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04
Feb 14

Alligator-Horses: New Documentary Film Premieres In Houston

Alligator-Horses Brian Huberman documentaryA film nearly 15 years in the making, Alligator-Horses is an epic documentary film about 1830s America and the lesser known events from the period that continue to influence our national identity today.

Download full press release.

Don’t miss the premiere which, in addition to a film screening, features a public discussion with the filmmakers, Brian Huberman and Ed Hugetz, and interviewees from the film: author David Shields and scholar Carroll Smith-Rosenberg.

RSVP on Facebook (optional).

Film poster designed by Carlos Hernandez 

Film screening & reception: 6:00 p.m., March 21, 2014 @ Rice Media Center

Conference: 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., March 22, 2014 (same location)

All events are free and open to the public.

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21
Dec 13

Alligator-Horses Premieres March 21

Alligator Horses Conference

Join us for the premiere of Alligator-Horses at Rice Media Center on Friday, March 21, 2014 (6-10pm). The film screening will be followed by a reception. And on Saturday, March 22 (9am-4pm), invited scholars and members of Rice faculty will discuss the film.

Alligator-Horses is a documentary about the so-called raunchy youth of 1830s America viewed through the lens of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Materials used to evoke our perspective of the time period include Penny Press newspapers, Davy Crockett Almanacs, Blackface minstrel songs and a cast of contemporary scholars including Rice Faculty and students. The three-hour documentary is structured around famous and lesser-known events, including King Phillip’s War, Davy Crockett’s tour of the northeast, the murder of New York prostitute Helen Jewett, Jim Crow at the Bowery Theater and the Anti-Abolition riots of 1834.

If you are interested in attending the film screening and conference, please RSVP via our contact form.

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02
May 10

Last Stand for Alligator-Horses film?

Next week I’m driving to Nacogdoches, TX., to film perhaps the final scene for Alligator-Horses. I’m filming an interview with Linda Nicklas, former director of the East Texas Research Center, about her research on the life of Richard P. Robinson, called Parmalee in Texas.

Robinson was charged and aquitted with the murder of Helen Jewett, a New York prostitute. It was a notorious event in New York and was the first tabloid murder fueled by the up-and-coming penny press.

An emblem of the Alligator-Horses hunter

Robinson, like Jewett, were both Alligator-Horses. Free souls liberated from family & church that defined & constrained Americans of an earlier generation. They were products of the 1830s, a wild and exuberant decade full of self-discovery & violence.

Jewett fell victim to an an axe & Robinson went to Texas, as did so many under the shadow of scandal.

Robinson changed his name to Parmalee (his mother’s maiden name) & settled in Nacogdoches, where he became fairly successful as a businessman and district clerk.He died in the 1850’s and, like Helen Jewett, lies in an unmarked grave.

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25
Dec 09

1836 New York…on a hanky

This hanky, depicting an 1836 map of New York, wins the blue ribbon for being the best Xmas gift given in the Huberman family this year. It’s pretty detailed…for a hanky Made in China..

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This may or may not be about where the infamous 5 Points were (are), just northeast of that triangle-shaped park.

Beware Bill the Butcher when you visit this place.

Daniel Day Lewis plays Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York

Daniel Day Lewis plays Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York

Alligator Horses is about the cultural climate during this same time period in America, around the time this map would have (mostly) accurately described New York. Stay tuned for updates on the film, which is nearing completion as we speak. Yes, even on Christmas. No rest for the documentary filmmaker, toiling to unearth dark truths about America’s past.

Some other gifts given among the Huberman clan here.

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25
Dec 09

More blackface in the news…this time thanks to Tyra Banks

Americas Top Model contestant in blackface

America's Top Model contestant in "blackface"

Another media kerfluffle surrounding blackface, or what seems to be described as “basically blackface.”

The story on Tyra Bank’s transgression here.

But the real matter seems to be: why does this make people so uncomfortable? I certainly understand why, myself.  But no one seems to really discuss it…

It will be very interesting to see people’s reaction to the use of blackface in the BH film, Alligator Horses, which is currently in the final stages of editing.

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