Everyone's a Critic

When I was a young I spent most of the year dreaming and pining for those wonderful months of summer – days filled with sandy feet and sun burnt noses and evenings spent lying outside looking up at the sky with my sister...

Early on in the movie Five Year Engagement, my companion nudged me, and whispered, “You don’t hunt deer in spring!” “What?” I said, watching Jason Segel and Chris Parnell gleefully bagging a deer in...

The last night was by far the best night of the three nights of Michael Tilson Thomas & the San Francisco Symphony’s American Maverick concerts. Not that they didn’t perform superbly all three nights with a tight ensemble,...

The second night of Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony play more or less modern more or less American music opened with what I’d call the worst piece of music I’ve ever heard if there were any real...

None of the pieces performed on the first night of the three “American Mavericks” concerts were much good, though the Copland was certainly the best and the Bates was probably the worst. Copland’s Variations for...

I was standing around the third floor of City Hall, staring out the window, waiting for an interview with Mayor Hieftje when I heard two familiar voices behind me talking about rock music from the 70s, and playing records on a...

Near the close of the third quarter in Michigan’s implausible victory over Notre Dame, a cadre of Fighting Irish fans chanted/taunted, “It-sucks, to-be, a Mich-i-gan Wolv-er-ine.” At the moment Notre Dame held...