Entertainment

Newsweek this week has critics do battle on the vital topic: Does Seinfeld still hold up 10 years after it left the airwaves?

No, says Marc Peyser: "What once seemed smart – they just did a story line on John Cheever's diaries! – feels like shtick. The pacing ... seems formulaic and forced." He adds that "like a cheap sweater, or a cheap puffy shirt, the Seinfeld humor wears fast."

Au contraire, says David Noonan: "I could talk about the great writing, the intricate, interwoven story lines and how ... yadda yadda yadda ... it's really funny." But he focuses on the casting, and not just the lead ensemble, whom he ranks with TV's all-time best. "Let me say it plain – no sitcom in the history of television has featured a more talented or memorable bunch of second, third and fourth bananas than Seinfeld. Period."

Statistic of the day: American Ballet Theatre in New York City sets aside $350,000 for pointe shoes per season, or about $7,500 per ballerina (according to the Arizona Daily Star, via artsjournal.com).

Mariah Carey sold 463,000 copies of E=MC2 its first week in stores. That's her career best. But producer Jermaine Dupri, who helmed five tracks on the disc, thinks Ms. Carey's new CD is headed much higher.

"It's a big album, and people are going to love song after song after song," Mr. Dupri told Rolling Stone. "Her last album [2005's The Emancipation of Mimi] sold 7 million, and I think this one will do 10 [million]."

Nicole Richie discussed her relationship with the father of her baby, Joel Madden, in the June Harper's Bazaar: "When we're apart, we just get on iChat and don't even say anything to each other ... He likes to get girly sometimes. But he'd kill me if he knew I said that."

How the Chicago Symphony triumphed last week where the New York Philharmonic failed, in luring Riccardo Muti to be music director:

"I thought it was time for me to be absolutely free, like the birds in the air," he said in The New York Times. "Birds go around and they enjoy their happiness, their freedom.

"But sometimes it can happen they find a tree, and they like to stop on a tree, and they didn't know about the tree before. It doesn't mean one tree is better than another tree. It just happens at the right moment in life."

Count Frank McCourt out of the digital revolution. The New York Observer found him last month at the PEN Literary Awards.

"I'm not a blog man," the Irish author said in his melodious brogue. "I've read two in my life. I really don't like to be sequestered in a room with a screen. I'd rather sit in a bar and listen to some guy uttering platitudes. You need time to think for yourself; I can't absorb it all anymore. A book is enough, and a bar." He then gulped some red wine.

Compiled by the GuideLive staff

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