Words and Music

Keeping it Clean Dept .: Here's a bit of fun. Tom Savoy and Malcolm Kogut and I delivered this ditty at a private party in 2009. It'...

Attic Treasures Dept.: Can't sleep. Figured I'd indulge in a favorite relaxation exercise. Crept up into the attic to escape possi...

Lost Masterpieces Dept.: Many years ago, I wrote a few sample chapters of a tome titled The Fat Man's Diet , which would comprise essa...

I'M TAKING A DAY off today, but that doesn't mean you have to. However, I offer some exciting entertainment -- what Duke Ellington...

YESTERDAY WAS A BUSY yard-work day, so to relax at night I put on a Duke Ellington disc. Because I want nobody in my house to suffer from ...

Panzur , Tivoli, NY | Aug. 20, 2011 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

Novel Ideas Dept .: Here's the start of something I wrote fifteen years ago, a novel titled The Dreamings that was inspired by a show a...

Yesterday I confessed to owning an “Alvin and the Chipmunks” record as a child. I had no choice in the matter; like so many kids’-world acq...

Baiting the Bard Dept. : Damned if I can find the clipping, but it was a Schenectady Gazette piece from many years ago in which the reporte...

Guest Blogger: H. Allen Smith . I've got this great Thomas Pynchon story to tell but, dammit, it has some identifying details the revel...

For many months back in 1995, I wrote the “Don’t Try This at Home” column for Computer Life magazine, one of several Ziff-Davis titles to ...

THE WEEKEND. The weather is nice. The house and grounds need upkeep. I need to buy supplies. The small, independent hardware stores have lon...

New Lebanon, NY | Feb. 19, 2007 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

This tribute to the work of P. G. Wodehouse appeared five years ago in the Albany Times-Union , where a semi-literate sub-editor took umbra...

It’s iced-tea season again. We have a flock of mint growing crazily in a corner of the garden, which mixes nicely with a good black tea and ...

Several years ago, I wrote liner notes for the sadly defunct CD label Dorian Recordings. Here's a sample from their 2000 release Bernst...

Thanks to the vagaries of my performing career, I’ve appeared at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz several times and always enjoy the oppor...

Hard to imagine that in our mild-mannered environment a classical-music review should draw considerable ire, yet that’s what I managed to pr...

... as we were over the past few days, they were at their best with the right comic foils. Jimmy Finlayson, Edgar Kennedy, Billy Gilbert, an...

May 18, 2010 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson