MONEY AIN'T GOT NO OWNERS, ONLY SPENDERS:  As our Wire Wednesday Withdrawal continues (still haven't figured out a Breaking Bad catch-up plan), you should feel free to share with us those quotes and concepts from The Wire which have now entered into your normal discourse.

PREMIERING AT THE PAVILLION? Apparently, I may be the last to know that Steve Carell is currently filming his first (presumably) straight-out dramatic role, starring as John E. du Pont Jr. in Foxcatcher, with Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo as the wrestling Schultz brothers. Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball) is directing.

SWEET KAESONG BROWN: Dennis Rodman and three members of the Harlem Globetrotters are going to North Korea to run a youth basketball clinic. This is the most sensical thing I've read in months.

WELL, IT'S NOT A WORSE IDEA THAN THE JAY LENO SHOW:  The last successful variety show on prime time network TV is arguably In Living Color, with a succession of recent flops (Rosie Live!) but is Maya Rudolph the one to revive the format?

I DON'T PEACOCK THIS NEWS: How much worse can it get for NBC? Bill Carter:

When the official numbers are completed Thursday, NBC will finish this sweeps month not only far behind its regular network competitors, but also well behind the Spanish-language Univision. No broadcast network has ever before finished a television season sweeps month in fifth place....

Over all, the network’s ratings have fallen so far that no episode of any show on NBC in February came within one million viewers of a show on PBS: “Downton Abbey.” And forget approaching the numbers of a cable hit like AMC’s “The Walking Dead.”

BUT THE MUSIC'S SO HAPPY!  For those readers in the Delaware Valley, may I highly commend that you see the Narberth Community Theater's production of Urinetown, which is filled with symbolism and things like that. It did occasion some difficult conversations with Lucy afterwards about Thomas Malthus and Brechtian technique, but just because she's nine doesn't mean she shouldn't learn her way of life is unsustainable.

If you've never seen Urinetown, its Tony Awards performance is a good introduction and, below the fold, one of my favorite parts of the book, which because it's not in the soundtrack is a fragment I had forgotten:

IF I'M GOING TO MAKE A FAKE MOVIE, IT'S GOING TO BE A FAKE HIT:  Six different films win in the six major categories, and tonight's awards ceremony was otherwise distinguished by the high quality of the live singing performances and horrid misogyny of its host's attempts at humor.

As I wrote in October, I thought Argo was some pretty damn fun filmmaking, but flawed as history. I'm glad we're in an era, though, that Best Picture is allowed to go to a movie that's fun, or funny, and we're leagues away from the 1980s-1990s era of Best Picture too often going to Most Important Picture. True, the wins for The Artist and Argo may just be a different way for Hollywood to hail itself ... but that may be unavoidable. Now I've just got this urge to see Life of Pi while it's still on the big screen in 3D...