Things Noted Here & There

On Sunday 1 November, we'll open nominations for the Cliopatria Awards, 2009. Throughout November you can offer nominations for the six awards. Teams of judges will select the winning nominees in December and they will be announced in conjunction with the meeting of the American Historical Association in early January.

An ancient/medieval edition of Carnivalesque, with an All Hallows Eve theme, will be held on Saturday 31 October at Bavardess. Send nominations of the best or most frightening of September's and October's ancient/medieval history blogging to bavardess*at*gmail*dot*com or use the form. On Sunday 1 November, Natalie Bennett will host History Carnival LXXXI at Philobiblon. Send nominations of the best in October's history blogging to natalie*at*nataliebennett*dot*co*dot*uk, use the form, or"tweet @natalieben with quick links using the hashtag #historycarnival."

Tunku Varadarajan,"Metropolitan Glory," WSJ, 24 October, reviews John Julius Norwich, ed., The Great Cities in History.

Matthew Guerrieri,"Beethoven's early believers," Boston Globe, 25 October, argues that New England Transcendentalists adopted Beethoven as the embodiment of their artistic ideal in the 1830s and 1840s. Fixing him in the American musical canon may be their most persistent cultural contribution, Guerrieri argues.

Errol Morris's seven-part series,"The Case of the Inappropriate Alarm Clock," is now complete at Zoom.

Finally, the Nation's 9 November issue has a forum on Afghanistan. It features essays by Stephen Walt, John Mueller, Selig Harrison, Priya Satia, our former colleague, Manan Ahmed, Mosharraf Zaidi, and Robert Dreyfuss.