1. It is hard to hold more positions in an organization than Alice Hobbs has with the Plano Symphony. Throughout her 18 years with the suburban orchestra, Hobbs has served as its executive director, board president, director of volunteers, and president of the volunteers’ guild. During that tenure she has watched the symphony’s budget grow from $2,000 to $1.4 million, and the orchestra that once played in school and church auditoriums is now awaiting the completion of its new home, the $70 million Collin County arts hall. Hobbs will step down as executive director in March.

2. Let’s play a local band name association game. I say Beaten Sea, you say . . . Fox and the Bird. Right. Next one: I say Doug Burr, you say . . . Glen Farris. Good. Anyway, joking aside, this piece in Quick about local acts poised to make a move in 2011 reads somewhat like that, but it does offer some names to keep an eye on in the coming year, including Darktown Strutters, New Science Projects, Here Holy Spain, Missle, and the Fox and the Bird’s Wheeler Sparks, who is finishing a solo album.

3. Gosh, we were just starting to get over “Ant-Christ-Gate” when now another battle in the culture war explodes: What to think about the new edition of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn that replaces the N-Word with “slave” and “injun” with “Indian.” Slate says, “not the worst thing in the world.” Salon says, “outrageous.” The New York Times gathers nine wide-ranging views.