Adam Selzer's Blog, page 2
August 8, 2015
Ghosts of Lincoln
My new Ghosts of Lincoln book is out from Llewelyn next month; early copies arrived at my door the other day. It's up for pre-order at all of the usual sites, and I sometimes have copies available on tours. Ghosts of Lincoln takes all the stories about Lincoln haunting the White House, predicting his own death, attending seances, etc and attempts to trace them back to their sources. I couldn't believe some of the stuff I found - I ran into earlier sources on his famous "Who's dead in the White House" dream" than have previously been examined, and found previously un-studied independent verification that he attended at least one seance in the White House (he thought the whole thing was a joke), and lots of new data on the story that he once rode on a flying piano (which I really want to believe is true). I even found time to examine the provenance of tales about his grand plan to poop in Austen Gollaher's hat. .
Over the fall I'll be making several radio appearances talking about it, in addition to my usual fall schedule of ghost tours. I'll also be doing a few new historical walking tours for Atlas Obscura - details coming soon. And on August 20th, I'll be on a "Ghost Hunting" panel at WizardWorld in Chicago.
And for a hint of what's coming next, head on over the Derelict Theater.com ... or 82ndStreetRules.com ...
July 19, 2015
Some News
1. I've turned in the last draft of Kill Me Now, my next novel, to my editor at Simon and Schuster. Due out next fall.
2. My Ghosts of Lincoln book is out Sept 18!
3. I've been playing music around town under the name 82nd Street. Our next gig is Friday, July 24, at The Mutiny in Chicago. I last played there about ten years ago. There are demos up on the soundcloud page.
4. Now that the novel is turned in I'm back in earnest at the Mysterious Chicago Blog. There was a new post about a nun who turned to stone the other day, and this week there'll be five new posts about the Eastland disaster, including some new-to-the-internet photos.
2. My Ghosts of Lincoln book is out Sept 18!
3. I've been playing music around town under the name 82nd Street. Our next gig is Friday, July 24, at The Mutiny in Chicago. I last played there about ten years ago. There are demos up on the soundcloud page.
4. Now that the novel is turned in I'm back in earnest at the Mysterious Chicago Blog. There was a new post about a nun who turned to stone the other day, and this week there'll be five new posts about the Eastland disaster, including some new-to-the-internet photos.
June 1, 2015
Screening the 1916 Sherlock Holmes Right Where It Was Filmed!
When we were working on Flickering Empire, my recent book about silent film in Chicago, we mentioned that Chicago's Essanay Studios made the first Sherlock Holmes move in 1916. However, like the vast majority of Chicago silent films, it was now lost. A print was discovered in France last year - just in time to be mentioned as a footnote in the book!
From the day the discovery was announced, I've been in touch with the people working on the restoration and, later, with Atlas Obscura, working to help bring the film back to Chicago. And now I'm pleased to announce that on June 19th, we'll be hosting a screening of the film, in a new 35mm print, AT the old Essanay Studios. There'll be vintage cocktails, a band playing a live score, and a presentation by Michael Glover Smith and me!
Here are the details.
From the day the discovery was announced, I've been in touch with the people working on the restoration and, later, with Atlas Obscura, working to help bring the film back to Chicago. And now I'm pleased to announce that on June 19th, we'll be hosting a screening of the film, in a new 35mm print, AT the old Essanay Studios. There'll be vintage cocktails, a band playing a live score, and a presentation by Michael Glover Smith and me!
Here are the details.
May 25, 2015
Live at Geek Bar Beta, 6/15
Hey! Been a while since I played a gig as a songwriter. I've done a gig of songs by The Back Row Hooligans (my messed-up children's band) and with Scapegoat (my band from 8th grade) but I don't think I've really played a full set of my "regular" songs in about 5 years.
That'll change on June 15th at 7pm, when I play a set as part of the Windycon Music Night at Geek Bar Beta, 1941 W. North Ave.
