Words and Music

From the Culinary Vault Dept. : We’ve been very loyal to Jumpin’ Jack’s Drive-In, the one-of-a-kind burger joint in Scotia, NY, which is ope...

From the Classical Vault Dept. : Contemporary classical music has had a strong area champion in the Dogs of Desire, an Albany Symphony-based...

From the Theater Vault Dept. : This review speaks for itself, exposing me as the stick-in-the-mud that I am, a man whose early diet of Gersh...

From the Classical Vault Dept. : It’s no secret that the classical-music audience in New York’s Albany area is laughably small. There used t...

From the Theatrical Vault Dept. : Wasn’t I the bitchy little critic here! Not that I’ve changed; I’m simply more inclined to avoid the shows...

From the Classical Vault Dept .: What was the classical-music world like in the Albany, NY, area before Covid? Let’s go back 34 years to fin...

Guest Blogger Dept. : Hey, here’s Stephen Leacock again, this time with an essay about health, a topic very much on our minds in these wanin...

  From the Food Vault Dept .: In 1986, after I’d been writing for Albany’s Metroland Magazine for a couple of years, I proposed that we star...

WHAT WOULD MOZART HAVE DONE? We have so much evidence of what he did do that it’s almost unnecessary to ask, but there is a handful of fasci...

From the Classical Vault Dept. : Here’s a piece I wrote about a youthful vocal ensemble that made its debut recording for the Dorian label i...

WE’RE FEELING THE HORRIBLE EFFECTS of a global climate crisis. We’re wracked with guilt over the lousy food we consume – or we should be. Th...

IN HONOR OF PRESIDENTS DAY, surely one of the most misused moments of patriotic prejudice, here's a short film I made with Musicians of ...

From the Classical Vault Dept .: ... and what about summer concerts? Are they coming back this year? Will they be as fun-filled as the all-G...

From the Literary Vault Dept .: Sometimes you want to indulge yourself with a no-holds-barred farce, and the prolific Michael Frayn has been...

From the Theater Vault Dept .: Summer theater is being threatened all over the country now, and our local festivals are gearing up with outd...

Guest Blogger Dept. : It’s Robert Benchley time again, and the estimable essayist today grants us a look at one of the dietary staples of my...

WE THINK OF FARMS as massive multi-acre enterprises, such is the pervasive image that corporate farming gives us. Ben Stein and Alicia Brown...

From the Locked Vault Dept. : We haven’t visited my onetime alter-ego, Dr. Barry Tetons, since I offered this column from an unsavory magaz...

Let's take a look at a short film I made with Musicians of Ma'alwyck to honor the big Beethoven birthday just passed.

NOVELIST WILLIAM BOYD has long been fascinated by the movies. His 1987 novel The New Confessions combined a nod to Rousseau with an effecti...