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1. This comment is as brief as I could make it, biting its tongue on the vast amount that could be said on the topic of HIP (Historically Informed Performance, as it's called now, its practitioners having backed down from calling it "authentic"). Read the post it's on for a link to a superficial but amusing radio show on the topic of Beethoven's tempi.

1a. Finding a link to Gardiner's invigoratingly fast performance of the Eroica made me salivate for more, so I got out my set of his Beethoven symphony recordings to accompany chores. It takes two movements of the Seventh to set up our artificial Christmas tree, and three movements of the Eighth to chop up veggies and otherwise get things ready for cooking dinner.

2. Thursday is the day the weekend movie showtime lists appear in the paper. Not finding Inside Llewyn Davis, which appears in "limited release" on Friday, on it, I found Fandango to be mute on the topic of telling me where a movie not playing today was going to be playing tomorrow. So I'd like to record here for future reference that Moviefone is the site that will tell you what you need to know, in this case that the "limited release" is only four screens nationwide, none nearer to here than LA. OK, now that I know, I'll wait.

2a. Also, it has a useful article with clips from Oscar Isaac's previous movies, in case you're wondering who the heck he is.

3. Nelson Mandela. It is perhaps not possible to be sufficiently appreciative of a man who, having spent decades locked up for violence against an oppressive regime, emerges full of forgiveness and reconciliation towards that regime, helps it step down peacefully, and then becomes head of a new regime without - and this is the most amazing part - turning into a rancid dictator himself. An accolade too lightly used is true in this case: He deserves to stand with the other great founders of modern nations, like Washington, Atatürk, Masaryk, and Ben-Gurion.