I've started writing songs again lately, and plan to play mostly new material here. Some titles include "Just Like Big Jake's YA Novel Blues," "Nametags of the Damned," "Holy Quest," "Fairy Godmofo," "Sequels to 'I Kissed a Zombie'," and "Co-Star." Most of them are based on stuff from my books - both published ones and ones I never have gotten around to writing. The songs are helping to develop the stories of the unwritten ones a lot! I've been writing and recording demos of about 5 songs a week this month, and I can't wait to show them off.
Anyway, that's Geek Bar Beta, June 15th, 7pm. The place is all-ages before 9pm, and the show is free. Also on the bill are Three Fifths and Dan the Bard. All of this is to promote Windycon in November - I'll be playing a set there, too! Not sure yet if I'll be playing solo, with a backup band, or what, but it'll be a fun way to spend a summer night.
Other than that, I'm working on several new book projects, including revisions on Kill Me Now, my next novel, which Simon and Schuster will publish next year.
That'll change on June 15th at 7pm, when I play a set as part of the Windycon Music Night at Geek Bar Beta, 1941 W. North Ave.
I've started writing songs again lately, and plan to play mostly new material here. Some titles include "Just Like Big Jake's YA Novel Blues," "Nametags of the Damned," "Holy Quest," "Fairy Godmofo," "Sequels to 'I Kissed a Zombie'," and "Co-Star." Most of them are based on stuff from my books - both published ones and ones I never have gotten around to writing. The songs are helping to develop the stories of the unwritten ones a lot! I've been writing and recording demos of about 5 songs a week this month, and I can't wait to show them off.
Anyway, that's Geek Bar Beta, June 15th, 7pm. The place is all-ages before 9pm, and the show is free. Also on the bill are Three Fifths and Dan the Bard. All of this is to promote Windycon in November - I'll be playing a set there, too! Not sure yet if I'll be playing solo, with a backup band, or what, but it'll be a fun way to spend a summer night.
Other than that, I'm working on several new book projects, including revisions on Kill Me Now, my next novel, which Simon and Schuster will publish next year.
February 19, 2015
Flickering Empire All Over the News!
In all these years and all these books, I've never had anything LIKE the response that Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the US Film Industry has received. Mike and I have recorded a handful of radio interviews (we're about to do another this afternoon!), and the book is being written up in major press outlets. Just today, Chicagoist said "Smith and Selzer clearly did their homework, and the result is a book that immediately joins the ranks of essential film references." Wow!It also got written up today in The Chicago Tribune , and was also recently featured on a Turner Classic Movies blog.
Mike and I recently sat and chatted about it with Andy Miles of Transistor - hear it here. We also chatted with Patti Vasquez on WGN.
Our launch party is Saturday night at Transistor (3400 block of N. Broadway in Chicago) at 8pm - we'll be talking and screening some very rare films. Look out for more events, lectures, parties and talks soon!
January 20, 2015
Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the US Film Industry
Hi, everybody! Just a quick plug here - today, Jan 20th, Flickering Empire, my new book on Chicago silent film, is available through the film studies branch Columbia University Press. Though I try to cite my sources and hold myself up to reasonable academic standards in even my most down-to-earth work, this is my first "scholarly" book, written in collaboration with Michael Glover Smith.Mike and I will be on WGN Radio's Pretty Late with Patti Vasquez tonight to discuss it. You can hear our 2011 podcasts exploring old silent film studios here and here
Chicago's role in the early film industry is largely forgotten today, but for a few years there we were a prototype Hollywood, producing early examples of serials, color films, feature-length films, and a whole host of other things that had never been seen before. Flickering Empire is the first book-length study of Chicago's role in the nascent industry, from the moving pictures that were (and weren't) on display at the 1893 World's Fair to the collapse of the local industry a quarter of a century later. To research the book I traveled the country seeking out the handful of films that survive, met with relatives of major players in the industry, and generally had a blast!
