Friday Odds & Sods Goes Home Again

Dear Reader, as we approach the darkest night of the year, now is the time to rally around our loved ones be they near or far and await the return of sunnier days. Your Interlocutor has heeded this advice, leaving the gloomy confines of the Metropolis for warmer and sunnier climes.   My sincerest hopes that you, too, will soon be in the company of those that you love and enjoying this week's Odds & Sods.

• For fans of music from the American South, the arrival of the Oxford American's music will be a nice holiday treat.  This year's issue covers the music of Texas and some of the articles have already been posted online. 
• This weeks reading list concerns itself with faith, or perhaps more accurately belief in things unseen: The hard lot of saints in the early 20th century and the use and abuse of the idea of repressed memories.  
• An amusement that can make killing time a much more colorful experience 
• For this weeks musical number, a collaboration between Messrs. Crosby & Armstrong: