Words and Music

From the Crypt Dept. : Back, back, back to the days when Metroland Magazine passed off my fiction as serious writing, and a tale cobbled fro...

WHAT MAKES TAYLOR SWIFT’S song “Shake It Off” turns out to be Swift herself. Had my initial exposure to it been video-free, sparing me from ...

Guest Blogger Dept. : Sometimes mere  words aren't enough to describe a  complicated state of mind. In the hands  of a master versifi...

From the Theatrical Vault Dept .: Here’s a crazy idea – let a couple of professional area theaters get together on a production. Wait; there...

From the Vault Dept .: Elsewhere on these e-pages, you can find program notes I wrote for a number of Dorian Recordings CDs. Before I got in...

25 October 2014 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

THE BELCEA QUARTET opened the Union College Concert Series last Thursday (Oct. 16) with a trio of quartets, big-master pieces that offered n...

Guest Blogger Dept. : Mark Twain’s A Dog’s Tale began as a story in the December 1903 Harper’s Magazine; reproduced below is the version e...

From the Back of the Fridge Dept.: Here’s a reminder of a long-gone eatery that eventually became the also now-defunct Milestone Restaurant...

From the Vault Dept. : I just ran across a bunch of pieces I wrote for the Schenectady Gazette about Albany's then-newly opened Knickerb...

From the Tech Vault Dept .: What could be less fascinating than an old computer article or an old book review? Why, an old review of a compu...

17 August 2014 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

Guest Blogger Dept. : Another visit with the reliable Robert Benchley.                                                                     ...

I HAVE A RECURRING DREAM in which I’m walking through a house I inhabited during a few months in 1973. I’m aware that it’s been many decades...

From the Back of the Fridge Dept .: Leo’s Diner was such an institution in the greater Saratoga Springs area that it’s still a shock to real...

From the Pervy Vault Dept .: The essay below was one of several I cooked up over the years to link food and sex for a Metroland Valentine’s ...

11 October 2014 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

From the Vault Dept .: I’ve already posted my review of the event referenced at the end of the piece below – “ The Writer and the Public .” ...

From the Tech Vault Dept. : I just ordered my 2015 day-planner pages and, yes, I’m still using the Franklin Institute’s (now Franklin-Covey’...

From the Vault Dept. : My daughter’s interest in the lute has led me to unearth some of my own encounters with that charming instrument, as ...