Side show

IT'S ALL THERE IN BLACK AND WHITE: Who among you did not chuckle -- and still cannot suppress a laugh -- upon hearing that the action in the play Art, at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center's Shimberg Playhouse, is started by a white painting. A canvas of nothing but white.

What a sendup of modern art, you snort.

We now bring you black. For real.

More accurately, it's the Black Square, painted in 1913 by RussianKasimir Malevich.

It was expected to bring in millions of dollars for a bankrupt Russian bank at an auction last weekend. But it was pulled off the block after the Russian government declared it a "state cultural monument," BBC News Online says.

It is one of four known versions of Malevich's trademark Suprematist square.

BLAME IT ON BRIO: The makers of The Simpsons have apologized to anyone in Rio de Janeiro who was offended by a recent episode in which the cartoon family battled monkeys and rats, an unlicensed taxi driver, felonious street children and lazy police to find an orphan Lisa had been sponsoring.

"We apologize to the lovely city and people of Rio de Janeiro," executive producer James Brooks said in a statement reported by the BBC. "The Simpsons is a satirical look at a modern American family."

The head of Rio's tourist board had been so incensed by the episode, he said he was thinking about taking legal action. Because, of course, Americans believe everything they see on TV and would cancel their Rio vacation plans as a result.

IT'S GOT THE LOOK: General Hospital -- the soap opera with Luke and Laura -- aired its 10,000th episode Wednesday. It's been on the air for 39 years.

Jackie Zeman has played nurse Bobbie Spencer Brock Myer Jones Cassadine for 25 years, and she had several observations about the show for the News-Sentinel of Knoxville, Tenn., including: "We are notorious for not casting people for looks."

And so it should be noted that among the careers the soap has helped launch are those of Ricky Martin, Antonio Sabato Jr., Rick Springfield, Jack Wagner, Richard Dean Anderson and Demi Moore. Whose looks, I'm sure, had nothing to do with them being cast.

LIKE ANYONE WOULD NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE: MTV and the creators of its Real World series are putting together a TV movie that parodies the show.

Called The Real World: The Lost Season, Variety says, it's supposed to be a two-hour account of a Real World season gone bad (haven't they all?).

The plot has a cast in Vancouver (that honeymoon period with Canada must be over) being asked to participate in an "all-star physical challenge" with previous Real World housemates, who play themselves. The cast is then lured to another house by a fan who has tried repeatedly (and failed) to get on the show. The fan forces the housemates to re-enact Real World moments under penalty of death.

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