I haven't been to see Christo's "The Gates" in Central Park: this crazy modern art is usually over my head. But I've very happily visited The Somerville Gates, which might be characterized as Gates for kitties.... An oboe blog! And another! ... The unpredictable Fredösphere writes: "Terry Teachout and Alex Ross are the Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin of the blogösphere, except without the genocide!" The exclamation point, he says, denotes irony, thank God.... A reader asks my opinion of a Details magazine piece on Maxim Vengerov. I was pretty stunned to see such an in-depth profile of a classical musician in a mainstream magazine. And it was good: Jeff Gordinier followed Vengerov on a trip to his childhood home in Siberia, working in observations about his personality and musicianship along the way. Whether it measured up to the Brazilian men's swimsuit portfolio that directly preceded it is hard to say. If magazines like Details decide that young classical performers are some higher form of cool — well, it won't solve all our problems, but it sure won't hurt.... Road to Stardom update: like, no way proudly eclectic "Jewbian" Akil
should have lost out to "Orlando, Florida theme-park entertainer"
born-again Timberfake Matthew. Not since Ravel failed to win the Prix de Rome
has there been such a scandale.