January 9, 2015
Thoughts on "Mr. Burns: A Post Electric Play"
Let’s say that seven years ago, a series of melt-downs and fires killed 99% of all people. Electricity is gone. Cans of Diet Coke are a rare commodity, even though, statistically, they donn’t seem like they should be (there were a LOT of Cokes in the world vs few people surviving, right?) Forgetting for a moment that batteries and some ingenuity OUGHT to make it possible to rig up a TV now and then, let’s say that every bit of recorded media - TV, CDs, computers, etc - are just as gone as most of your loved ones, and no one’s seen a bit of television or heard a rock song in seven years.
Living in that world, when you went out for entertainment, which would you really rather see - a Shakespeare play, or a theatrical recreation of one of your favorite Simpsons episodes, complete with commercials? Sure, they get some scenes wrong and the costumes are awful, but imagine how much more of a comfort food a sitcom could become in that world. Besides being funny and brilliant enough to remind us that humanity did some good things before, and could do so again…well, don’t tell me you never spend an afternoon watching old commercials from your childhood on youtube. Nostalgia would be important in that world - theatrical recreations of TV shows wouldn’t just bring back memories, they would assure that not everything was lost. We still had the stories.
This is the setup for Act 2 of Mr Burns: A Post Electric Play, now in previews at Theater Wit on Belmont here in Chicago. Having read about the show when it first premiered, I bought a ticket for the very first preview. After a sort-of meandering first act, in which a group of survivors huddled in the woods shortly after some sort of nuclear holocaust compare notes, trade rumors, and amuse themselves by trying to remember every detail of Cape Feare (the episode where the Simpsons go into Witness Protection while fleeing Sideshow Bob), Act 2 picks up 7 years later, following the members of a ragtag theatrical troupe who specializes in Simpsons episodes. Some of their recreations are better than others. To fill the gaps, they buy “lines” from people who remember them (or claim to), they envy troupes with enough batteries to use flashlights on “A Streetcar Named Marge,” debate whether they should produce a shitty “The Springfield Files” just because people remember loving the episode, and help each other cope - with PTSD, with ever-present fears of brain damage or more fires, and with the constant threat of violence and dwindling resources. It’s a brilliant set-up, and I only wished it were longer. This concept of post-apocalyptic repertory theatre is so richly presented, so vividly imagined, that I wanted this troupe to have its own TV series.
Even in this world, though, in the first years after the grid came down when authenticity in scripts is still currency, the stories are starting to evolve in tiny little ways to fit the changing needs of the audience.
Moving up 75 years in the timeline, the third act is another troupe’s version of “Cape Feare,” an odd kabuki Gilbert and Sullivan panto in which the story is barely recognizable. Few alive by this time can probably remember actually seeing an episode of The Simpsons, and the story has changed with the times. Now, The Simpsons are fleeing nuclear fallout, not Sideshow Bob, and the villain has become Mr. Burns (an obvious symbol for the nuclear plants that had something to do with the holocaust).It’s a hilarious, utterly strange, terribly disturbing, and finally uplifting melange of second-hand pop culture references - besides The Simpsons there’s some Eminem, Return of the Jedi, Night of the Hunter, and other snippets that have survived and simply become a part of a new generation’s consciousness. We can see many of the layers of purpose this version of the show holds for its intended post-apocalypic audience: comfort, a connection to the past, memory of a trauma still felt, even second-hand, and the power of music, stories and love to inspire resilience in terrible circumstances. Even when the changes from the source material seem bizarre, we understand how they evolved.
And hell, maybe these stories have already evolved. During the recent “Every Simpsons Ever” marathon I sat parked in front of my screen for days, feeling like my life was flashing before my eyes and seeing parallels between characters in The Simpsons and characters in The Pickwick Papers, which previous generations knew as well as we know The Simpsons. My rambles on it went on long enough to fill half a book.
Mr Burns: A Post Electric Play is one of the strangest plays I have ever seen, and one of the most thought-provoking in its commentaries on the power and purpose of narrative and pop culture. The sense of camaraderie one sometimes senses in the characters felt as though it extended into the audience; I’ve seldom seen a play inspire so much friendly chatter among strangers between acts. It’s not a perfect play, but it’s certainly one I’ll never forget.
