Now Playing: Brahms, Symphony No. 4 in E minor, "Andante moderato." I love the opening to this movement so, so much. It's contending with the first movement of Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony for favorite Classical piece right now.

I discovered tonight one reason to be slightly melancholy about changing my last name: the codex in which Beowulf is found is often called the Nowell Codex, after a sixteenth-century antiquarian. Put that last name through a spelling permutation, and what do you get? Yes, yes, I know my family's last name is technically Dutch but hey, the connection always brings a certain glow to my heart whenever I stumble across that term for the manuscript.