In Brief: Cristoforo Edition

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

• Naturally, French news outfits took note of the appointment of Philippe Auguin as music director of Washington National Opera. Agence France-Presse's headline got the story quite wrong, however, proclaiming that Auguin was succeeding departing general director Plácido Domingo. [Libération]


• Hearty congratulations to Mark Woods, who has reached his 10th anniversary of blogging. His Web site, an always thought-provoking collection of reading excerpts, images, and links, was a real inspiration behind the foundation of Ionarts. [wood s lot]


• Philippe Dagen has a review of France 1500, a mega-exhibit of mostly sacred art from France during the reigns of Charles VIII and Louis XII, at the Grand Palais in Paris. [Le Monde]


• With hat tip to Maud Newton, Last Letter, a lost poem Ted Hughes wrote about the suicide of Sylvia Plath, has been found and will be published in The New Statesman. [Jacket Copy]


• Philip Kennicott has the most sensible approach to the question of the proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero, because of which so much controversy has been stirred up. Of course, it will be built but what will it look like and will it harmonize with its surroundings? [Washington Post]


• Also, Philip Kennicott characterizes Norman Lebrecht's new Mahler book, Why Mahler?, as a "goldmine of howlers." [The New Republic]


• Michael Dirda lays out Alex Ross's new book, Listen to This. [Washington Post]


• Paris is a-twitter about Kiss the Past Hello, an exhibit of photographs, some of them explicit, by Larry Clark, he of Kids fame, at the Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris. After the Mairie de Paris proclaimed that no one under the age of 18 would be allowed to enter the exhibit, a French daily published the most shocking images on its front page, crying censorship. Definitely NSFW, even if it is art. [Libération]