One of the more unfortunate outcomes of Sex and the City’s success (other than the obsession with rabbit vibrators–seriously, ladies, there are other kinds. Variety IS the spice of life) is TV’s scramble to find its replacement. For example, the upcoming Literary Superstars, a SATC-style take on the publishing industry. Matthew Reilly, an Australian thriller writer, wrote the pilot, which will star Jenna Elfman, the aggressively quirky star of Dharma & Greg.

Reilly, 33, described the series as a Sex And The City-style view of the literary industry. Its opening scene involves Elfman, who plays a book publicist, at a launch in her underwear. “[Publishing] is a funny world,” Reilly said.

I suppose TV is fairly saturated with police procedurals, forcing a thriller writer to strike out in a different direction. But another ditsy urban female who gets into embarrassing scraps and makes faces? Is that really necessary? Of course, before we get Literary Superstars, we’ll have to run the gauntlet of Lipstick Jungle and Cashmere Mafia–one from the writer of SATC, the other from the producer. Awkward!

Can we please just bring back Roseanne? She was funny, she was awesome, she was married to John Goodman, and she didn’t tacitly encourage the purchase of $500 dollar shoes.

So, this week the movie studios are rolling out Live Free or Die Hard. It seems that no one is really sure what to make of a bald John McClane crashing a car into a helicopter (sans Alan Rickman or Jeremy Irons-caliber actor as nemesis), but this summer’s blockbusters have been so damn boring so far, everyone and their mother’s weighing in on the subject. And so, for your consideration, a roundup of links to Die Hard-related stuff.

• Slate’s tribute to/exegesis of the movie’s iconic one-liner (which, let’s face it, is pretty awesome), with discussion of other action-movie one-liners.
• The Guardian displays dismay at the mind-boggling amount of damage to infrastructure (really not awesome) wrought by John McClane.
• And finally, a YouTube tribute to the man, the myth, the catchphrase: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5in09EwYV0]

In 1961, responding to Pop Art and the general rise of the global consumer, Piero Manzoni put together 90 30-gram cans and labeled them Artist’s Shit in English, French, Italian and German, and signed his name on the top. Whether the cans actually contain the artist’s shit is irrelevant; I’m not sure anyone has really been tempted to quell their curiosity. We don’t know what the work of art is made of, we just have to trust the label. Putting excrements in a can wasn’t the only thing that distinguished the Italian artist; he set the price of each can at its weight in gold. The viewer questions the can as art and rethinks the concept of consumer value. Manzoni joined the ranks of Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol in confronting the new consumer reality and the place of art within it.

On May 23, Sotheby’s sold one of Manzoni’s cans for 124,000 euro (~US$ 165,500) at its auction to an unidentified European collector. While selling at double the reserve price (the hidden minimum price needed to be reached by the bidder), the value of the cans has risen because approximately half the cans have exploded.

Over his lifetime Manzoni created works ranging from thumprinted hardboiled eggs, signed living people (including Umberto Eco) as well as the earlier and more traditional works on canvas. Artist’s Shit was one of Manzoni’s final works and created a stir.

And the fact that this can of ‘excrement’ has sold today for an exorbitant amount of money only further solidifies the questionable nature of art as commodity. While Manzoni’s work created a stir in the 60s, 45 years later the art of the past has just been annexed into the canon of avant-garde art, receding to the back ranks. The institution of art continues, and buying a can of shit isn’t unheard of.

First, the good news: I’m in. I have a seat at the seminar. The bad news? My computer’s battery is dying, and I only have an hour’s worth of battery power. But I’ll blog until it runs out of power. The rest, you’ll have to figure out on your own.

So, refresh for updates. Right now they’re stuffing goodie bags and sorting packets of lube and condoms, so I’m going to put my laptop on standby.

This year’s speaker is Megara Bell, of the Center for Sex and Culture. There’s a handout about the “Physiology of Pleasure” floating around, but I’m not sure what’s on it (didn’t grab one). It sort of looks like everyone up front is sitting down; maybe we’re about to get this show on the road? This year’s set-up is swank–I went to the first one, which was in a super-overcrowded common room in Adams House, and all the vagina-shaped cookies were gone by the time I got there. And it was about the temperature of a vagina in the room.

Sci Center B is the biggest classroom on campus, but it looks like they may actually fill it up. Also, there’s some serious AV components, including a video screen. Looks like everyone will get a good look at the vagina hand puppet!

Yay, orgasm-related swag! (Shirley just threw I <3 female orgasm t-shirts into the audience.)

Megara’s up. (”I feel like the rock star of sex!”) OMG, one of these things the other week–like 24 people were there. She concludes from the showing that Harvard loves sex; bless her for her faith in us.

More after the jump!
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