It's already Thursday, which means I'm WAY behind on writing this post. Beehiver Blake on Monday attached a nice comment to my unrelated tidbit about Joan Rivers winning "Celebrity Apprentice." (Yep, definitely the most culturally sophisticated thing I wrote all week.) Blake wrote:

I sure thought that article on the Texas town in Sunday's Spotlight section was super cool. (sorry, off-subject, but folks should really dig it out, if they still have yesterday's paper around.)

Thanks, Blake. That would be my Sunday Spotlight column on the peculiar little town of Marfa, Texas, population 2,000, which I visited on my recent vacation. It's a vibrant, bustling arts community that reminded me that you don't have to live in a big city to find an artsy feel.

Anyway, I wanted to share my photo in color of the art installation "Prada, Marfa," above, which ran in a black and white version in the print edition of the paper, plus a few other shots of mine that I took in Marfa. You can find those additional photos after the break.

For all that the success of Hollywood favorite "Slumdog Millionaire" was supposed to do for increased public awareness of poverty in India, it seems that at least one young star of the film is still struggling. The New York Times ArtsBeat blog reports that Mumbai municipal workers on Thursday demolished the home of Azharuddin Mohammed Ismai, shown bottom left in this New York Times photo, one of the young children who starred in the rags-to-riches tale. From the Times:

[Local authorities] said they were following orders to clear illegally built shanties ahead of the monsoon season. Such demolitions are common in Mumbai, which has a chronic housing shortage and where ramshackle dwellings can spring up virtually overnight on sidewalks and other empty scraps of land.

The child star was asleep when a police officer woke him up and told him to leave his family's home, he told The Associated Press in an interview.

What about the idea of these young actors sharing in the wealth after being an integral part of a best-picture winner? The movie's makers have set up trust funds for the young actors that they will have access at age 18. Here's hoping they'll have a place to sleep till then.

And just think about all the money that the studio spent transporting them to the Oscars.