Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Essays”

Ives At Election Time

The iconoclastic American composer become cultural monument Charles Ives was born 150 years ago last Sunday. Ulysses S. Grant was then in the midst of his second term as president. Ives’s father George, the formative…

Our 21st Century Genius

I’ve neglected watching television and most of its mutations for several years, and this makes me less than well-informed on news and developments. Indulge me if I speak the obvious, but was the recent launch…

Why I Have “Trump Derangement Syndrome”

The national election looms, like a tsunami of uncertainty. Right now it’s a prevailing source of anxiety, dread, hope and confusion. Predictions and polls are rampant and just add to the unrest. Understandably, many have…

What Remains Of Hetch Hetchy?

It’s not often I will travel hundreds of miles to see a place I’ve wanted to see for decades with sorrow in my heart. That’s what happened when I went to see Hetch Hetchy 20…

Boonville Beer vs. Bruce Bread — True History From Back In The Day

A simmering landlord-tenant dispute between the founding father of Boonville-brewed beer and the determined owner of Bruce Bread boiled over Wednesday afternoon at the landmark Farrer Building in downtown Boonville. Ken Allen of the Boonville…

Sun King Playlists

“To faint was a fault past hope of pardon,” wrote the Duke of Saint-Simon in his Memoirs of Louis XIV, an insider’s account of battlefield debacles, antechamber intrigues and bedroom assignations during the reign of…

-