21st Century

Junior's Deli, which has been serving pastrami and other deli fare on L.A.'s Westside since 1959, will close at the end of the year. Employees, some of them multi-decade veterans of the business, learned Wednesday of the comfort food haven's impending shutdown, a casualty of a rent dispute over the 11,000-square-foot space. "It's catastrophic for me," said David Saul, who co-owns the business with his brother, John. "I'm at a loss. It's like I'm grieving a death. " The Sauls' father, Marvin, launched the delicatessen after a failed stint as a uranium miner in Utah.

Santa's not the only one who makes lists. As we reflect on 2012, we too have thoughts about who should look forward to a cheerful holiday morning and who deserves a lump of coal. Below, The Times' reflections on who's been naughty and who's been nice. Merry Christmas! NICE Duncan Hosie, a gay freshman at Princeton University, was more than nice. He was brave and decent. Hosie offered Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia a lesson in civility when he respectfully questioned the justice about his inflammatory comments comparing homosexuality to bigamy, incest and bestiality.

A Possible Life A Novel in Five Parts Sebastian Faulks Henry Holt: 304 pp. $25 -- In the wake of bestselling, highly praised historical tales such as "Birdsong" and "Charlotte Gray," Sebastian Faulks has been hailed as one of those authors who straddles art and commerce -- which may be another way of saying he belongs to neither camp entirely. We should not be surprised, then, that his latest book, "A Possible Life," gravitates between poles of its own. At first blush, it is a collection of five longish short stories, self-containable, not obviously related, ranging in era from early 19th century France to futuristic Italy.

Framed by a Moorish arch (or is it just a Moorish-looking arch?), a blue-green Islamic minaret (or does it just look like a minaret?) rises above tall trees in a city with about 1.5 million residents. This might be a good time to remember that the words azure, admiral, adobe, alcohol and assassin all came to English by way of Arabic. The same is true for many Spanish words. But maybe none of that matters. What city are we looking at, and when did this tower go up? Cairo; 10th century Esfahan, Iran; 18th century Las Vegas; 21st century Granada, Spain; 11th century Tijuana; 20th century Tijuana is the right answer.

“How black is that?” was the refrain during Jamie Foxx's “SNL” monologue Saturday night, as he marveled at turns of events like President Obama's being elected to a second term and the fact that the comedian was hosting the show with musical guest Ne-Yo. And while race was never again explicitly mentioned throughout the rest of the show, it remained a constant theme, yet one handled in a lighthearted, often absurd manner. One of the criticisms most frequently lobbed at the late-night institution is that it lacks any real diversity in its cast and writing, but last night “SNL” resembled programs that do address race while enjoying diverse audiences, like “Key and Peele” or “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell.” Foxx, more present in the episode than most hosts, was willing to be extremely silly in many of his sketches, relying upon his sketch show experience from “In Living Color” as he played characters like a Christmas tree pimp or a Hostess Ding Dong disgruntled by the amount of attention Twinkies have been receiving lately.

Every sound in Witold Lutoslawski's exquisitely made music seems there for a purpose, although what that purpose is can be hard to say. One thing in the Polish composer's scores generally leads to another, but why can be another conundrum. The music represents a world meant, for whatever reason, to be as it is. The Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group's glorious Green Umbrella concert Tuesday night in Walt Disney Concert Hall was Lutoslawski themed. The two Lutoslawski pieces played included the luminous late song cycle "Chantefleurs et Chantefables," which the L.A. Phil was first to record in 1994, the year the composer died and four years after it was written.

Two years before Dave Brubeck died, the Los Angeles Times published an interview with the great jazzman on the occasion of his 90th birthday. With Brubeck's death at 92, we share our visit to his home in this profile from Dec. 5, 2010. WILTON, Conn -- Most people who have never lived in Connecticut imagine that the whole state is exactly like Wilton. It's not, but driving toward the town where Dave Brubeck lives, you understand why this dream never dies, especially in late autumn when every tree seems almost mythic in its chromatic display and every pitch and roll of the rural, straight-from-the-calendar-page landscape yields views that can either fill your heart or break it gently.

In 1940, Thomas Wolfe published a story about the emotional fallout that results when individuals leave their families and friends for the promise of new lives in far-away places. "You Can't Go Home Again" became a great American novel because it captured the psychological costs of a nation on the go, whose increasingly mobile population, largely made up of immigrants, is even more so today. At Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Wangechi Mutu's fourth solo show in Los Angeles brings the bittersweet resonance of Wolfe's premise  up to the minute - and out of this world.

Readers' comments on the Petraeus affair continue to pour into The Times' letters to the editor inbox, as each day brings another revelation.  “CIA Director David H. Petraeus resigned Friday after a brief but troubled tenure as head of American's clandestine spy service, citing his 'extremely poor judgment' for engaging in an extramarital affair,” wrote Ken Dilanian and David S. Cloud in Saturday's Times. Initially, most readers focused on the extramarital affair, and that thread continues: As Jennifer Laity of Palos Verdes Estates writes: “The unraveling of the Petraeus soap opera is like a Greek tragedy….

Quick, what do Lisbon and New York have in common? Well, sure, they're both cities.  But before a great earthquake, tsunami and fire consumed it in 1755, Lisbon, like New York today, was one of the world's leading cities. Which is why I couldn't help thinking of Lisbon while taking in the coverage Monday of Hurricane Sandy as it swept ashore on the East Coast. Lisbon was brought down by natural disasters in 1755; it never recovered its former glory and power.