Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published by “David Yearsley”

In Search Of Barbie’s Voice

What does Barbie sound like? The original doll’s blonde hair, pointed toes and pointed breasts define her look, but her voice was, until the sing-song-then-sadistic vocals of Jodi Benson in Toy Story 3 of 2010…

Ludwig & The Bomb: An Oppenheimer Symphony

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…

Singing In The Woods

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…

Trampling Out the Vintage

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…

Adirondack’s Hiker’s Hell

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…

Asteroid City Craters

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…

The Age of Bridges

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…

-