1. Sunday evening was the first night of Hanukkah. Our goyische wall calendar says "Hanukkah begins" under Monday, which is impressively misleading. B. didn't realize it started the previous night until I began to light the candles.
2. And it's also Advent, so her candle ceremony comes right after mine.
3. So I've been trying to spend more time at work in the library than in the past. I've undertaken a massive project which will take a few months to complete, cleaning up the typos and inconsistencies in the subject database. This would be less of a problem had I been reviewing the inputters' work all along, so I'm trying to do that too.
4. Occasionally SFCV decides to review a few CDs. And sometimes they ask me to do that. This time the publisher didn't send out the physical CDs, but issued a press release with links to Dropbox entries with WAV files and a PDF of the liner notes. I took my good headphones down to the library and listened to it on the computer there so I could follow along with the (non-circulating) scores. Read my brief take (CD reviews are 300 words) on bristling modern performances of three bristling modern quartets here.
5. News nugget that people are buying iceberg lettuce as a desperate substitute for tainted romaine. That choice amuses me, as I actually like iceberg, and generally consider romaine an acceptable substitute. I won't eat most other lettuce at all. The spinach recall years ago didn't worry me, because I only eat spinach cooked. Lettuce is another matter, but except for the occasional caesar salad I rarely eat salads, and I only eat caesars because they're made with romaine. So right now I'm not eating those either.
6. World's most caustic Bible book review, by Jo Walton.
7. 2 1/2 years ago I went to a week-long string quartet festival in the Canadian Rockies. I had a fabulous time. Would I return when they held it again in three years? I said, very possibly. They've announced next summer's schedule. I've looked at it. There will be a good helping of Schubert this year. I've thought about it. And yes, I'm going. This is in part in compensation for not being able to get to the Tolkien Society's Birmingham conference a few weeks earlier.
8. Delayed flight announcement for the fabulous new book on Tolkien I'm reading, until I finish reading it. Which should be real soon.
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