Tag: Entertainment
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Santa Claus’s Mistake
At first glance, this struck me as just a relic from an era when racial segregation was an intriguing idea (more on that topic will be posted Friday). But then I remembered that pretty much the same joke was used recently on The Office in an episode where Toby ends up stuck with a black […]
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Kinship Of All Nations Is Shown In Their Toys
This article talks about the variations on Santa Claus that can be found in different cultures worldwide, but I was more interested in the discussion of how our toys are similar. The Brooklyn Museum’s toy expert Stewart Culin notes that throughout the world children play with pretty much the same toys. The casual observer, when […]
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Seeking The Explanation Of Reese’s “Mind Reading”
Last week, the Sunday Magazine ran an article on W. Bert Reese, the amazing wizard whose powers astound scientists. There was debate even among those who should know better (*ahem* Thomas Edison) over whether Reese actually could do what he seemed to do. Harry Houdini said later that he detected Reese’s psychic tricks at a […]
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Wizard With Amazing Powers Astounds Scientists
For most of the past several weeks, the Magazine published articles about how amazing someone’s magic or telepathic powers are and how they mystify science. But they also published articles explaining the secrets of magic tricks and special effects. You’d think someone would have figured that perhaps they are one and the same. This week, […]
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Magicians Tell The Secret Of Famous Tricks
In the 1980s and ’90s, magic duo Penn & Teller earned a reputation for giving away the secrets of magic tricks, becoming known as the Bad Boys of Magic. They would even perform some tricks using clear props that revealed how they were done. But the truth is that Penn & Teller’s reveals were fairly […]
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How Popular Song Factories Manufacture A Hit
100 years ago, music radio stations did not yet exist. But record players were around, so people could purchase music to play at home. So now the music industry had to figure out what kind of records people would buy. Is it the same kind of music they would go hear in a performance hall? […]
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How A Man With An Idea Made Millions In Twelve Years
This is the story of Eldredge Reeves Johnson, the man who built the Victor Talking Machine Company, one of the most successful phonograph companies at the time. (The word “phonograph” there links to the wikipedia entry for “gramaphone record” for the young’uns.) The article tells not only the events of Johnson’s success story, but also […]
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How Those Amusing Freak Moving Pictures Are Made
By 1910, jaded audiences were already tired of the primitive special effects in movies. They demanded more! Tricks popular a few years ago are being abandoned. Sophisticated audiences demand that the ideas be worked out in a logical way. This forced the manufacturers to drop the obvious or merely ingenious… The result has been that […]
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Lure of Viennese Waltz Wins Wealth For Composers
An interesting look at the popularity of Viennese waltz in the turn of the last century. As you read, please enjoy Johann Strauss’ 1866 piece An der schönen blauen Donau, known in English as The Blue Danube: LURE OF VIENNESE WALTZ WINS WEALTH FOR COMPOSERS: The Vogue of the Music of Lehar, Strauss and Leo […]
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