Words and Music

WHAT’S MOST ENDEARING about the story that gives us “She Loves Me” is its improbability. We need to see two lonely people despise one anothe...

THANKSGIVING SEEMS MORE AND MORE subsumed into the Christmas frenzy, if the displays of lights in my neighborhood are any sign. Not all wait...

SOMETHING (FOR US) COMPLETELY DIFFERENT was the watch cry as this year's Thanksgiving planning commenced, and somebody (my daughter, I...

From the Theatrical Vault Dept .: Some of us simply worship Florence Foster Jenkins, and have done so since long before the movie came along...

From the Tech Vault Dept. : Strictly for those who enjoy the intersection of technology and nostalgia, here’s my comprehensive look at the t...

From the Food Vault Dept .: The life expectancy of most restaurants is brutally brief. Sakura, a hibachi steakhouse that I reviewed a decade...

From the Vault Dept .: For no studied reason, except that this piece of mine appeared in Metroland almost exactly 21 years ago, here’s a loo...

AS THE KING’S SINGERS eased into the end of Billy Joel’s “Lullabye,” the sonority of the shifting chords produced one of those silent audien...

IN ORDER TO COMMISSION THE DISCOVERY of P.D.Q. Bach’s “Concerto for Simply Grand Piano and Orchestra,” pianist Jeffrey Biegel enlisted sixte...

From the Food Vault Dept .: In the twelve months since the piece below ran, Sunhee’s in Troy has continued to gain an enthusiastic following...

THERE’S A COMPARTMENT in my emotional makeup that remains closed and locked, containing, as it does, the most miserable memories of my child...

HARVEY SACHS WROTE THE DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHY of conductor Arturo Toscanini in 1978. He just did it again, this time producing a book that’s a...

THE MUSICAL “FUN HOME” got its start as a graphic coming-of-age novel by Alison Bechdel, and, with music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyri...

From the Cinematic Vault : I found this years-old review of “Dead Again” lurking in the vault in a “Misc.” folder. Its original formatting s...

Guest Blogger Dept. : Robert Benchley returns us again to the essays of yesteryear, when a little self-deprecation went a long way.       ...

Ethan Botwick and John Romeo | Photo by B. A. Nilsson From one of the six short plays by Harold Pinter being presented as the inaugural...

LISTEN TO THE OPENING TRACK on “Uptown Jump,” a recording by guitarist Glenn Crytzer ’s Savoy Seven. It’s a tune titled “The Savoy Special,”...

From the Vault Dept. : I was delighted to travel out to the Washington County lair of Tom Lopez in 1990 to interview the man behind a series...

Guest Blogger Dept. : Mark Twain captured his adventures as a newspaper correspondent out west in the book Roughing It, from which the foll...

From the Slush Pile Dept .: As far as I can remember, this piece never ran in Metroland, for which I wrote it in 1996, prompted by a then-no...