the gate is a thing I have b…
Today marks the 100th birthday of former American President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924). Apart from Gerald Ford, who scarcely counts, Carter is the first President whose tenure I remember from so…
Born 100 years today, Truman Streckfus Persons (1924-1984), better known to most as Truman Capote. Mid 20th century fiction is far from my main jam, but writers of that era did leave footpri…
I briefly considered holding this piece until Andrew Dice Clay (Andrew Clay Silverstein, b. 1957) passed away so I could call it "The Diceman Goeth", but if the 45th President is any example…
Tomorrow, September 29 (2024, for those of you who don't look at the dates of things, after all this post won't always be new) is National Silent Movie Day! Lots of exciting things are happe…
Having paid tribute to David Sarnoff and the founding of the NBC empire, in the name of equal time today we give a respectful nod to William S. Paley, honcho of CBS (1901-1990). Paley's mill…
September 27, 1954 marked the premiere of NBC's The Tonight Show. That is a startling statistic. Several related superlatives amplify the impressiveness: it is the world's longest running ta…
Counterintuitive but true: if you were to cross Shug Fisher (George Clinton Fisher, 1907-1984) with Fuzzy Knight, the result would not be Suge Knight. Fisher was a rustic character actor, co…
Happy National Comic Book Day! We sieze the occasion to present you with a handy finding aid for all the comic book series we have written about on Travalanche. (Did your grandmother used to…
September 25, 1974 was the release date of the horror film The Mutations a.k.a. Freakmaker. The Mutations is the farthest thing from a classic, even (arguably) a horror classic, but it has i…
Leah Hing (1907-2001) was the first female Chinese-American pilot. The Oregon aviatrix got her pilot's license in 1934, and she definitely stunted with flying circuses, but the real reason I…
September 23 is World Gorilla Day, and to mark it, we add to our growing store of posts bundling our many posts related to particular animals. The gorillas of animals on stage and screen are…
We plugged this book a couple of days ago; time to lean into that a little more for Jim Henson's birthday! This is our seventh post about the Muppet mogul and/or his felt companions, and it'…
Folks in the New York area! Please join me, Wednesday, October 2, 7pm for a simultaneous celebration of Groucho Marx's birthday and the release of my new book The Marx Brothers Miscellany. T…
"They seek him here, they seek him there/ Those Frenchies seek him everywhere/ Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel." Baroness Orczy (Emma Magdalena Rozália MÅ
Got the word from Ms. Eve Golden that Bette Bourne (Peter Bourne, b.1939) passed away last month. It being just a few weeks prior to his natal day, I opted to wait to do a tribute. How I wis…
Born this day, yet 50 years gone, actor Allan Lane (Harry Leonard Albertshardt, 1909-1973). We cut to the chase to let you know that of Lane's over 125 screen credits, the best known are the…
OMG! So….um, I can now say I did a project with Mr. Mandy Patinkin. I just had the thrilling experience of hearing him say my name in that Mandy Patinkin voice. A podcast I recorded many m…
We first became aware of (or took note of) actress Dawn Addams (Victoria Dawn Addams, 1930-1985) from her prominent role as "Ann, the TV specialist" in Charlie Chaplin's A King in New York (…
Happy birthday to Ben Ohmart of Bear Manior Media! And good news for lovers of show biz books! Ben is offering 20% off the cover price for all Bear Manor Books through Sunday (September 22, …
