It’s been a while since I have plugged Brent Walker’s indispensable reference book Mack Sennett’s Fun Factory here but I absolutely must do so today for it made possible this post on Keystone supporting player Ted Edwards (Maurice Edward Burrell, 1884-1945). Primary sources are the bedrock of history, so let this post serve secondarily as an alarm bell. The internet, which has always been a dicey source of information, is about to get much, much worse, thanks to AI. If you’re smart, you can spot an AI generated article a mile away, with its vague information and strange wording. But not every ..read more

May 8, 1824 was the date of birth of doctor, lawyer, newspaper editor, adventurer, and illegitimate President of Nicaragua William Walker. A nephew of Philadelphia Enquirer founder and U.S. Senator John Norvell, Walker was by all objective measures an extraordinary individual. He graduated from the University of Nashville with honors at age 14. He then went on to study medicine in Philadelphia, Edinburgh and Heidelberg, and law in New Orleans. He then acquired The New Orleans Crescent, which led to his becoming an editor an The San Francisco Herald in 1851. California had only become a state ..read more

May 8, 1886 was the date on which Dr. John Pemberton (1831-1888) first sold Coca-Cola to a local Atlanta drug store, thus marking its debut on the world stage as a publicly available soft drink. Pemberton, a morphine-addicted Confederate Civil War veteran, experimented with different concoctions in an effort to come up with a formula to kick his habit. He’d been at it for 20 years by the time he came up with Coke. Earlier efforts had included “Dr. Tuggle’s Compound Syrup of Globe Flower” and “Pemberton’s French Wine Coca”, which he made by adding extract of African kola nut to Mariani Wine, a ..read more

Friday, May 10, 2024 at 5:30pm EDT Admission FREE 75 minutes UNDER St. Mark’s Theater 94 St. Mark’s Place, just east of 1st Avenue, NYC Every theater-lover should know the story of the Astor Place Riots of 1849, but it’s about much more than a fight between partisans of the two biggest actors of the day (the Yank Edwin Forrest and the Brit William Macready). Thousands participated in the brawl, leaving 30 dead and nearly 50 injured. If at first blush this street battle seems particularly insane (and all violence is insane), it must be remembered that live theatre was the primary entertainment ..read more

May 6, 1937 was the day of the Hindenburg disaster. Your correspondent has always been a big fan of the stately majesty of airship travel. I not only love the beauty of it, I love the PACE of it. In my utopia there will no longer be any need for frantic speed, for instantaneousness. You’re already where you need to be, and where you are at any given time should be savored. While I appreciate the practical boon of highways and airplanes, I detest what they have done to the landscape. If I were Zeus, I’d wave my wand or whatever he does and put every road designed for automobiles in tunnels 12 ..read more

Never mind Star Wars Day, May the 4th is the birthday of Pete Barbutti (b. 1934). How this performer would have throve in vaudeville! Barbutti is a comedy musician, a raconteur who tells long form jokes combined with his expert playing on accordion, piano, and trumpet. For a while the bass was also among his instruments of choice. He’s of the be bop generation, and is one of the rare people to sport that look all his life, a goatee and shaggy locks. His appearance reminds me of Chuck Low’s character Morrie in Goodfellas (interestingly, Martin Krugman, the real guy that character is based on ..read more

Born 100 years ago today, the great stage director Tom O’Horgan (1924-2009). Few who emerged from what used to be called Off-Off Broadway flew higher than this man, though his work is better known than he is. Sam Shepard, Bette Midler, Al Pacino, Harvey Fierstein, sure, but not many more than that. For a brief time he was among these in the upper echelon of celebrity, but in the end, to blast into hyperspace, you need to go Hollywood, and that seems like something he was disinclined and unprepared to do. And of course, he was a director and musician, not (primarily) an actor. At any rate, I’m ..read more

May 2 was the birthday of Catherine II of Russia (1729-1796), popularly known as Catherine the Great. Catherine is one of history’s most storied monarchs, renowned as much for her legend as for her actual accomplishments, which were manifold. A Machiavellian genius, she overthrew her husband Peter III after a few months of marriage and assumed complete control of a country that wasn’t even hers (by birth she was a Prussian noblewoman). It sounds…cold-blooded? And it was, though not so much as it sounds. The pair were never truly a couple, they had big political differences, and each were at t ..read more

Well, it’s May Day! We’ve visited the topic a few times in the past; see links for related writings on: May Poles, May Baskets, the Green Man, Renn Fests, Robin Hood, and May Day Eve. Today seems the perfect time to contemplate that peculiar phenomenon known as the hobby horse, associated with mummery and morris dancing, not just on May Day, but also Christmas, St. George’s Day, and other holidays. As we mentioned in our breakdown of the origin of the word “hobbit”, “hobyn” was a Middle English word for a small pony or cart horse. “Hobby horse” is thus a little redundant. And from it evolved ..read more

Born 100 years ago today: announcer, quiz show host, news anchor, and actor Art Fleming (Arthur Fleming Fazzin, 1925-1995). It was Fleming’s bad fortune to have his most notable accomplishment be eclipsed by changing times. Not to blow your minds, young ‘uns, but until I was on the eve of my 20th year, Art Fleming was known to the world as the only host there had ever been of of Jeopardy! He was the show’s original host, from 1964 to 1975, with an attempted comeback 1978-79. He also played himself as Jeopardy! host in the movies American Raspberry a.k.a. Prime Time (1977) and Airplane II: The ..read more