GOING YURCHENKO:  Given that every reality tv competition involving C-level celebrities learning a new physical skill has been a flop other than ballroom dancing (including diving, figure skating, military training, circus acts), why should we believe there's an audience for celebrity gymnastics?

Bring back Battle of the Network Stars already, and let Ty Burrell, Alyson Hannigan, Amy Poehler, and Andy Samberg captain for their respective networks. Much better.

THAT'S AGRI-TAINMENT!  A friendly reminder that the pumpkins at your local pick-your-own-pumpkin patch probably weren't grown there.  (There were still a handful on the vine at Johnson's Corner Farm last weekend, but the boxes of trucked-in pumpkins weren't even hidden in a barn we passed.)

[ASIDE TO CAMERA: "OBVIOUSLY, THIS IS A NEGOTIATING PLOY"]:  A House of Cards producer has suggested that its currently-filing second season will be its last, because “Kevin Spacey likes to do movies and Robin Wright likes to do movies.”

WORTHWHILE CANADIAN INITIATIVE:  Alice Munro has won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature.

added: Adam Sternbergh wonders whether Munro counts as the first Canadian to be so honored, given that Saul Bellow was born in Montreal and lived there until age 9.

WHAT CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THE SECRET VOODOO HOUNFOUR?  Just as Marie Laveau comes back to public prominence (courtesy of an appearance in American Horror Story: Coven), they've announced that a remastered and slightly tweaked version of Gabriel Knight: Sins Of The Fathers, a consensus pick for one of the greatest computer graphic adventures of all time, will arrive next year for the game's 20th Anniversary.  If it sells well, more installments may follow.  (The third game was kind of a mess, but there's still a lot of story to be told.)

THE UNOFFICIAL HISTORIAN OF GREAT THINGS DONE BY WHITE MEN:  The Grantland team assembles their favorite Tom Hanks clips on YouTube.  (No Bosom Buddies? No Tom Hanks, Happy Days karate bully?)

BEAVIS' GRAMMAR RODEO:  Slate's new language correspondent Neil Whitman confronts the age-old question of what we actually mean when we're calling someone a dickhead, whether "someone whose entire being consists of the head of a dick OR someone who has a dick for a head."