Living in that world, when you went out for entertainment, which would you really rather see - a Shakespeare play, or a theatrical recreation of one of your favorite Simpsons episodes, complete with commercials? Sure, they get some scenes wrong and the costumes are awful, but imagine how much more of a comfort food a sitcom could become in that world. Besides being funny and brilliant enough to remind us that humanity did some good things before, and could do so again…well, don’t tell me you never spend an afternoon watching old commercials from your childhood on youtube. Nostalgia would be important in that world - theatrical recreations of TV shows wouldn’t just bring back memories, they would assure that not everything was lost. We still had the stories.
This is the setup for Act 2 of Mr Burns: A Post Electric Play, now in previews at Theater Wit on Belmont here in Chicago. Having read about the show when it first premiered, I bought a ticket for the very first preview. After a sort-of meandering first act, in which a group of survivors huddled in the woods shortly after some sort of nuclear holocaust compare notes, trade rumors, and amuse themselves by trying to remember every detail of Cape Feare (the episode where the Simpsons go into Witness Protection while fleeing Sideshow Bob), Act 2 picks up 7 years later, following the members of a ragtag theatrical troupe who specializes in Simpsons episodes. Some of their recreations are better than others. To fill the gaps, they buy “lines” from people who remember them (or claim to), they envy troupes with enough batteries to use flashlights on “A Streetcar Named Marge,” debate whether they should produce a shitty “The Springfield Files” just because people remember loving the episode, and help each other cope - with PTSD, with ever-present fears of brain damage or more fires, and with the constant threat of violence and dwindling resources. It’s a brilliant set-up, and I only wished it were longer. This concept of post-apocalyptic repertory theatre is so richly presented, so vividly imagined, that I wanted this troupe to have its own TV series.
Even in this world, though, in the first years after the grid came down when authenticity in scripts is still currency, the stories are starting to evolve in tiny little ways to fit the changing needs of the audience.
Moving up 75 years in the timeline, the third act is another troupe’s version of “Cape Feare,” an odd kabuki Gilbert and Sullivan panto in which the story is barely recognizable. Few alive by this time can probably remember actually seeing an episode of The Simpsons, and the story has changed with the times. Now, The Simpsons are fleeing nuclear fallout, not Sideshow Bob, and the villain has become Mr. Burns (an obvious symbol for the nuclear plants that had something to do with the holocaust).It’s a hilarious, utterly strange, terribly disturbing, and finally uplifting melange of second-hand pop culture references - besides The Simpsons there’s some Eminem, Return of the Jedi, Night of the Hunter, and other snippets that have survived and simply become a part of a new generation’s consciousness. We can see many of the layers of purpose this version of the show holds for its intended post-apocalypic audience: comfort, a connection to the past, memory of a trauma still felt, even second-hand, and the power of music, stories and love to inspire resilience in terrible circumstances. Even when the changes from the source material seem bizarre, we understand how they evolved.
And hell, maybe these stories have already evolved. During the recent “Every Simpsons Ever” marathon I sat parked in front of my screen for days, feeling like my life was flashing before my eyes and seeing parallels between characters in The Simpsons and characters in The Pickwick Papers, which previous generations knew as well as we know The Simpsons. My rambles on it went on long enough to fill half a book.
Mr Burns: A Post Electric Play is one of the strangest plays I have ever seen, and one of the most thought-provoking in its commentaries on the power and purpose of narrative and pop culture. The sense of camaraderie one sometimes senses in the characters felt as though it extended into the audience; I’ve seldom seen a play inspire so much friendly chatter among strangers between acts. It’s not a perfect play, but it’s certainly one I’ll never forget.
December 27, 2014
My Time Out Chicago blog (and other news)
Time Out Chicago, a local magazine, asked if I'd like to create a blog for them about odd and interesting Chicago history stuff.So I now have a Time Out Blog that I'm referring to as "Adam in the Archives," since most posts will involve me digging obscure stories from old newspaper archives. I have two posts up so far, with one or two per week coming up.
