5 November—Two things are certain this Election Day. First, we’ve blown more leaves this fall than ever before. Second, some readers on our emailing list haven’t been receiving the daily link and think—fear?—The Monitor has given up the ghost. Not true. At this time. And no one has been deleted from our emailing list except at their own request (specifically, a few Orange Jesus cultists).

The fault this time isn’t with The Monitor or even our email server. The problem, rather, is with the readers’ email servers and/or security software. The Monitor intends to post a new disquisition every day, as we’ve been doing since our first one just over three years ago. So if you don’t get the daily link, tweak your security parameters. And it’s pretty easy to go to LitchfieldMonitor.com and click on the Daily Disquisition.

Or forget about it. In that case, you won’t be reading this anyway.

Nor will you be hearing The Battell by English Renaissance composer William Byrd, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. Written for the virginals (smaller, portable cousin of the harpsichord), it’s played here on a magnificent double-manual 17th-century Dutch harpsichord. The several pieces are among the 42 keyboard works in My Ladye Nevells Booke. Perfect music for Election Day, well worth listening to the whole suite . . .