Quick Takes: Behind ‘Art in the Streeet’s’ numbers

“Art in the Streets” has proved to be a certifiable popular hit for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. MOCA said the exhibition about the history of graffiti and street art was the most attended show in its history — but closer inspection shows that the record comes with a caveat.

MOCA said that “Art in the Streets” saw attendance of 201,352 visitors during its run from April 17 to Aug. 8. The exhibition was held at the museum’s Geffen Contemporary space in Little Tokyo.

The previous top-attended exhibitions, the museum said, were the 2002 Andy Warhol retrospective with 195,000 visitors, and the 2007 Takashi Murakami show with 149,323 visitors.

But the comparison between shows can be misleading since “Art in the Streets” ran for about 16 weeks, compared with 12 for the Warhol show. If the shows were compared based on just 12 weeks, the Warhol exhibition appears to be the winner.

—David Ng

Cosgrove hurt after bus crash

Miranda Cosgrove, the 18-year-old star of Nickelodeon’s “iCarly,” suffered a broken ankle when her tour bus was involved in an accident on an Illinois highway Thursday morning, forcing her to put her “Dancing Crazy Summer tour” on hold.

The accident occurred as Cosgrove’s bus was traveling on I-70, just outside of Vandalia. There were five passengers on the bus.

“We are told that everyone will be fine,” a statement from Cosgrove’s publicist said.

There was no immediate word on whether she would reschedule missed concerts. She is scheduled to perform at the L.A. County Fair in Pomona on Sept. 17.

—Yvonne Villarreal

PEN to split fiction award

PEN American Center will split its leading fiction award for 2011 between Susanna Daniel for her novel “Stiltsville” and Danielle Evans for her short story collection, “Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self.”

In all, the group will give away close to $150,000 in grants and awards for literary excellence.

The list of winners includes several new awards. The Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Emperor of All Maladies,” by Siddhartha Mukherjee, took the organization’s first science writing award. The new PEN/ESPN Awards for literary sports writing went to Roger Angell for lifetime achievement

and to George Dohrmann for “Play Their Hearts Out.”

The awards will be presented in New York on Oct. 12.

—Carolyn Kellogg

Knicks star takes a bookish turn

Amare Stoudemire is known as the quickest big man in the NBA. Next year, the New York Knicks

superstar will add another distinction to his résumé: author.

Children’s book publisher Scholastic announced Thursday that it will release a series of middle-grade chapter books written by the NBA all-star. Titled after the 29-year-old player’s nickname, “STAT: Standing Tall and Talented,” the series is based on Stoudemire’s young life growing up with his older brother, landscaper dad and a mom who was in and out of jail.

“Home Court,” the first in the series, will be published Aug. 1, 2012, and chronicles

11-year-old Stoudemire as

he embraces basketball and is called upon to defend

his teammates from bullying.

—Susan Carpenter

Lopez keeps joking amid news

It couldn’t have been much fun for George Lopez to deliver his monologue Wednesday night, just hours after news broke that his TBS talk show, “Lopez Tonight,” would not be renewed. But, as they say, the show must go on.

Lopez said the cancellation was “all right” because he already has other work lined up.

“Sony announced they were doing a sequel to the Smurfs movie, so today I lost some work because I’m brown and got some work because I’m blue.”

No, that wasn’t just a lame joke about being sad: He actually provides the voice of Grumpy Smurf in the movie.

Lopez kept to a relative high road, avoiding overt criticism of TBS and hedging allegations of racism. Still, there was a slightly caustic tone to the monologue.

“We’re not saying ‘goodbye,’” Lopez quipped. “We’re saying, ‘Cable doesn’t work.’”

—Meredith Blake

Finally

Renewed: HBO has ordered 12 episodes of “True Blood” for its fifth season next summer. USA Network’s legal-buddy series “Suits” received a 16-episode order for its second season.

Celebration: Herbie Hancock and Aretha Franklin will take part in the celebration of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz’s 25th anniversary, which will be staged Sept. 11-12 in Washington.