In amongst the institutional & organizational archives, maps, genealogy, and local history books one expects to find in a library research center, The Folklife Center holds some surprising collections. One such collection is the John C. Mannix Magicians Library. This extensive collection currently contains 357 books and 117 videos & DVDs about magicians, card tricks, illusions, and one-liners dating from 1934-2006. It takes up nearly eight entire shelves in the climate contro

Elmer Stahlman (1902-1997) shared his recollections of his family's apple farm stand in 1990 as a part of a Survey of the Apple Culture in the Hudson River Valley, a project I did for Historic Hudson Valley. A version of this story was first published for the New York Folklore Newsletter, Summer 1996, Vol. 17, No. 2. I share it again with permission from New York Folklore www.nyfolklore.org. Elmer Stahlman was 8 years old in 1910 when his father, Lewis Stahlman, bought a 187

Do you remember the scene in the Broadway musical & film "The Music Man" when the mayor's wife, Eulalie MacKecknie Shinn, and the ladies dance committee perform "One Grecian urn"? That small, humorous scene was actually part of a much larger late 19th and early 20th century trend that included elocution & recitation, tableaux, pageantry, the Chautauqua, and exercise for girls and women. Pageants and tableaux viviants (French for living pictures) were very popular forms of ent

Ímar played the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library on September 20, 2018. It was the band's first ever performance in the United States, and easily one of the most astounding displays of musicianship we've been fortunate enough to witness. In the video below—shown here for the first time—the five lads tear through a version of "The Firebird" that ought to come with a warning label! Enjoy. More about the band and our series of Live! Folklife Concerts: Ímar draws on the