Christmas Tragedies recounts a few tales of woe from the papers of a century ago (when taste and propriety were not exactly the order of the day).
Chaplin's Censorship in Chicago tells about how we actually had a government group that censored movies in Chicago 100 years ago - it seems timely given all the fuss over The Interview, which I take pretty personally - many of my books are satirical in nature, and I'm on the "banned books list." I don't care if the movie is any good or if Sony is milking it for publicity; if some country had hacked General Motors we'd have bombed them by now. But even before the release was (briefly) shelved and the President started talking about it, I kept seeing people saying "Well, Spider-Man 3 sucked, and I think Franco is annoying, so go, North Korea, go." This bugged me a lot. If you can't make fun of Kim Jong Un, who can you make fun of? If the answer is "no one," we may have reached some sort of Twitter-era singularity.
Anyway, no foreign nations launched attacks on us over Charlie Chaplin's Hitler-bashing The Great Dictator in 1941, but Chaplin ran afoul of local censors in 1914 over a two-reeler in which he spends about half the film pantless. This week marks exactly 100 years since Chaplin moved to Chicago; it was supposed to be a long-term move but only lasted a few weeks.
This ties neatly into a plug for Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the US Film Industry, which I co-wrote with Michael Glover Smith. I'll be out Jan 20 and, being published by the film studies arm of Columbia University Press, it's my first "scholarly" book. That's Chaplin in the center of the cover photo, during his brief time at Chicago's Essanay studios. Bitter and cynical old cuss that I am regarding publishing (a process that I describe as "95% misery and humiliation, 5% free food,") the books seems to be selling pretty well! As of this writing it's #6 in its category on Amazon and in the top 70k overall, which is a number I think I only ever hit with my novels when one of them is getting banned in Idaho.
While I'm making this rambling post (to show off my page's new look), there've been a couple of nifty posts over on The Mysterious Chicago blog lately:
The Mystery of Zanzic tells the story of an odd Chicago house set up to run fake seances in 1893 - according to a story Houdini retold years later, one customer died while doing it with what he thought was the ghost of his dead wife. Tough story to verify, but it's reasonably to imagine that if you were a magician getting rid of a body after something like that, you wouldn't fill out much paperwork.
The Strange Death of Lazarus Averbuch tells of the time the Chicago police chief shot a guy dead because he looked like he might be an anarchist. There were and are plenty of questions as to why the guy had really come to the chief's house, and plenty of reason to suspect that the chief just shot the guy because he thought he looked scary and panicked. But you can probably guess whether he was ever indicted.
And in William Duvol: Chicago's Only Revolutionary Soldier? I dig into a mysterious grave at Rosehill Cemetery that may or may not be the grave of a revolutionary soldier (he'd be the only one buried in the city that we know of; most revolutionary vets were long dead by the time Chicago began to grow).
That's about all of the news from here in Chicago. Jan 11th I'm the "paranormal guest" at an indie pro-wrestling event in Minneapolis, and I'll be at the ALA convention here on February 1st, signing VERY early advance copies of my Ghosts of Lincoln book at the Llewellyn booth. My recent novel Play Me Backwards is up for a "funniest YA book" award over at YA Books Central, and I'd like to quickly plug The Wormhole, 1462 N Milwaukee Ave, where I've been coming to write every day. It has a full-size Delorean, a working Nintendo, and all sorts of 80s toys as decorations all over. I love it here.
December 9, 2014
Heavy Metal Vomit Christmas Party
Here's a little number I tossed up recently in the Caribbean:
(recorded with The Back Row Hooligans and re-released as part of the PLAY ME BACKWARDS: A Novel For Young Adults Who Worship the Devil companion EP.)
