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Posts published by “David Yearsley”

Travelers, Sour & Sentimental

“I hate traveling and explorers.”— Claude Levi-Strauss, Tristes tropiques (1955) It is an illusion to think that a need to complain about travel is unique…

Bondage at the Oscars

If ever there were steps of power that need storming by an angry mob, they are those of the Dolby Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard on…

Big Oil, Big Opera: Handel at the Met

Handel was born with an umlaut on his name: Händel.  He rubbed it out after he left his native Germany for a sojourn of several…

Who Needs a Conductor?

One of the longest seconds I ever lived through came just before the beginning the Dies irae from Mozart’s Requiem. The members of the Stanford…

Handel Makes War

Yesterday began for me before dawn when I awoke, went downstairs and watched footage of the night sky above Kyiv lit up with the bursts…

Danube Blues

On the one-year anniversary of the storming of the U.S. Capitol many were the dire assessments of the state of the American republic. Nor were…

Encanto’s Chart-Topping Enchantments

Beginning with Disney’s first animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of 1937, the Mouse House’s message has always been about family. That…

Listening Up To ‘Don’t Look Up!’

At well over two hours running time, Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up (streaming on Netflix) isn’t exactly a bagatelle, but it mostly retains its satiric…

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