The Friday Informer: Count Down All You Want—Shopping Always Scares Me

Photo of the Week Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night plays Baltimore. Like a John Waters movie, but with new music folks. Photo by Loran McClung

• Perhaps this is why composers don’t cook.
  
  
• Jay Greenberg, redux?
  
  

• If you’re thinking of donating a gift to a child this season, think twice before sending a piano.
  
  

• “Jingle Bells”—the retrograde inversion version…okay, fine. It’s actually just in Pig Latin. [via music for maniacs]
  
  

• A Christmas gift from Arnold Schoenberg, via Kyle Gann. (Don’t think too hard on that.)
  
  

• Silver iPod: Alex Ross edition. Anyone else feel faint at the prospect?
  
  

• No smoking, no trans-fats, no holiday Muzak. The War on Xmas continues…
  
  

• Slightly off topic: all the facts on that operatic car crash at La Scala and why we just can’t seem to look away. Don’t you wish you’d been backstage?