1. Happy Halloween, if you like it. I haven’t been very excited for it since 1989. And it leads to to the darkest part of the year, the last downward slide to cold weather and no sun.

2. Fortunately, we can be happy that both the punctuation faces and the cats are cuter in Asia. (Well, MOST cats are cuter. Nothing is as cute as Toby!)

3. It’s the birthday of John Keats, who has always reminded me of Schubert. (They lived almost at the same time and for the same span, and Keats’ poems have the same otherworldy effect and quick mood changes that Schubert’s later works have.)

4. That sounded scholarly, huh?