In Brief

Here is your regular Sunday dosage of interesting items, from Blogville and beyond:

• Matthew Guerrieri answers the question "Do music critics go through all five Kübler-Ross stages?" (ending with acceptance) by using Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective. You know the story: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring causes a riot at its premiere but 30 years later is used by Walt Disney in Fantasia. [Soho the Dog]


• La Cieca discovers the YouTube videos of William Zauscher (followed by Alex Ross and others). Yes, that's the William Zauscher written up here at Ionarts in December. However, the comments never went in the direction they did at La Cieca's. Whoa. [Parterre Box]


• In related news, Washington, D.C., has an Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Affairs. And who else would you hire to head up such an office but a drag queen who performs under the pseudonym Cookie Buffet? [Wonkette]


• Who was Alice Prin? Kiki of Montparnasse, the muse of modernity. [The Guardian]


• There is so much interesting stuff to watch at YouTube. Marc Geelhoed directs us to a video of Messiaen's Oiseaux Exotiques performed by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and Pierre Boulez. [Deceptively Simple]


• WHAT? Someone, somewhere, actually thought this was a good idea? Just one of those pallets of cash shipped off to Iraq could have been the seed money for the new Ionarts. [Wonkette]


• In other national news, the Ethnomusicologists (like the Dead Presidents?) come out publicly against using music as a weapon in torture. And, believe me, listening to some of the things they study is torture. *rimshot* [Boing Boing]


• Maury d'Annato looks back at his first opera at the Met, Eugene Onegin, coincidentally also his 75th opera there this season (related -- Sieglinde raves about the same production, with Fleming and Gergiev -- I will tune in via Sirius). My first night at the Met was one of my earliest experiences with live opera in a major house, on my first-ever trip to New York City (an undergraduate-years story I told a couple years ago here). Mirella Freni in Manon Lescaut, and I had no ticket. However, I did have a credit card (thanks, Mom and Dad!), which is how I ended up sitting in a box at the Met. [My Favorite Intermissions]


• Dawn Upshaw has recovered from chemotherapy and is back on a comeback tour. We wish her the best. [Opera Chic]