After Beethoven, few have been the composers named Ludwig. Number two on the list was Ludwig Spohr, reasonably big in his day, though only fourteen years younger than his illustrious predecessor. Spohr’s posthumous reputation makes…
Posts published by “David Yearsley”
Strange songs haunt the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm and first published in 1812 in Berlin. “Old Hildebrand,” a story of a parson’s attempt to seduce a peasant’s wife, ends with a rousing…
The turn-off from New York State Route 86 towards the parking lot at the northern entrance to the Adirondacks High Peaks Wilderness comes in the town of North Elba just past John Brown’s farm. The…
The trails of the Adirondacks Park are a disgrace. For years I’ve been coming with one or both of my daughters to these mountains for an annual thirty-mile circuit around the Great Range, a loop…
In Wes Anderson’s latest film, Asteroid City, the writer-director manages the unlikely feat of producing a vision that is simultaneously pre- and post-apocalyptic. In an Eisenhower-era Los-Alamos-meets-Area-51-meets-proto-Las-Vegas desert outpost the threat of nuclear annihilation literally…
There is “town vomit” on the streets of Elsinore (Helsingor in Danish), a mere cobblestone’s throw from Hamlet’s castle. Depending on your temperament the stench might evoke either a medieval morosity or a renaissance joie…
Leader of the Republican revolt against suspension of the debt ceiling just passed in the House of Representatives, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas is a self-professed man of faith. One does not have to scratch…