Words and Music

From the Vault Dept. : One of a series of liner notes I wrote for the sadly defunct Dorian Recordings label, although I swear my involvement...

Guest Blogger Dept .: Here’s Robert Benchley, back to set us straight about the travails of correspondence, which clearly was in a parlous s...

OUR THAI CUSINE-INSPIRED Thanksgiving dinner had a preparation of khao soi , a wonderful coconut milk-based soup, as its centerpiece. Turkey...

HOW SENTIENT ARE OUR DOMESTICATED BEASTS? How about beasts in general? We’d like to think that those creatures we take into our houses and h...

LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III AND DAVID BROMBERG are guitar-playing singer-songwriters who gained fame in the 1970s, but who, beyond that, would see...

A RECENT ISSUE of a classical-music magazine sports a letter from a reader who is aggrieved by the practice of singers to perform Baroque an...

JAMES LAPINE’S BOOK for the musical “Into the Woods” drew on the work of Bruno Bettelheim and Joseph Campbell to fashion a narrative that ca...

PICKET LINES DON’T VARY MUCH. Marchers carry signs and chant slogans, and there’s usually some speechifying and music. When the strike looks...

“LET ME SHOW YOU HOW COUNTRY FEELS,” sings Randy Houser before the lights dim for the start of “Williston,” a new play by Adam Seidel. And t...

IT IS EASILY ARGUED THAT, more than ambiance, a coffeehouse needs wifi and enough room on the table for your computer, coffee, and cellphone...

AT THE CENTER OF THE DISCOGRAPHY of conductor Charles Munch are his many recordings with the Boston Symphony, which he music-directed from 1...

THE BRAND-NEW DENIZEN THEATRE kicks off its first season with a new play in New Paltz, and it’s as well-produced and compelling a drama as ...

THERE’S A CHAOS OF NOISE AND ACTIVITY as a group of movie people – directors, actors, hangers-on – wraps up a day on the set and prepares to...

From the Wine Cellar Dept.: Twenty-eight years ago, there was a fun, informative, and generally delicious event held at Albany’s Desmond Hot...

“THE LOVE OF ANOTHER will destroy the causes of my hatred!” The hulking figure is shadowed, his dark-rimmed eyes suggesting both ugliness an...

From the Food Vault Dept. : It was incredible enough to find fine dining in Canajoharie, a rural village where pizza would be the favored fa...

IT EMERGES FROM a milky, opaque bath the temperature of bodily fluids, and it’s a white rubbery mass that looks like a medical mistake. My n...

THE IDEA OF A CIRCUS invites grotesque imagery, as demonstrated, in movies, at least, by the likes of “La Strada,” “Saboteur,” and “Nightmar...

From the Vault Dept. : The piece below ran in the Schenectady Gazette thirty years ago, and the group profiled is still active, with interne...

From the Food Vault Dept .: Albany’s restaurant scene has evolved slowly. Forty years ago, only a single Indian restaurant could be found; s...