Arlen’s Events Blog

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14 @ 5:30pm EST:

Deconstructing The Twilight Zone: “EYE OF THE BEHOLDER” webinar via NY Adventure Club!

What many consider the greatest episode of the legendary television series The Twilight Zone, “Eye of the Beholder,” was written by series creator and head writer, Rod Serling (1924-75).

The script is a hallmark of Serling’s style: strong on theme, poetic dialogue, morality, and suspense, as he takes the age-old adage about beauty and gives it a thorough Twilight Zone treatment, capped by a truly unforgettable ending that burns into your brain forever. The deft direction, stunning lighting, camerawork, and makeup are artistically audacious and utterly memorable.

Hosted by Twilight Zone historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, Visions from The Twilight Zone and The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone), his multimedia webinar will discuss and disseminate “Eye of the Beholder” via clips, still images from the episode, from the series, and from the broader pop culture, then and. now, itself influenced by the tremendous, lasting impact of this single, and singular Twilight Zone episode!

TIX: tinyurl.com/mtcweka5

*CAN’T make it LIVE? Buy a ticket so you can watch the video recording for 1 week!

Tuesday, October 6 @ 5:30pm EST:

“1966: The Greatest Pop Culture Year of the ’60s” webinar via NY Adventure Club!

While practically every year of the tumultuous decade of the 1960s was chock-full of spectacular pop culture creations that have become timeless touchstones of the era, perhaps no other year had more of them, spanning all genres and mediums, of more lasting impact here in the 21st Century, than 1966!

From the camp classic Batman television series that kicked off a year of “Batmania,” to the burst of fabulous fall fantasy TV series: Star Trek, Time Tunnel, Mission: Impossible, and The Green Hornet (co-starring then-unknown Bruce Lee!); from the incredible rock & roll landmark albums of The Beach Boys (Pet Sounds), Bob Dylan (Blonde on Blonde), and The Beatles (Revolver), to the debut of “The American Beatles,” The Monkees! And MORE!

So join New York Adventure Club and pop culture historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art, The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone) for a deep dive into one of the most pivotal years of the mid-1960s, when pop culture reached new heights across every medium!

TIX: tinyurl.com/4bds78zp

Can’t make it LIVE? Buy a ticket & get access to the webinar recording for 1 week!

Wednesday, September 30 @ 5:30pm EST:

“1965: The In-Between Year” webinar via NY Adventure Club!

While the years 1964 and 1966 might have had more debuts of pop cultural landmarks that signify the creative explosion that was The Sixties, the year 1965 nevertheless contained its own significant number of pop culture evergreens that premiered that year!

From The Beatles playing the first-ever stadium concert at Shea Stadium, to Bob Dylan’s two landmark electric albums Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited; from Bondmania in the movies (Goldfinger, released December ’64 to Thunderball in December ’65), to its influence on TV (Honey West, I-Spy, The Wild, Wild West, and Get Smart); from Pop Art (with Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein at the forefront) to comic book art (Jack Kirby creating The Silver Surfer, Galactus, and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD)–1965 was bursting with pop culture popularity!

So join New York Adventure Club and pop culture historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art, The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone) for a deep dive into one of the most pivotal years of the mid-1960s, when pop culture reached new heights across every medium!

TIX: tinyurl.com/47cb3f6r

Can’t make it LIVE? Buy a ticket & get access to the webinar recording for 1 week!

Wednesday, September 23 @ 5:30pm EST:

“1964: When the ’60s Became the ’60s” webinar via NY Adventure Club!

While the 20th century is packed with culturally defining moments in American entertainment history, no year was more transformative than 1964!

In a single year, American popular culture changed forever with musical moments like The Beatles’ debut on American television and Bob Dylan’s declarative “The Times They Are a-Changin’”; theatrical debuts like Fiddler on the Roof and Funny Girl (featuring Barbara Streisand); and film debuts like Mary Poppins and Goldfinger! And so much more!

So join New York Adventure Club and pop culture historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art, The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone) for a deep dive into one of the most pivotal years of the mid-1960s, when pop culture reached new heights across every medium!

TIX: bit.ly/4j6j4vy

Can’t make it LIVE? Buy a ticket & get access to the webinar recording for 1 week!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 @ 5:30pm EST:

Deconstructing The Twilight Zone #8: “SHADOW PLAY” webinar via NY Adventure Club

Rod Serling’s immortal television series The Twilight Zone used the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres to tell incisive stories that dealt with the social and societal issues of its time. In doing so, Serling and Co. created some of the most indelible half-hours of filmed television drama ever made.

One of those half-hours was The Twilight Zone season two episode, the aptly titled “Shadow Play” (the second of writer Charles Beaumont’s two great Twilight Zone episodes about the nature of dreams and reality; the other, season one’s “Perchance to Dream”), which plays out like a tense, taut television noir: though convicted murderer Adam Grant desperately tries to share his recurring nightmare of electrocution with his fellow death-row inmates, the district attorney, the press, beseeching anyone who’ll listen that they, too, are all part of his dream, it is to no avail—he is condemned to walk the last mile every night.

“Shadow Play” also introduces the concept of “meta” to the 1961American television audience, perhaps for the first time, as Beaumont’s underlying premise is that Grant’s “corny” dream of death row is only based on what he’s seen in “bad” movies! By the end of this grim but gripping episode, we are finally sharing Grant’s recurring nightmare with him.

