Quick Takes: Wesley Snipes begins prison stint

Actor Wesley Snipes began serving a three-year sentence at a federal prison in Pennsylvania on Thursday for failure to file income tax returns.

Snipes, 48, arrived at the Federal Correctional Institution McKean in the tiny northwestern Pennsylvania town of Lewis Run, federal prisons spokesman Ed Ross said.

The minimum security prison camp is worlds away from the harsh prison fortresses that are depicted in Snipes’ films “Undisputed” and “Brooklyn’s Finest.” The minimum-security camp doesn’t have fences around its perimeter.

FOR THE RECORD:
The headline on an earlier online version of this article said Wesley Snipes had begun a prison “sting.”

The 300 nonviolent inmates live in barracks that feature two-man rooms, daily showers and double-feature movie showings Friday through Sunday. Alas, no NC-17 or R ratings allowed, which knocks out much of Snipes’ action-heavy repertoire.

—Associated Press

N.Y. center on the scent of art

The nose rarely figures in the sensory experience of a museum visitor. That is about to change at one New York City museum.

The Center of Olfactory Art, dedicated to scent as an art form, was launched Thursday at the Museum of Arts and Design.

More a curatorial department within the museum than a separate entity, the museum created the center because “scent is a really interesting part of the world of design,” museum director Holly Hotchner said.

—Associated Press

Met sued over Cezanne portrait

A Parisian engineer is suing New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to recover a Paul Cezanne painting that he says the Bolsheviks stole from his great-grandfather during the Russian revolution. The suit was filed Tuesday in U.S District Court in New York.

The painting is valued at $50 million to $70 million, said lawyer Allan Gerson, who represents the plaintiff, Pierre Konowaloff.

“Madame Cezanne in the Conservatory,” painted in 1891, was a 1960 bequest of Stephen C. Clark, an heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune, according to the museum’s website. In his complaint, Konowaloff claims that Clark bought the dour portrait of the artist’s wife in May 1933 “in violation of Russian law and U.S. policy” because it was months before the U.S. diplomatically recognized Soviet Russia.

“The museum firmly believes it has good title to the painting and that this lawsuit is totally without merit,” the Met said.

—Bloomberg News

Brenda Starr off the comics beat

No more late nights and looming deadlines for globetrotting reporter Brenda Starr.

The redheaded reporter, created by Dale Messick, whose first appearance came in a Chicago Tribune comic book insert in June 1940, is putting the notebook away for good next month.

Writer Mary Schmich and artist June Brigman say they’ve decided to end their work on the seven-day-a-week strip, with the final episode to be published Jan. 2.

Tribune Media Services, which owns “Brenda Starr,” said Thursday it will end the feature’s newspaper syndication.

But Brenda won’t be gone for good. The first volume of a collection of the comic’s daily and Sunday strips is due out in June.

—Associated Press

Laugh Factory in record territory

More than 150 comics, including Tim Allen, Paul Rodriguez, Tom Arnold and Dave Chappelle, teamed at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood to set a Guinness World Record for longest continuous stand-up comedy show.

The previous record of 50 hours had been set by a New York club, Comic Strip Live, in 2008. The Laugh Factory passed that mark on Wednesday and kept going, hoping to reach 80 hours at 10:30 p.m. Thursday.

The event was a benefit for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, with patrons admitted free with a toy donation. Laugh Factory owner Jaime Masada estimated that 3,000 to 4,000 toys were collected.

—Deborah Vankin

Nobel winner’s U.S. exposure

Poetry by imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo is coming out in the United States.

Graywolf Press announced Thursday that “June Fourth Elegies” will be published in 2012. It is a bilingual edition of verse by the 54-year-old Chinese dissident and literary critic.

Liu is serving an 11-year prison sentence for subversion handed down last year after he co-wrote an appeal for human rights and political reform.

The title of his book refers to the 1989 suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square.

—Associated Press

Finally

Casting: Mandy Patinkin has been signed to play a CIA officer in Showtime’s “Homeland,” about an American soldier who was a prisoner of war in Iraq and comes under suspicion when he returns to the United States.