Whoops!

The man who oversaw public affairs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency when it held a fake news conference last week will no longer be taking over as head of public relations for the director of national intelligence.

[link]

Are Valhall and Valhalla the same thing?

I believe so.

What happened is that her son(Who kinda sounds like he Ain't Right, but he's eight so it might be hard to tell) got in her car with the extra key and started it, and banged up her car by hitting a power box.(!!) Luckily nothing but her car was hurt.

Was he trying to get chicken fingers? Because there was a kid like that on Ellen last week. If not, she needs better PR.

Question for the hivemind, but feel free to send me off to the music thread if it's more appropriate to ask there...

I have a character in my WIP who's a reasonably competent, though rusty, amateur musician. In another few chapters I intend to place a violin in his path and have him pick it up and try to remember some of the songs he used to play in earlier, more carefree times. For him, earlier, more carefree times would equal the 1780's and 90's, and he would've played solo or in very small string ensembles. Duets and quartets, but nothing orchestral.

So. Any ideas on composers and pieces my violinist might've played? Obviously they could come from before the 1780's, though if anyone just HAPPENS to know which pieces were most popular among aristocratic amateur musicians in the British Isles in 1790, that'd be wonderful, too. (With this group, you never know what kind of expertise you'll turn up!) I want to go digging through iTunes a bit and see if I can find a few appropriate signature pieces for my character...

Are Valhall and Valhalla the same thing?

Depending on the language in question, I think. In Old Norse, it's an inflected word (all words are inflected words!) so they'd be the equivalent of saying "from the lighthouse" and "to the lighthouse". Or similar.

Yes, I just made a grammatical point with Virginia Woolf! So what!

Are Valhall and Valhalla the same thing?

Yes. The Norwegian is Valhall but somehow the Swedish version ends up Anglecized as Valhalla.

I'd only ever heard Valhalla until recently. Our client in Houston has a server named Valhall, and I was referring to it as Valhalla for the longest time.

That story wasn't very interesting, was it?

Susan, my first instinct is Bach. I know he wrote a lot of stuff for keyboard that could be played by amateur musicians. I don't know if he wrote for violin, or if it would have been transcribed.

From the FEMA fiasco article:

The White House said it was unaware of the briefing beforehand. "It is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House," said press secretary Dana Perino.

Yeah, now that it's been revealed how badly it blew up in the face of the FEMA brass! Without that test case, I'm not so sure...

Susan, my first instinct is Bach.

Hmm. I'll look into it. I'm not sure my character is a Bach kind of guy, but my own exposure is limited to some of the more obvious church pieces--e.g. "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," which I've heard at so many weddings over the past decade or so that I've actually burned out on it.