Posts published by “David Yearsley”

When Bernie Saunders informed Rolling Stone last year that he “really loves music” and that his tastes were “eclectic,” I believed what he said. In his short interview with the magazine there was no evidence…

The notion of the zeitgeist has fallen into disrepute as too metaphysical, too German. No longer does the spirit of the time manifest itself in art and culture; instead, things trend, manipulated in shape and…

When far from home in foreign cities, slowed by saddle sores or jet leg, menaced by security pat-downs or highwaymen’s pistols, the traveler is often beset by two contending impulses: avoid your own expatriate countrymen and women like the plague or seek them out as glue for your own identity fragmenting under the strains of the journey.

Must the virtuoso but virtuous? In The Republic Plato answered the question with an emphatic, uptight: yes. Most moderns by contrast are blithely willing to separate, as necessary, the musician from the music he makes.…

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s big win in the New York Primary this past Tuesday, the electoral map — in the color scheme adopted by the New York Times — was a giant red…

It took me sixteen hours door-to-door in automobile, plane and subway train to get from my house in the center of New York state to this apartment in the center of Berlin. Last time I…