Musings | ModeShift

ROMP Bluegrass Festival Honors The Masters and Advances Compelling New Artists

by Keith SchneiderJuly 18, 2014July 25, 20146

OWENSBORO, KY — Bill Monroe, a virtuoso mandolin player and the father of bluegrass music, was born in 1911 and raised on a ridgetop near Rosine, Kentucky about 40 miles south of the bluff on the Ohio River where Owensboro is located. With every passing year the connection between Monroe, his birthplace, and this river city gets closer. That’s never more true than during the last weekend in June when Owensboro hosts ROMP, the River …

LeBron James’ Letter Is Celebration of Superb Writing

by Keith SchneiderJuly 15, 2014January 7, 20211

Four years ago, when he both challenged the self-effacing values of his Midwestern roots and embraced the youthful self-absorption of his generation, LeBron James announced his departure from Cleveland in a nationally televised broadcast viewed by millions. I was in a diner in Antrim County, Michigan watching the interview while hydrating with a cool beer after a 60-mile summer bike ride. On Friday James explained his return to Northeast Ohio, his intent to finish his …

Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ Is Fun and, Perhaps, Something More

by Keith SchneiderMay 11, 2014July 21, 20141

Pharrell Williams was born and raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where his friends and family knew from his earliest days as a percussionist in the school band, and his singing performances in school plays, that the artist with the top song on worldwide pop charts for the last 10 weeks would amount to something rare. Even before Pharrell posted the ‘Happy’ dance video last October, he’d won seven Grammy Awards for songwriting, production, and performance, …

The Michigan Land Use Institute Considers Changing Its Name — For What?

by Keith SchneiderApril 22, 2014April 23, 20145

BENZONIA, MI — On April 16, 1995, in one of my last articles as a staff correspondent with the New York Times, I wrote this assessment of American environmentalism’s evolving challenges. “The movement that changed the nation’s environmental ethic a generation ago is reshaping itself, and the most important aspect of that effort is a new openness to what works and what doesn’t in environmental protection.” Six days later, on the 25th anniversary of Earth …

Jeremy Lin Is Big Brand In China

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 19, 2012October 2, 20120

Though no longer a New York Knick, Jeremy Lin is a brand in China as big as this building sign in Qingdao. Photo/Keith Schneider QINGDAO — Granted I’ve spent decades loving the New York Knicks, even though they’ve been hapless for over a decade. Plus, I’m convinced the NBA is the most exciting sports league in the world. Yet even with such personal predilections, it’s easy to argue that the best story in America this …

Annals of Excess in China: The $317,000 Wedding Cake

by Keith SchneiderJune 5, 2012June 20, 20120

SHENYANG, China — Does excess consumerism represent the measure of a great nation? Or does it portend something darker, a treacherous crack opening in society? Either way, the wedding cakes for sale at the Black Swan bakery here in Liaoning’s provincial capital are a clear reflection of 1) the astounding wealth some attain in China’s bursting economy, and 2) the indecorous way that the rich communicate their separate stature. The biggest cake, aswirl in swans …

Energy, Food and Melting Ice

by Keith SchneiderApril 2, 2012April 3, 20120

I read with interest the interviews with Bill McKibben and Amory Lovins that Yale Environment 360 posted today and in February. Good stuff. Perplexing and nerve-wracking all at the same time. Amory’s optimism about the prospects for clean energy, in its consistency over the last 30 years, reminds me of Lester Brown’s equally long-term pessimism about the world’s capacity to feed itself. Both have the technical details in place to make plausible cases but the …

Haverford College Friends

by Keith SchneiderMarch 3, 2012December 16, 20123

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — When Bob O’Connor (far right above) was 18, he lived directly above me in a second-floor dorm room in Barclay Hall at Haverford College. He’s a big-boned guy with a quiet way, a sizable intellect, and likes to have fun. Two upper classmen, Pete Doan and Evan Lippincott, lived across the hall from my first-floor room. Pete and Evan were dorm reps and were supposed to keep tabs on freshmen like me …

Donald Spitzer, Last Of A Great Cambridge Family, Is Gone

by Keith SchneiderNovember 19, 2011November 27, 20119

When you ask his friends and family what they most admired about Donald Spitzer, the answers included his quick wit, his considerable intelligence, and his great love for family and friends. They also note that in a family of gifted athletes Donald was tall and slim and gawky. And in a family of rugged Hungarian menÂ skilled in pounding wrought iron into graceful swirls and curves, Donald trained to be a graphic artist in the …

Nashville’s City Cafe East; One Fine Lunch Joint

by Keith SchneiderNovember 3, 2011November 4, 20111

Knocking around Nashville last month dropped me on the doorstep of City Cafe East, one of the finest lunch spots I’ve ever had the pleasure to visit. It was a Thursday, when owner and executive chef George T. Bird (on right above) and Calvin Oden feature a menu headlined by meat loaf with zesty sauce, Jerusalem chicken, salmon croquettes, and baked tilapia. George and Calvin serve lunch cafeteria style at the 1455 Lebanon Pike restaurant …