Christmas with the family, my wife and kids are hereThe fire is warm oh what more could I wantbut there's something missing, I'm tugging at the stringsof my sweater, which has reindeer on the front they're fuzzy in their splendor, but don't bring back the glow that christmas with my family brought me all those years ago so can we have a heavy metal vomit christmas party please? if no one pukes, it doesn't feel like christmas time to me You'd better not cry, you'd better not pout I'm getting my dokken tapes back out let's get a mosh pit going all around the christmas tree
Every year my cousins would dub each others tapesas we played them on my grandma's stereowe'd beat up on my brother, and act like youth gone wildburning things, and making demons in the snow We'd see how hard we could bang our heads against the wall I'm bleeding in the shots of me with santa at the mall oh can we have a heavy metal vomit christmas party please the smell of vodka makes it feel like christmas time to me when the grown-up table began to pray, the kids table knocked the night away shouting at the devil all around the christmas tree
I believe we need a heavy metal vomit christmas party please I want my kids to know what what feels like christmas time to me heedless of the wind and weather, let's all shout "no life til leather!"
I sold my soul for rock and roll around the christmas tree
(recorded with The Back Row Hooligans and re-released as part of the PLAY ME BACKWARDS: A Novel For Young Adults Who Worship the Devil companion EP.)
Christmas with the family, my wife and kids are hereThe fire is warm oh what more could I wantbut there's something missing, I'm tugging at the stringsof my sweater, which has reindeer on the front they're fuzzy in their splendor, but don't bring back the glow that christmas with my family brought me all those years ago so can we have a heavy metal vomit christmas party please? if no one pukes, it doesn't feel like christmas time to me You'd better not cry, you'd better not pout I'm getting my dokken tapes back out let's get a mosh pit going all around the christmas tree
Every year my cousins would dub each others tapesas we played them on my grandma's stereowe'd beat up on my brother, and act like youth gone wildburning things, and making demons in the snow We'd see how hard we could bang our heads against the wall I'm bleeding in the shots of me with santa at the mall oh can we have a heavy metal vomit christmas party please the smell of vodka makes it feel like christmas time to me when the grown-up table began to pray, the kids table knocked the night away shouting at the devil all around the christmas tree
I believe we need a heavy metal vomit christmas party please I want my kids to know what what feels like christmas time to me heedless of the wind and weather, let's all shout "no life til leather!"
I sold my soul for rock and roll around the christmas tree
November 25, 2014
Emotive Portraits of Imperial Commander
Here's Imperial Commander, from the Return of the Jedi era of Kenner's Star Wars action figure line. My friends and I used to call him "The Imperial Stockbroker," and he used his evil skills at middle management, corporate cronyism, teambuilding, and insider trading to serve the Empire.These same games also usually had Obi-Wan playing a crotchety old man who turned the hose on anyone who tried to get into the Rebel base, and Boba Fett as a kamikaze guy whose rocket pack was not a rocket at all, but a bomb strapped to his back. He would blow himself up at the base, but have just enough muscles left in his butt to crawl back to to his assistant manager, the Imperial Stockbroker.
Looking back, I'm a bit amazed that we had such a good sense of the absurdity and inherent comic possibilities of mid-level management meatballs, and while taking some pics of the new Rebels figures with the old guys, I found that the hang-dog expression on the Imperial Stockbroker's face was a gold mine. Taking shots of him is WAY more fun than taking selfies. So here are some emotive portraits, taken around town in the last couple days, when I've had about three days of continuing tour work, which I've been documenting on my instagram.
PORTRAITS OF AN IMPERIAL MID-LEVEL MANAGER:
Imperial Commander cruises through the galaxy, looking for the heart of Saturday night.
With an Olmec head that has roughly his same expression as him.
"So, it was like the Death Star of Chicago?" Imperial Commander at the site of the H.H. Holmes "Murder Castle" in Englewood.
Paris Street, Rainy Day
In an early 19th century painting.
"Yes, m'lord. The Empire must establish an outpost in Canada..."
"He'd look good in a hologram."
Diagon Alley, London. Lots of people trying to scare me with their sorcerer's ways...
Off to the next adventure...
