Musical Alchemy: Charming Disaster and Thomas Little

Wednesday, July 24, 2024 | 6pm-8:30pm EDT

Science History Institute

315 Chestnut Street

Philadelphia PA 19106

Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris wearing eclipse glasses in a dark studio

The Science History Institute invites you to a magical evening of music and mystery, featuring goth-folk duo Charming Disaster and “modern alchemist” Thomas Little!

Bring your curiosity to this spooky spectacular that includes an ink-making demonstration exploring the alchemy of color and chemical reactions, and a live musical performance of playfully dark original songs inspired by pigments and poisons. Light refreshments will be served.

About the Artists

Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris posing, leaning back with hands out, in a dark studio — Courtesy of Charming Disaster.

Charming Disaster is a goth-folk musical duo based in Brooklyn, New York, whose performances have been described as “haunted vaudeville.” Inspired by the macabre humor of Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, the murder ballads of the Americana tradition, and the dramatic flair of the cabaret, they write songs that tell stories about death, crime, myth, magic, science, and the occult.

Charming Disaster’s music has been featured on the podcast Welcome to Night Vale, and they have opened for legendary cello-rock ensemble Rasputina, goth icon Voltaire, and Amanda Palmer’s punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls. Their latest album, Time Ghost, is out now on all digital platforms. Learn more at charmingdisaster.com.

collection of inks, inked symbols, and potions — Courtesy of Thomas Little.

Thomas Little is an amateur ink historian and ink maker who explores mystic and scientific concepts through the lens of ink and our relationship to mark making. He gathers threads from alchemical imagery, chemical phenomena, and mystic observations to incorporate them into a holistic synthesis theory of art-science-magic. Through operations in the chemical theater, he hopes to encourage excitement and dilate the mind to the wonders of the psyche and the cosmos that reside in the humble inkwell.

His work has been featured in the CNN Style section, American Craft magazine, and Dark Mountain magazine. He has presented workshops and lectures at the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, the Delaware Contemporary, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and other institutions. His inks have also been collected for the material libraries of the University of Massachusetts and University of Pennsylvania. See his work at instagram.com/a.rural.pen.

For more information about this event, contact Lisa Berry Drago at 215.873.8222 or eberrydrago@sciencehistory.org.