ART CRITICChristopher KnightA guide to the Getty,...

ART CRITIC

Christopher Knight

A guide to the Getty, for now

You can’t tell the players without a scorecard. So, as the news unfolds over whether the Getty Museum’s great collection of ancient Greek, Roman and Etruscan art includes objects illegally excavated and exported from the Mediterranean, “The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Antiquities Collection” is the book to have. The cover even features the magnificent floral funerary wreath in gold, studded with green and blue glass inlays and made in Macedonia in the 4th century BC, that the Greek government insists was looted. Inside is the astonishing, colossal cult statue of a goddess, perhaps Aphrodite, carved from marble and limestone in Southern Italy in the 5th century BC that the Italian government claims was probably looted from Sicily. Plus, there are scores of marvelous works about which no claims of illicit trade have been made. The book includes an introduction by former museum director Deborah Gribbon, whose sudden resignation last year turned a spotlight on internal problems at the Getty. There’s also a history of the collection by former curator Marion True, now on trial in Rome for receiving stolen goods. Surely, this is a gift that will be handed down to future generations.

“The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Antiquities Collection,” $22.95 (hardcover), $14.95 (paperback), (800) 223-3431, www.getty.edu

A chronicle of that awkward stage

Mike Kelley became one of the two most important American artists to emerge in the early 1980s (the other is Cindy Sherman) by focusing like a laser on a distinctive American phenomenon. His art contemplates the invention of adolescence as a conflicted yet critical modern experience, wedged between the romanticized innocence of childhood and the sober, even crushing responsibilities of adulthood. This fall, for his first large-scale gallery exhibition in several years, Kelley produced an extravagant video installation called “Day Is Done,” featuring stage sets and projection screens for a feature-length “musical.” Each set and projection re-creates something found in a high school yearbook photograph of extracurricular activities. Among the episodes are religious pageants, dance numbers, Halloween parties, gothic and satanic activities and equestrian events. The CD, made in collaboration with musician Scott Benzel, is billed as “The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.” The show was held in New York’s Chelsea gallery district, but “West Side Story” it ain’t.

“Day Is Done” CD, $15, Gagosian Gallery, 456 N. Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 271-9400, www.gagosian.com.

For $1,000, you’re an O.C. insider

Like many art museums, the Orange County Museum of Art has a high-end membership called Director’s Roundtable, which comes with a lot of special perks. Theirs includes unlimited free museum admission for up to six people, a 20% discount in the museum’s stores and cafe, invitations to VIP preview receptions with tours by curators and artists, and semiannual field trips to private collections or artists’ studios. Most important, you get invited to “exclusive Director’s Roundtable post-opening events.” That’s where you can buttonhole the museum director and let him know what you really think of the museum’s program rather than fill out one of those visitor response cards that you imagine will end up deposited in the round file. At a thousand bucks it’s a splurge, definitely for the art lover who has everything, but you’ll probably get some sort of tax deduction that spreads the pain around. And if OCMA isn’t close by, there is doubtless an art museum near you that offers a similar membership category.

Orange County Museum of Art, Director’s Roundtable, $1,000, (949) 759-1122, www.ocma.net.

ARCHITECTURE CRITIC

Christopher

Hawthorne

As vast as the city itself

“Los Angeles,” a book of stunning photographs by architectural photographer Tim Street-Porter that was published in a limited edition of 5,000, doesn’t just capture the American capital of sprawl, it sprawls itself: At 18 inches wide and 15 high, it may leave your coffee table cowering; inside, the pages fold out to form panoramas 5 feet across. The images show some of L.A.’s grit, but the emphasis is more on sumptuous beauty in shots of Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall and hillside houses. As Street-Porter told The Times earlier this year, “I’m the great flatterer.” With an introduction by Diane Keaton.

“Los Angeles,” Rizzoli, $195, www.rizzoliusa.com.

Creativity that turned a corner

In “Lost Buildings,” graphic artist Chris Ware teams up with “This American Life” host Ira Glass to tell the true story of a 9-year-old boy who becomes obsessed with the architecture of Louis Sullivan and other turn-of-the-century architects in Chicago in the 1960s and ‘70s, just as the buildings are beginning to be demolished. The collaboration -- with Glass narrating a series of Ware’s delicate, precise architectural drawings, with the obligatory, string-heavy “TAL” soundtrack rising and falling in the background -- started out as an affecting live-performance piece. Once it was turned into a 22-minute DVD, it was initially available only as a pledge-drive reward on public radio; now you can buy it directly. At $22, or a dollar a minute, it’s not cheap, but you get a book of photographs of Sullivan’s buildings too.

“Lost Buildings,” $22, (312) 948-4680, www.thislife.org.

Beyond the beanbag chair

Hip furniture for kids -- call it mini-modernism -- is suddenly everywhere. The easiest place to surf through the products that make up this new wave is Design Within Reach’s new Jax collection, which includes dozens of streamlined offerings: a crib by ducduc, a green puppy by Eero Aarnio, wooden bikes by Rolf Mertens and a Danish foam sofa called Grand Prix, which comes in three bright shades: lime, orange and fire-engine red.

