Words and Music

From the Ether Dept. : I was recently asked to provide some kind of template for those wishing to write a radio play, such as are produced b...

The realization: I have failed to provide a post for today. The dilemma: I'm upstairs in bed. The going-back-downstairs dissuasion: my w...

... with the trusty Underwood, so to speak.

From the Vault Dept. : I put some time in at the kitchen of Donovan’s Restaurant in Clifton Park – a very brief time, because I got hired aw...

THEY LULLED US WITH a Brahms quartet, then snuck in fifteen minutes of music by György Kurtág before intermission. The Hungarian-born Kurtág...

Guest Blogger Dept .: We encountered Anthony Comstock via H. L. Mencken in this post . Now let’s enjoy some hagiography from the pen of Char...

What’s for Dinner? Dept .: This week’s restaurant review takes us to Afghanistan by way of Albany, for a stop at a very unprepossessing eate...

CREATION – BIG-TIME, putting-together-a-universe-type creation – is a deliberate, often improvisational business. It’s the opening up of for...

From the Vault Dept. : She’s been a regular visitor to this area, but the first time I caught Judy Collins in concert was in 1984, and my re...

Costume test for "Smiling Walt" c. 1973 | Photo by Steven Brooks

On the Boards Dept .: A review of the production of “Gypsy” playing through April 13, 2014, at Albany's Capital Repertory Theatre.   ...

In the Clouds Dept .: Sure, this has been a precipitous winter, but some of us old-timers remember that snowstorm at the beginning of Octobe...

MY FIRST CAR was a 1970 Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia. I bought it in 1974. The intervening years had not been kind to the vehicle, whose single p...

Guest Blogger Dept .: Anthony Comstock (1844-1915) was a zealot whose campaigns against what he regarded as obscene literature resulted in t...

Afternoon Joe Dept .:  I visited the recent Coffee Fest at NYC's Javits Center, and filed this report for Metroland .                 ...

From the Tech Vault Dept .: Here’s my debut piece in Computer Life , which began a brief but highly remunerative association. The house pict...

Lily Whiteman in a gown by Daniel Mozzes Design 14 March 2014 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

The State of the Stage Dept .: Christopher Durang spent last Monday at NY’s State University at Albany, and I was delighted to attend both t...

From the Record Shelf Dept .: Two recent issues on the IDIS label remind us that there were great performances long before digital recording...

Unsurprising Extinction Dept .: A Jamaican restaurant in a shopping-mall food court? Too good to be true? It was. Albany is frightened of th...