notes

1. It's Hanukkah, so I made matzo ball soup for dinner. It's also Advent, which B. celebrates, so there are going to be a lot of lights on the counter for the next few days. By the same token, we have a Christmas tree. B. bought me new shoes, and Judah Maccabee left B. some Hanukkah presents under the tree. (And if you think that's a sacrilegious mixture of religions, did you know - surely every secular Jewish child in the US knows this - that if you unwrap one of those foil-covered chocolate Maccabee soldiers, the chocolate underneath is molded in the shape of Santa Claus?)

2. B. is still having her voice studied. Kaiser referred her to the speech therapy clinic up in Oakland, where they have experience with singers. I drove, as I do that. A speech therapist with a stutter, how about that: no doubt that inspired him to choose this line of work. We did fine.

3. The pianist I've been listening to play Beethoven sonatas in a local church won an SFCV readers' award for a concerto she'd played, so my editor thought we should review her in something. What fit my schedule was the "Archduke" Trio. Which I've finally now learned to like.

4. I'm not sure I follow the results of the Comic Con trademark suit. All sorts of cons call themselves "Comic Con," some with and some without licenses from the one in San Diego. How can they defend their trademark if they haven't been doing so consistently? Also, San Diego claims that "Comic Con" means just them, but how can it do so if they're giving licenses to other cons with no connection to them except the license?

5. Ed Lee, Mayor of San Francisco, suddenly died. That's a shame: he seemed a good man. More drama in the City.

6. How did Doug Jones win in Alabama? Turnout. Turnout. That's the key to elections. Note well.

6a. What's disturbing are the number of people who said that the dalliances with 14-year-olds are what caused them to turn against Roy Moore. That means that they were OK with all the public things Moore did before this came out, which strike me as even more horrifying.