Nerdy Research Train
Behind the pages of any given play lives a ton of information often far removed from its audiences. Here, we are offering you a chance to catch a glimpse of this fascinating process. Hop aboard what we are calling "The Nerdy Research Train" for a journey behind the scenes of Now Circa Then, and experience the world of the play through the eyes of Carly and the creative team!
|
|
An interview with Reggi Mensch Carly interviews her mother about Grandpa Irving - a self-proclaimed witch doctor from Poland who became a furrier in America. |
|
Just the Facts, Ma'am
Historian Jill Lepore bridges the gap between academia and regular people. She's also a gorgeous writer - conversational, compelling, educational, hilarious. In this book review for the New Yorker, she traces the history of the term "history" and its relation to eighteenth century novel-writing. |
|
|
QUIRKY MUSEUMS  |
|
Museums don't have to be stuffy and boring - they can be entertaining, mysterious, interactive. One such museum inspired the world of Now Circa Then: the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. |
|
| Here are some other super specific, fun-sounding museums out there: | |
|
|
|
|
Museum of Menstruation & Women's Health Museum of Jurassic Technology* Vent Haven Ventriloquist Museum |
Icelandic Phallological Museum Sulabh International Toilet Museum |
* A word on the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles. It's a sort of meta-museum that prods visitors to question what exactly a museum is. What knowledge is, how it should be laid-out, interacted with, trusted. Without giving more away - check out Lawrence Weschler's Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders, a book that takes readers on a virtual tour through the museum. The book's subtitle says it all: "Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology". |
|
|
MORE MUSEUM STUFF |
|
|
*our favorite is: badpaintingsofbarackobama.com |
 NPR's "All Things Considered" Story A History of Museums, "The Memory of Mankind" by Bob Mondello |
|
NYC Department of City Planning Demographers |
|
|
New York City by the Numbers In the past few decades, almost every major city in America has declined in 'pop' because the loss of manufacturing bases and because, due to changing immigration laws in the '60s, immigrants did not move in to fill the void. On the contrary, New York and Los Angeles have not only been able to maintain their populations but thrive because of immigration. In Cleveland, people are leaving. In New York, people are leaving and others are coming - there's positive net migration. |
Crack demographers Joseph Salvo and Frank Vardy deliver a dizzying lecture on New York City's changing population. Check out this 2009 talk Carly heard at the Columbia School of Journalism!  WHO LIVES WHERE? Follow this link to New York City's Department of City Planning "Population" page... |
|
A word on Reenactment: Now Circa Then takes a somewhat loose and theatrical approach to reenactment. Real reenactment, however, can be a serious business. Living history towns, meticulously staged battles, impassioned presidential impersonators - there's a whole spectrum of commitment and authenticity. Here's an intro to some of the larger questions behind the world of historical role-play: "What is Reenactment?" by Vanessa Agnew A spot-on satire from The Onion Newly Unearthed Time Capsule Just Full of Useless Old Crap |
|
|
|
Because, really, why do people bury trinkets of meaning in their backyards? Time capsules feel like staged memories: you're predetermining what you will remember in the future by means of a few prize possessions. True story: On the last day of filming M*A*S*H*, cast and crew members buried a time capsule in 20th Century Fox's parking lot; months later it was dug up by a construction worker. |
|
Further reading / book recommendations:
|
|
|
Biography of a Tenement House in New York City: An Architectural History of 97 Orchard Street
|
Illness as Metaphor Beautifully written, tiny but huge. Sontag takes on Tuberculosis, cancer and AIDS, using them to talk about how the myths and metaphors surrounding a disease are ultimately more damaging than the disease itself. A lot of the TB language from the play comes from here. |
|
Amerika
Typical coming-to-America tale except that it's written by Kafka. That said - it feels more like Dickens than Kafka. Supposedly, Kafka was reading a lot of Benjamin Franklin when he wrote this. |
The Purpose of the Past by Gordon S. Wood  A dense, academic-y anthology - but the introduction is totally accessible and thought-provoking. In the intro, Wood asks the question: Why study history? His answer, in part: "History is not just comfort food for an anxious present... To understand the past in all its complexity is to acquire historical wisdom and humility and indeed a tragic sense of life. A tragic sense does not mean a sad or pessimistic sense of life; it means a sense of the limitations of life.” |
|
Assassination Vacation |
Civilwarland in Bad Decline |
|
Confederates in the Attic
War journalist Tony Horwitz takes on the subject Civil War reenactors after making friends with local "hardcores" who lived near his house in Virginia. A lot about America's ongoing obsessions with history and war. Awesome read. |
How the Other Half Lives |
