Lobenthal.com

Read about and purchase Switchel, a Vermont heirloom beverage whipped up from ginger, apple cider vinegar and maple syrup.  Think of it as a state living treasure that’s going national. As I said to Ely Key, who’s joined up with Garrett Riffle to market their own recipe, “If it’s good enough for you AND Herman Melville,I’m sold.” It’s delicious.

They strike another blow against democracy.

Andrea Germanos at CommonDreams.org reports.

Matt Lambros’s afterthefinalcurtain.com features his photos of moribund ex-legit/vaudeville/movie theaters (some have been all three at different times) around the country.

We rise to the bait–make that “occasion”– of NYCB’s 21st century choreographers evening.

After reading about her in the Summer 2011 Ballet Review.  After that you probably knew her better than she did herself.

She was “Sal” to my grandfather, which made sense, and she told us that as a girl she’d been “Zoli” in good Hungarian fashion.

But my cousin Lewis White recalls her telling him that she’d been “Sarah” as well when she was growing up, and census records show that she was perhaps considered “Sadie” as well.

No wonder the poor woman had some issues!  For me, she personifies the immigrants’ search for identity amid assimilation. And extraordinary how much she did in life, with so little encouragement or nurturing!

Turns out that when my Grandmother Sallie Schwartz’s parents arrived here in New York in September 1886, they had been living in Ungvar, Hungary, which is now Uzhhorod , Ukraine.

Our military budget remains higher than the combined total of the entire rest of the world and we are asked to take seriously Obama crying poor about military expenditure?

Sarah Lazare at Common Dreams reports the reaction of some of the sane. We need more of them to speak out.

Tebaldi’s signature wave to the peanut gallery, as she and Del Monaco drink it in, opening night at the Met, 56 years ago this month. (Not a Tosca  it was possible to doze through: the Scarpia was London and the conductor Mitropoulos!)

[From the Met’s invaluable on-line archive]

Great web designer–he found the perfect Nile green I wanted for this blog.  And he’s always ready to troubleshoot when asked to.  Thank you Bill!

I refer to the unsigned rave for the VAI series in the Check it Out section of the new Ballet Review. (We’re working on VAI Montreal Vol.5.)

But I did write the Ballet Review interview with Valerie Camille!