For the last few weeks there has been only one topic of discussion. ... So Chicken Corner thanked her lucky feathers for Halloween, which provided a distraction, as well as the idea of fun, not to mention fun itself. And a few memories, as well as signs.

In Echo Park, Sunday morning. A brunette wig on the ground on Sunset Boulevard, next to a silver compact car's driver's door. Candy wrappers in the street. A pumpkin cracked on the cement, innards turning black. The burnt remains of several incendiary devices, the fireworks we'd watched on Halloween night.

Saturday, walking south to Delilah. Still on display, a three-foot doll laying face up, eyes open on a postage-sized front lawn, dressed in a full-sized woman's dress that has been decorated with red stains. Among the many disturbing aspects of this murder display is the fact that a girl of about nine or ten years lives in the house. My daughter does not notice the installation, and I decide to walk on the opposite side of the street on the way back from Delilah's Bakery.

Delilah's Bakery: bluegrass players are just getting started in front of the cinder block bakery. If Ralph Stanley has written a song (or more) for Obama, they probably haven't had time to learn it. They're serious about bluegrass, though (on of the guys plays at the Audubon Center bluegrass jam once a month -- I recognize him), and the repertoire is fine.