Words and Music

This year's Thanksgiving menu returns us to the realm of Caribbean cuisine, with some fanciful additions and alterations. The menu is be...

I’VE JUST HEARD an incredibly wonderful, enjoyable Christmas album, and if you’re as weary as I am of the shopping-mall treacle that annuall...

From the Theatrical Vault Dept. : Here’s one of the couple of dozen pieces I wrote for the the short-lived The Alt, a mis-managed magazine ...

From the Tech Vault Dept. : Here’s another outdated tech piece from my distant past, written for Metroland in 2000, and only fleetingly appl...

THERE’S A PLAINTIVE QUALITY to the Florence Reece song “Which Side Are You On?” that’s also touched with purpose – which isn’t surprising, c...

THERE’S A FEELING OF LUSH LAWNS and expensive orthodonture. Inside the house hang abstract art, a motif that carries onto the floor. Books a...

From the Vault Dept .: Lena Spencer died October 23, 1989, nearly thirty years after founding Saratoga’s Caffè Lena , and Utah Phillips (who...

Guest Blogger Dept. : Mark Twain’s keen sense of mankind accommodated a semblance of good behavior, but a flurry of books offering detailed ...

From the Video Vault Dept. : It’s been gratifying to see that the birth of the DVD inspired many an actual treasure to be released on that f...

From the Classical Vault Dept .: The Tokyo String Quartet was founded in 1969 by students who had been schooled in Tokyo before continuing t...

From the Culinary Vault Dept .: Monday’s post, revisiting my 2008 DiCarlo’s review , mentioned McGeary’s Irish Pub, my 2010 review of which,...

From the Culinary Vault Dept .: When I reviewed the Albany strip club DiCarlo’s back in 2008, it was still under the management of founder S...

From the Tech Vault Dept. : Here’s a pair of pieces I wrote for the online computer magazine c|net some twenty years ago. I don’t know the e...

From the Literary Vault Dept. : Ernie Pyle turned out the best-written, most-insightful profiles of all manner of Americana as he traveled f...

From the Vault Dept .: What a delight it was, 30 years ago, to see a George Carlin performance. He gave us a sense of hope that the lunacy o...

SEVEN YEARS AGO, Pete Seeger ventured the hope that “the human race has a 50/50 chance to be here a century from now.” He had, at that point...

From the Food Vault Dept .: Here’s an excellent example of an eatery that thrived for over half a century, then closed (in 2013) while it wa...

Guest Blogger Dept. : Les Hendrix wrote for Schenectady’s Daily Gazette for 22 years, retiring in 1997 – not long after filing the doozy of ...

From the Music Vault Dept .: By the time I saw “Sweeney Todd” in its original Broadway run, Cris Groenendaal had taken over the part of Anth...

From the Theatrical Vault Dept. : Unless a play establishes a rollicking Broadway success, even the finest scripts are inclined to slip from...