Around the Blogosphere / In the Neighborhood

Local blog juggernaut DCist has amped up its coverage of the arts. What's new over there? How about reviews, by J. T. Kirkland of Thinking about Art, of Barbara Probst's photographs on exhibit at G Fine Art and the Prescott Moore Lassman photographs at the Fisher Gallery? Not to mention a regular Arts Agenda column from Lenny Campello at Washington, DC Art News. DCist has also gone classical on yo' ass, by bringing us in from Ionarts, after we showed up at the DCist Happy Hour at Biddy Mulligan's. There have been recent reviews of a Twilight Concert at the Corcoran (by Jens) and Christ Church Cathedral Choir at the National Gallery (by yours truly). They are also running my bimonthly Classical Music Agenda, linked to our Ionarts Concert Schedule.

Someone's cuckoo has died at Never Been Home. A mysterious song text from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn is the last known word from our favorite Paris music blogger. A bad experience with absente in the extended 80th birthday celebrations for Boulez? Whatever the cause, we hope he will return soon we regret the apparently permanent demise of his blog. (In a related story, he may be returning soon, under his real name, Jordan Brown.) At the same time, it looks like CultureSpace is more or less back online, after an absence of several weeks, and her post on rare film titles available from a company called Criterion was most welcome. Great: something else for me to spend money on. Also, it looks like Alex Ross could not stay away long while he works on his book. All the better for the rest of us.

Anna L. Conti has posted her notes (more here and concluding here) on a lecture by Peter Schjeldahl's lecture in San Francisco. When he spoke here in Washington last fall, I did the same thing. I also learned about Gregg Chadwick's blog Speed of Life. Check it out.

In local news, Washingtonians drank lots of beer to celebrate the idea that we are going to shell out to watch grown men be paid unreasonable sums of money to take steroids. Yes, Major League Baseball has returned to the nation's capital, but not without some sour grapes. I enjoy baseball as much as the next person, but I was somewhat disappointed to see our mayor give so much attention and be willing to spend so much money on bringing back baseball when the city has a few other problems it might want to deal with at some point. The fact that the Nationals will play at RFK Stadium for the next three seasons has also disturbed my life, since I live right around the corner from it. Before the first game on Thursday, at the last minute, we had to go there to get a special parking sticker so that our car would not be towed away. The U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters sang God Bless America, Renée Fleming sang the national anthem, President Bush threw out the first baseball, and I was late for choir rehearsal because of the traffic, police, and Secret Service presence. The pictures looked great.