Words and Music

A SNOWSTORM TURNED THE HIGHWAYS treacherous as I drove from Ridgefield, Conn., to Schenectady, NY, for a job interview in the middle of Febr...

Photo by Lily Whiteman Celebrate the dismantling of Christmas as performed by Amy Prothro, Malcolm Kogut, and me at Saratoga's Caff...

You’re Getting Verse Dept .: My mother saved the letters I sent her, a packet that was returned to me after her death several years ago. I h...

Today's culinary experiment . . .

Guest Blogger Dept .: Although the practice of hanging dogs has become enough of a rarity, in my circles at least, that my party-overstaying...

BACK IN THE UNENLIGHTENED ’60s, we elementary-school wretches celebrated the run-up to Thanksgiving by collecting dying leaves, cutting endl...

What Was Literature? Dept .: Many a blog-post ago I noted that the photo I added for this piece (a piece that ran in the Albany Times Union...

Mollie Minot, Byron Nilsson, and Amy Ferrara Photo by John C. Moulds | 1975 John C. Moulds was working on a film project that needed ...

Gadding About Dept .: Early in 1987, my wife and I learned about a wonderful travel opportunity: fly as a courier to London and you’ll pay o...

I WAS STILL, AT AGE 16, enough of an innocent to consider an all-night make-out session as an end in itself. That is, a languorous stretch o...

IN CELEBRATION OF my daughter’s first visit to England – she’s there as I write this, newly arrived, enjoying the fruit of an exchange betwe...

From the Theater Vault Dept .: Whatever voice I’ve developed as a critic was developed in full view of my readers. These pieces, from the in...

I don't know where this ad appeared, but we know the stuff must be good: it also has a full-page ad in the June 1895 "National B...

One of my last radio appearances wasn't even on my usual side of the Atlantic -- but that's only because I was Yank Johnny-on-the-Sp...

From the Vault Dept .: Although I thought John Doyle’s concept of “Company” was fairly successful, I’ve yet to be won over to the play-your-...

RINALDO ALESSANDRINI HAS BEEN IMMERSED in the music of Monteverdi for over twenty years, both as a scholar, editing and assembling idiomatic...

Classical Stages Dept. : It’s always a treat when Wu Han and David Finckel are joined by Philip Setzer for a piano trio concert, but none wa...

NEARLY THIRTY YEARS AGO, I got involved with computers to an unhealthy degree, fueled by curiosity and the sizeable fees I soon was paid by ...

From the Vault Dept. : My list of favorite operas is headed by Verdi’s “Falstaff.” My list of favorite performances includes Richard McKee ’...

Per yesterday's post , not everybody I sought to interview accepted that request. But none turned me down as charmingly as Peter De Vrie...