Words and Music

PIANIST SIMONE DINNERSTEIN set the stage well before she entered. Her piano sat on a darkened stage at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre,...

THERE’S A SCENE in the 1947 movie “Carnegie Hall” in which cellist Gregor Piatigorsky performs Saint-Saëns’s “The Swan” while surrounded by ...

PREACHING PRECAUTION isn’t often the same as practicing it. The “ounce of prevention” principle, seemingly instilled in us at birth, has lon...

From the Vault Dept. : One of a series of liner notes I wrote for the sadly defunct Dorian Recordings label, although I swear my involvement...

Guest Blogger Dept .: Here’s Robert Benchley, back to set us straight about the travails of correspondence, which clearly was in a parlous s...

OUR THAI CUSINE-INSPIRED Thanksgiving dinner had a preparation of khao soi , a wonderful coconut milk-based soup, as its centerpiece. Turkey...

HOW SENTIENT ARE OUR DOMESTICATED BEASTS? How about beasts in general? We’d like to think that those creatures we take into our houses and h...