Boston's First Night arts festival this New Year's eve was smaller than it's been. There wasn't much art on the Common this year beyond the by-now traditional ice sculptures (and Irish flavored rock and roll from Flynn on the Parkman bandstand if you waited long enough). But those were still worth seeing.

On my way walking over, I ran into someone I hadn't seen in a while -- a married woman working the cookies and cocoa table outside Arlington Street Church, to raise money for their Friday night meals for those in need. It didn't matter much to anyone that she's married to another woman. Call it an object lesson in Blue State moral values.

Also worth seeing: Israeli folk singer Guy Mendilow. Some of what he does is what anyone would call folk music. But he spices that up with a kind of throat-singing that sounds more like a Moog or a Theremin than the human vocal tract. One of his originals is a beat-heavy experiment in throat-singing and percussion -- fairly good electronica without the electronics.