In Brief: Ides of March Edition

Vincenzo Camuccini, Death of Caesar (detail), 1798 Or: Bloggers assassinate traditional journalism

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.

• This could turn out to be my new favorite way to waste time -- adding jokes to the articles on composers at the Uncyclopedia site, the Wikipedia spoof, like this one on "Paul Hindemith, the composer and mass murderer." [Paul Led Zeppelinburg "LZ-129" Hindemith]


• Perhaps Tom Service was reading the Uncyclopedia entry on Wagner when he wrote this: "Wagner's Valkyries are angels of death in their original operatic context (the opening of act three of Die Walküre), scouring the world for warriors to kill. What Wagner's music captures so brilliantly is the Valkyrie's bloodlust and love of killing..." That such an outrageous howler not only came from the pen of The Guardian's classical music critic but also managed to get by the editorial and fact-checking staff is an embarrassment of epic proportions. It made all of A. C. Douglas's lights and transistors light up. [Sounds and Fury]


• Filmmaker Rob Spence has a plan to install a camera engineered to fit inside a prosthetic eye -- inside his own head! Since one of his eyes was already damaged, when he was a child, he will not have to give up the use of a healthy eye to do so. He will use his camera eye to film conversations with people for an upcoming film project. [Boing Boing]


• The financial crisis's impact on the arts keeps getting worse. Baltimore Opera is doomed: they are liquidating all of the company's remaining assets. Also, note that Tim Smith's article, written for the Baltimore Sun, appeared in the WaPo as part of the arrangement between the two papers to share some news content. [Washington Post]


• The Maryland Chorus, a volunteer choir made up of students at the University of Maryland and members of the local community, will sing its last concert on May 10. Little birds keep singing in my ear about rumors that some other big choruses in Washington are teetering on the brink of collapse, too. [Clarice Smith Center]


• Leonard Bernstein's composing studio will be shipped to Indiana University, reassembled, and opened to the public exactly as it was when he worked in it. Matthew Guerrieri takes note of the news by asking, "Does this sort of thing happen in Europe?" He makes some interesting points about this being an American phenomenon, but it is far from unheard of in Europe. An example of a composer did not come immediately to mind, but I have spent some time in the studio of the sculptor Brancusi, reconstructed as an exhibit at the Centre Pompidou. [Atelier Brancusi]


• After years of being the self-appointed thorn in critic Anthony Tommasini's side, James Jorden (A.K.A. La Cieca) gets a shot as the opera critic for another New York rag. Yet another blogger to make it into newsprint just as the old media takes to its death bed. Chapeau, ma vieille! [New York Post]