In Brief

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

• One of the things that makes The Onion so funny is that it is the inversion of journalism. They write the headlines first, which are always engineered to grab your attention, and then write the articles to go under the headlines. [New York Times]


• Even for singers, the vocal mechanism can be something of a mystery. After watching the video of the "Glottal Opera," involving close-ups of human voices in action, I wish it had stayed that way. [Boing Boing]


• What would happen if a string quartet -- say the Quatuor Mosaïques -- gave a concert following the rules of a typical rock club performance -- say, by the Wu-Tang Clan. A hilarious mash-up from Andrew Lindemann Malone. [DMV Classical]


• Bálint András Varga’s recently published György Kurtág: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages. WANT. [From Beyond the Stave]


• "When I go to an opera, I go for the story and the music. If the singer is wonderful, that's gravy. People who love opera are willing to put up with the longueurs. In fact, they enjoy them, because they allow the singer to shine; that's the thrill." Mark Stryker talks to Stephen Sondheim about opera. [Detroit Free Press]


• We wish Leonard Slatkin a speedy and full recovery, after suffering a heart attack on the podium during a concert with the Rotterdam Philharmonic. [Washington Post]