So join New York Adventure Club and pop culture historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, Visions from The Twilight Zone and The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone) as he deconstructs “Shadow Play” via discussion and dissemination of clips from the episode, along with stills, behind-the-scenes material, and collateral images and ideas culled from both the episode’s time, and our time, so that even the most ardent aficionados of The Twilight Zone will feel as if they’ve seen “Shadow Play” for the first time!

TIX: bit.ly/3U2tYIp

CAN’T make it LIVE? Buy a ticket so you can watch a video recording of the webinar for 1 week!

Saturday, July 18 @ 1:00pm

The Passaic County Arts Center in Hawthorne, NJ presents:

SPIRIT IN THE NIGHT: Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Show

A Live Multimedia Presentation by Springsteen Historian Arlen Schumer

On September 19, 1978, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band performed what many fans and critics consider their greatest single show, at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey. Why this particular show? Why does it stand out from not only all the other amazing Darkness on the Edge of Town tour performances, but from Bruce’s entire performing career?

There are many reasons–and that’s what Arlen Schumer’s multimedia presentation, SPIRIT IN THE NIGHT, is all about! Schumer, a pop culture historian and writer/designer of coffeetable books like The Silver Age of Comic Book Art and The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone, was in the 6th row of the landmark show, and at the time, the art director of Thunder Road magazine (1978-82), the first Springsteen fan publication. He also illustrated the iconic Capitol marquee, on display at the Arts Center!

He’s written about the show over the years for various books and publications like Backstreets (the Springsteen publication from 1980-2023), and has put together a multimedia presentation that recreates the legendary concert in words, images, music and video excerpts from the show itself, and tracks Springsteen’s career trajectory that led up to the fateful night of September 19, 1978!

So whether you know Springsteen’s music, or not—whether you’ve seen him in concert a hundred times, or never—you’ll look, listen and learn about Bruce Springsteen—and the Capitol Theatre show on September 19, 1978—in ways you never have before!

The event is free, but reserve your seat: bit.ly/4eX5IOK

WEDNESDAY, JULY 15 @ 5:30pm EST:

DECONSTRUCTING THE TWILIGHT ZONE #7: “The After Hours” webinar via NY Adventure Club!

Rod Serling’s immortal television series The Twilight Zone used the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres to tell incisive stories that dealt with the social and societal issues of its time. In doing so, Serling and Co. created some of the most indelible half-hours of filmed television drama ever made.

One of those half-hours was The Twilight Zone season one episode, “The After Hours,” one of Serling’s most accessible Twilight Zone episodes—for who among the American generations who’ve grown up in and around shopping malls has never been afraid of being locked in a department store at night? And of the store’s mannequins somehow coming to life? In its June 2003 issue,Barbie Bazaar noted: “The reason that The Twilight Zone still amazes us is the wonder that underlies episodes like ‘The After Hours,’ that recall childhood fantasies of dolls and toys coming to life when no one is watching.” By tapping into such deep-seated American neuroses, Serling mirrored the anxieties and apprehensions of his audience, as this excerpt from the episode’s closing narration testifies: “Just how ‘normal’ are we? Just who are the people we nod our hellos to as we pass on the street?”

So join New York Adventure Club and pop culture historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, Visions from The Twilight Zone and The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone) as he deconstructs “The After Hours” via discussion and dissemination of clips from the episode, along with stills, behind-the-scenes material, and collateral images and ideas culled from both the episode’s time, and our time, so that even the most ardent aficionados of The Twilight Zone will feel as if they’ve seen “The After Hours” for the first time!

TIX: bit.ly/4e9JcTD

CAN’T make it LIVE? Buy a ticket so you can watch a video recording of the webinar for 1 week!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17 @ 5:30pm EST:

DECONSTRUCTING THE TWILIGHT ZONE #6: “Mirror Image” webinar via NY Adventure Club!

Rod Serling’s immortal television series The Twilight Zone used the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres to tell incisive stories that dealt with the social and societal issues of its time. In doing so, Serling and Co. created some of the most indelible half-hours of filmed television drama ever made.

One of those half-hours was The Twilight Zone season one episode written by Serling, “Mirror Image,” that takes place in a nondescript, generic bus station, peopled by drab figures immobile in the stark Americana like an Edward Hopper painting brought to life. The title refers to the exact duplicate a woman sees of herself reflected in the bus station’s washroom mirror; Serling got the idea for the episode when he thought he saw someone at an airport who looked just like him, wearing the same exact clothes, holding the same exact briefcase. By turning that unnerving experience into an unforgettable Twilight Zone episode, Serling tapped into a universal feeling of dread—meeting a duplicate of ourselves—that we’ve all had sometime in our lives. “Mirror Image” is also the most Hitchcockian of Twilight Zones, the suspense as palpable as the rain that beats down throughout the macabre episode.

So join New York Adventure Club and pop culture historian Arlen Schumer (author/designer, Visions from The Twilight Zone and The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone) as he deconstructs “Mirror Image” via discussion and dissemination of clips from the episode, along with stills, behind-the-scenes material, and collateral images and ideas culled from both the episode’s time, and our time, so that even the most ardent aficionados of The Twilight Zone will feel as if they’ve seen “Mirror Image” for the first time!

TIX: bit.ly/4ua7vpV

CAN’T make it LIVE? Buy a ticket so you can watch a video recording of the webinar for 1 week!