Words and Music

Twenty-five years ago, I drew the above to celebrate Susan's and my recent acquisition of a Montgomery County, NY, farm. Our friend L...

From the Food Vault : I wrote this review in 2011, but when you’re dealing with a place that has been successfully operating, with little ch...

From the Theater Vault Dept. : As the father of a theater major, I’m no longer easily persuaded to avail myself of child-centered entertainm...

Guest Blogger Dept. : We call once more upon the redoubtable Mark Twain to enlighten us, this time with reflections upon his vacation reside...

MY DAUGHTER MADE HER RADIO DEBUT IN MANCHESTER not long ago, and how this came about is worth the telling. We begin in 1972. I was a high-...

THERE ARE JAZZ BANDS AROUND THE WORLD TODAY dedicated to presenting the music of the Swing Era (and many another jazz era), but to tackle th...

AS NIGHTMARES GO, it wasn’t all that awful. But, having no recall of any other nightmares I may have encountered during the past couple of d...

From the Food Vault Dept .: I was delighted to discover this restaurant a decade ago, and am even more delighted that it endures, because I’...

ALL ROMANCES ARE POSSIBLE; any enduring outcome is unlikely. We work hard to stay united. We’re given little in the way of helpful precedent...

HIS LITERARY CAREER began with a parody and soon reinvented the genre he’d mocked. But Eric Ambler first wanted to be a playwright, and had ...

From the Classical Vault : It turns out that the my review below celebrated the first American visit from the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra wi...

From the Stage Vault Dept .: How best to put an epic like The Iliad on the stage? Why, with a solo actor and the assistance of a cellist, as...

From the Musical Vault: The Albany Symphony has a new recording out of music by Michael Daugherty, with whom the ensemble has long been ass...

From the Food Vault: Ten years ago, I wrote about this strip-mall restaurant, which endured for several years before giving way to the Mexi...

OUR EARS HAVE GROWN ACCUSTOMED TO a range of rhythm and harmony that probably would baffle or even antagonize someone living a couple of cen...

DESPITE THE BEST EFFORTS of my elementary-school science teachers, the world of biology only really opened up for me as I thrilled to the ex...

Guest Blogger Dept .: Mark Twain’s diaries finally have been published in their entirety, and they’re a joy. (At least until you get halfway...

WELCOME TO INTERNET ACCESS SECURITY CLEARANCE (IASC). In accordance with the Federal Anti-Terrorism Online Resources and Protection Act of 2...

From the Food Vault Dept .: A piece I wrote just last summer, celebrating a trendy place in trendy Troy, NY, yet it’s a place with none of t...

I WON’T BE WATCHING THE OSCARS, but I usually don’t. A long-ago trauma put me off the show, which is really a case of blaming a blameless en...