This is the story of my great-great uncle, Aloysius Josh Pincus, the man for whom I am named. Just prior to the turn of the twentieth century, Aloysius ran the soda fountain at Blehall’s Pharmacy, a sprawling retail establishment housed on the street level of a massive and ornate building at the corner of 14th …
The illustrationfriday.com word this week is “adapt”. A man is sitting at a table in a bar having a beer. He looks up and sees a interesting looking guy standing at the bar. The guy has a wooden leg, a hook for a hand and an eyepatch. He’s dressed in stereotypical pirate garb. The man …
Doug Kenney was one of the founders of National Lampoon magazine. He served as writer and editor from its inception in 1972 until 1977, when he left to pursue his dream of screenwriting. Along with Chris Miller and Harold Ramis, he co-wrote the screenplay for National Lampoon’s Animal House. Kenney even had the small role …
Karl Wallenda was born in Germany in 1905 to a circus performing family. He himself began performing at age 6. In 1922 he put together his own act with his brother Herman, a family friend, and a teenage girl, Helen Kreis, who eventually became his wife. The act toured Europe for several years, performing some …
Sarah Holcomb only appeared in four movies in her brief three-year career. Chances are, you’ve seen half of them. At 18, Sarah made her film debut in National Lampoon’s Animal House as Clorette DePasto, the underage virginal daughter of shady mayor Carmine DePasto. She meets Larry (played by future Academy Award nominee Tom Hulce) when …
When I was a kid, my mom introduced me to what would become my life-long appreciation for novelty records. As long as there have been different genres and trends in popular music, there has been someone making fun of it. In my mom’s era, there was Spike Jones. My mom had several of Jones’ 78s …
Lena Zavaroni grew up on the Isle of Bute (a part of Scotland) and began singing at the age of two. At nine, she appeared on the British talent search program, Hughie Green’s Opportunity Knocks and won the show for a record-breaking five consecutive weeks. She released Ma, He’s Making Eyes At Me, a collection …
The Monday Artday challenge word this week is “lucky”. On June 2, 1925, Yankees manager Miller Huggins replaced regular first baseman Wally Pipp in the starting lineup. Pipp was in a slump, so Huggins made the change to boost the team’s overall performance. Huggins started Lou Gehrig instead. He stayed in the lineup for fourteen years. Although he played …
The inspirational word on Inspire Me Thursday is “petals”. Long before Stephen Lynch and Weird Al Yankovic and Allan Sherman, there was Spike Jones. Spike Jones and his City Slickers kept Americans laughing from the early 1940s through the 1960s with his crazy versions of classical and big band standards. In addition to the usual …
The illustration friday challenge word this week is “contagious”. The Masque of the Red Death was written and published in 1842 by Edgar Allan Poe. It tells the story of a horribly contagious plague, called The Red Death, that is sweeping across the land. The symptoms of the Red Death are gruesome. The victim is …
