Reading Gore Vidal's most recent memoir (through 2006), Point to Point Navigation. Lots of sweet stuff in it; the funniest being, so far, (1) Barbara Cartland's arriving inexcusably late at a Siamese princess's reception, and being punished by the princess for it, (2) Eleanor Roosevelt's passion for Amelia Earhart, (3) Pius XII's botched embalming.

Still thinking how odd it is, that, with all the wonder and mystifaction surrounding the acknowledged perfection of Stradivarius violins (violas and violoncellos), nobody has thought to make a connection between when they were made, and the music they were made for.