Eero Aarnio puppy, $99, from Design Within Reach, 332A Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 899-6000. The DWR Jax line also includes the ducduc crib, $1,298; Rolf Mertens bikes, $279; Grand Prix sofa, $298. For more items and stores, check www.dwr.com/dwrjax.

TELEVISION CRITIC

Robert Lloyd

When you need to be kneaded

Get the couch potato in your life off the sofa and into a chair. The Popular PL1 shiatsu massage recliner -- designed “by a famous Italian designer” and neither the least nor most expensive of its kind -- comes with a variety of customizable rollers, tappers and kneaders, heated back and sides, and a fold-out foot-massager to make TV viewing a more intensely relaxing but also possibly more healthful experience. (Improved circulation to atrophying limbs, stimulated chi, etc.) A built-in phone jack means the viewer won’t miss a second of television having to answer inconvenient calls.

Popular PL1 massage recliner, $2,299, (888) 472-1200, www.popularmassagechairs.com.

For the DVD lover, bring it on

Who can calculate the stress involved in having to leave the house to rent a DVD, not to say the money lost in late return fees? A gift subscription to Netflix, first among mail-order circulating video libraries, could add years to the recipient’s life -- or at least the illusion of years -- and keep pennies in his pocket. Requires no exertion greater than the odd trip to the computer to order fresh videos or a trip to the mailbox to send or retrieve them, and it allows for chronological replay of the complete “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or “Dick Van Dyke Show,” or first-time viewings of series on subscription channels one was disinclined to pay for.

Netflix rates run from $9.99 a month for one DVD “checked out” at a time to $47.99 for eight at a time; gift subscriptions at www.netflix.com/GiftPurchase.

A better TV dinner

Not the least of television’s many ancillary gifts to cultivated laziness is that of the heat-and-serve TV dinner. Give the gift of convenience with meals from Irvine-based Susan’s Healthy Gourmet, which will deliver “fresh, nutritionally balanced, and calorie-controlled meals ... individually prepared and packaged to order” straight to your beloved couch/recliner potato’s door. (Low in fat, cholesterol and sodium, they may also partially offset the inaction associated with extreme TV watching.)

Select from more than 12 dozen breakfast, lunch and dinner items offered monthly -- including oatmeal and hard-boiled eggs, buffalo and Boca burgers, chicken chili and crab cakes, and pad Thai and pumpkin pie. Vegetarian and kids meals are available, and no minimum order is required.

Susan’s Healthy Gourmet, about $250 to $270 per week, three meals a day; serves L.A., Orange, San Diego and parts of Ventura counties. (888) EZ-MEALS, www.susanshealthygourmet.com.

TELEVISION CRITIC

Paul Brownfield

It slices, it dices, it changes the channel

I’m not saying I know how to work a universal remote control, or even that I have one, or even that I’m convinced you won’t have to hire someone to show you how to use the thing, but think about it! One remote control for your TV, DVD, VCR, stereo, stove, microwave and washer/dryer, garage door (list not official). A good one can cost a few hundred dollars, but the dream of not having to feel around under the sofa for the TV clicker and then the clicker for the DVD player and then maybe a third clicker that controls the VCR, say, makes this idea worth exploring. I’ve seen a few universals in stores and they look pretty easy to use (opinion not official).

Universal remote controls, from about $14 for the Phillips 5-Device at Best Buy to $250 for the Logitech Harmony 15-Device at Sharper Image.

Plenty of ‘Hey, Mare’ and ‘Hi, Bob’

You can’t go wrong with either “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” or “The Bob Newhart Show.” Both are classic sitcoms from the same period in the 1970s. The first two seasons of “Mary Tyler Moore” are available on DVD (Season 3 will be available mid-January); there is also what’s called a Season 1 “starter set.” The series premiered in 1970 and introduced viewers to single working woman Mary Richards and her new extended family in the newsroom at WJM in Minneapolis. Here the writing, led by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns, matters. The first-season boxed set includes 24 episodes plus a documentary on the making of the show. “The Bob Newhart Show” was the first series from MTM Productions, formed by Moore and her then producer-husband, Grant Tinker. The first two seasons are available on DVD.

“The Mary Tyler Moore Show: TV Starter Set (the Best of Season 1),” $9.98; first season and second season, $29.98 each. Complete third season will be $29.98. “The Bob Newhart Show -- the Complete First Season,” $29.98; second season, $29.98.

If you could stand the heat

Fox pulled the show “Kitchen Confidential” during the November sweeps, after unveiling the series from executive producer Darren Star, the man behind “Sex and the City.” The best-laid plans: Star would oversee a show that would take the sex and the city of “Sex and the City” and transpose it onto the culinary world as elucidated in Anthony Bourdain’s memoir. While the show is on shaky ground, the book is still worth the read, an in-your-face, coming-of-age, sex-drugs-and-rock-’n’-roll tour that takes you into the kitchens of fine (and not so fine) restaurants and gives you a raucous picture of the chaos. Meanwhile, Bourdain’s insights seem worth holding on to, including what kind of knife to have in your own kitchen and why ordering the seafood frittata for Sunday brunch can be an iffy proposition.

“Kitchen Confidential,” Harper Perennial, $14 (paperback), www.harpercollins.com.