Quick Takes: Taylor Swift CD comes with a bonus

Swift CD with a bonus

Taylor Swift is the latest act to offer bonus album content to an exclusive retailer.

The country superstar is aligning herself with Target Corp. for the release of her latest album, “Speak Now.” The store will offer fans three additional songs, remixed tunes and video content when the album is released Oct. 25.

“Speak Now” is the follow-up to her Grammy-winning, multiplatinum CD “Fearless.”

—Associated Press

U.S. album sales set all-time low

Album sales in the United States plunged to a record low last week for the third time this year, Billboard reported Wednesday. For the year as a whole, sales are 13% lower than the same time last year, the trade publication said.

The best seller for the week was Sara Bareilles’ “Kaleidoscope Heart,” which tallied 89,500 units sold, Billboard said. Eminem’s “Recovery” moved 81,000 to rank second.

Total album sales for the week were 4.83 million, the lowest weekly figure since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991, Billboard said. The previous low was 4.95 million, set only a month ago.

—From a Times staff writer

Locals to mark ‘Misfits’ at 50

Toni Westbrook-VanCleave was only 6 at the time, but she still remembers Marilyn Monroe strapping on a toy gun belt and playing cowboys and Indians with her brother during a break in filming of “The Misfits” in the then-small town of Dayton, Nev. VanCleave was a $10-a-day extra during a rodeo scene.

In testimony to the public’s enduring fascination with Monroe, VanCleave and other locals will gather Saturday and Sunday in Dayton, about 40 miles southeast of Reno, to mark the 50th anniversary of filming for the last complete movie for both Monroe and Clark Gable.

The celebration will include a Monroe and Gable look-alike contest, a display of photographs of the stars taken in Dayton, a session of old-timers’ reminiscences about the filming, and tours of the old bar where a light-hearted scene was shot of Monroe playing paddleball to the delight of male patrons.

—Associated Press

Book honors for Wolfe, ‘Sesame’

For at least one night, Tom Wolfe will share billing with one of the founders of “Sesame Street.”

The National Book Foundation announced Wednesday that the author of such bestsellers as “The Right Stuff” and “The Bonfire of the Vanities” will receive an honorary National Book Award for lifetime achievement.

The foundation said a special prize for outstanding service to the American literary community also will be given to Joan Ganz Cooney. Cooney’s research on television and education helped inspire the beloved children’s program “Sesame Street.”

Nominees for the competitive categories will be announced Oct. 13. The awards ceremony takes place Nov. 17.

—Associated Press

‘60 minutes’ to debut website

“60 Minutes” is launching a companion website that will offer additional details from its correspondents each week about stories on the CBS broadcast.

The site is 60minutes

Overtime.com and will appear on Sept. 26, the night the broadcast begins its 43rd season on the air. Each week new content will appear online at the same time the broadcast is aired.

“60 Minutes” Executive Producer Jeff Fager said Wednesday that the material wouldn’t be outtakes, but fully-produced stories that explore new angles or expand upon ideas that were only talked about briefly on the air.

—Associated Press

Obama book gains online buzz

President Obama is still a hit with the nation’s book buyers.

Obama’s tribute to 13 American groundbreakers, “Of Thee I Sing,” was in the top 25 on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com as of Wednesday morning, less than two days after the children’s book was announced and two months before its scheduled release.

Random House Children’s Books plans a first printing of 500,000 copies.

—Associated Press

Finally

Scrapped: Tony Bennett has canceled his Sept. 24 performance at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, citing “personal reasons which created an unavoidable scheduling conflict.” Refunds are available at the point of purchase.

Not scrapped: TNT has ordered a third season of “Hawthorne,” the medical drama starring Jada Pinkett Smith.