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Boston Globe

Bruce Lee, Globetrotters, rope walkers and a diving horse help tell a story of athletic spectacle

The show harkens back to a time when, as a wall text puts it, 'boundaries between sport, theater, and spectacle were blurred.' The focus of 'All Stars' is on the very long tradition of athletic endeavor as entertainment more than competition: extreme sports of a different sort. The show's 60-some items — books, prints, photographs, all sorts of ephemera (such as pennant, program, and poster) — are thematically organized, while also proceeding in a roughly chronological order. Bruce Lee unleashes his fists of fury at the end of 'All Stars,' not the beginning. Advertisement National Roller Derby Program, 1951. Houghton Library, Harvard University The themes are qualities required by athletic entertainers/entertaining athletes: Balance, Strength, Endurance, Daring, Nerve, Teamwork, and Combat (as in bullfighting, wrestling, boxing). Each attribute gets its own display case. There's also one devoted to Roots, with attention paid to the Roman Colosseum, medieval tournaments, Carnival in Renaissance Venice, and equestrian vaulting — it's the person who vaults, not the horse. 'All Stars' does have a diving horse. It would take a 40-foot plunge six times a day at Atlantic City's Steel Pier. Other notable performers, most of them human, make appearances. M. Blondin, a French aerialist, crossed Niagara Falls several times on a tightrope on a single day in 1859. A crowd of 25,000 watched. The Fearless Frogman was good at holding his breath. The English Samson was a muscle man, and the Female Hercules a muscle woman. Imagine if they'd met and had children. Advertisement Also encountered are contortionists, acrobats, 'hand balancers,' rope walkers, stunt pilots, 'Bloomer Girls' (members of all-female baseball teams), marathon dancers, and roller derby skaters. Roller derby! Those skaters (unlike the ones in the Balance display) are in the Teamwork section. They could also qualify for Daring, Nerve, and Combat. Perhaps the most wondrous thing in this gathering of wonders isn't a person (or even a horse) but an object. Robert Cruikshank's 'Going to a Fight,' from 1819, is a panoramic hand-colored etching. It shows 42 scenes leading up to a boxing match. This was five decades before the Marquess of Queensberry came along with his rules, so the bout must have been more UFC than Golden Gloves. The panorama, whose height is a little more than 2½ inches, is rolled up. Its full length is just under 13 feet. Competition may matter more now, but as proof that sports can remain entertainment simply consider the spectacle that is professional wrestling. It's hard to imagine Advertisement Brian S. Dyde, 'Antigua': hand-colored map, 1985. Houghton Library, Harvard University 'All Stars' covers a lot of ground conceptually. 'The Caribbean: Sea of Resilience' covers even more ground geographically — the Caribbean basin is slightly more than a million square miles — and with only half as many items. The exhibition runs through Aug. 22. Colonial exhibition of West Indian fruit and vegetables, c.1890. Houghton Library, Harvard University Places visited include Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, St. Croix, and Antigua. Subjects include dance, agriculture, the The title of 'The Punched Card from the Industrial Revolution to the Information Age' is bigger than the show itself, which has just three items (books, not cards). But that makes its subject no less important. 'The Punched Card' runs through Aug. 28. W. J. Eckert, "Punched Card Methods in Scientific Computation, 1940. Houghton Library, Harvard University This year marks the 300th anniversary of a bit of technology associated with main frame computers. Punched paper tape was used in France to automate looms. A century later, Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace were envisioning how punched cards could be used in ways that anticipated 20th-century computers. The story told here isn't as fun as the one in 'All Stars' or as vibrant (and often chastening) as in 'The Caribbean.' But in its own, ALL STARS: The Sensational History of Athletics as Entertainment THE CARIBBEAN: SEA OF RESILIENCE THE PUNCHED CARD FROM THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION TO THE INFORMATION AGE At Houghton Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, through Aug. 8, Aug. 22, and Aug. 28, respectively. 617-495-2440, Advertisement Mark Feeney can be reached at