The Fix

First Word

Phil Spector trial begins: Though opening statements aren't expected until the end of April, the murder trial against music producer Phil Spector begins today in Los Angeles with jury selection. Spector is charged with the 2003 killing of Lana Clarkson, though he's pleading not guilty and claimed in an e-mail to friends that Clarkson's death was an "accidental suicide." Page Six, meanwhile, has a list of allegations against Spector from other women he's allegedly pointed a gun at. (BBC News, CBS, Page Six)

Burnett sues "Family Guy": Carol Burnett isn't taking her cameo on "The Family Guy" lightly. In response to an episode of the Fox animated series last year that featured the comedian in her signature "Charwoman" outfit (blue bonnet, mop) as a janitor in a porn shop, Burnett is suing the show for copyright infringement. According to her suit -- which asks for more than $6 million in damages -- after Burnett turned down a request from "Family Guy" producers to allow them to use "Carol Burnett Show" theme music, the producers had an episode "rewritten to disparage Ms. Burnett using Ms. Burnett's signature ear tug." Rather than try to explain the joke, we suggest you watch the clip in question by following the main link above. (The Smoking Gun)

White noise . . . Uma Thurman and on-again, off-again boyfriend hotelier Andre Balazs have called it quits again, despite rumors they were planning a summer wedding. (People) ... Cate Blanchett (right) is in negotiations to play opposite Harrison Ford in the next installment of the "Indiana Jones" series, according to her publicist. (Associated Press) ... A judge in the Bahamas on Friday ordered that both Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Stern will be required to give DNA for a paternity test to determine, finally, the identity of Dannielynn Smith's real father. (Us Weekly) ... Larry King was in the hospital for vascular surgery on Friday, but returns to the air Monday night to interview Barack Obama for his CNN show. (E! Online) ... Despite rumors stemming from a fake posting on his Wikipedia page claiming he was dead, Sinbad wants the world to know he is indeed very much alive. (Chicago Tribune)

Talker

The mystery Obama ad: The YouTube video that takes Ridley Scott's groundbreaking 1984 Super Bowl ad for Apple and superimposes Hillary Clinton as Big Brother may be, as the San Francisco Chronicle writes, "the most stunning and creative attack ad yet for a 2008 presidential candidate," but its author is a mystery. The Obama campaign says it had nothing to do with the ad, which appeared earlier this month on YouTube, leading the Chronicle to wonder if this is a watershed moment in political ad history. "[T]he campaigns are no longer in control," Simon Rosenberg, head of a large Democratic advocacy group in Washington, told the paper. "It will no longer be a top-down candidate message; that's a 20th century broadcast model." ("Political Video Smackdown," San Francisco Chronicle)

Buzz Index

• Top news story on Technorati: "Veterans, Others Denounce Marchers," Washington Post
• Top link on Reddit: "The absolute best sign from today's anti-war march in NYC," Flickr
• Most e-mailed story from the New York Times: "The Critical Years: For Teachers, Middle School Is Test of Wills"
• Most viewed story on Yahoo! News: "Prince Charles, Camilla to Become Grandparents" AFP

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"Man Relieves Himself in Air-Sickness Bag" (Associated Press)

Judgment

Then he came to conquer: The debut novel by Joshua Ferris, "Then We Came to the End," has officially become the fussed-over baby of the book world, with a lead rave in Sunday's New York Times Book Review and a loving Briefly Noted in the New Yorker. The book explores an ad firm that slowly winds to a close, but not before turning toxic. In the NYTBR, James Poniewozik calls it "expansive, great-hearted and acidly funny," writing that, "like the paper-pushers of the British and American versions of 'The Office,' Ferris's admen amuse themselves with tiny, absurd rebellions." The New Yorker, meanwhile, says Ferris "brilliantly captures the fishbowl quality of contemporary office life, where nothing much happens and the smallest events take on huge significance." And the 32-year-old Ferris has also already popped up on the gossip radar, telling a Gawker correspondent (after careful consideration) that fellow Brooklyn wunderkind Jonathan Safran Foer and wife Nicole Krauss "deserve all the shit you guys heap on them." You can read the novel's first chapter here. (NYTBR, the New Yorker, not online.)

Numbers

The weekend box office:

(Rotten Tomatoes)

Turn On

On Monday night, "Dancing With the Stars" (ABC, 8 p.m. EDT) returns for a fourth season, featuring Heather Mills, Ian Ziering, Clyde Drexler and Paulina Porizkova, among others; Mark Ruffalo shows up on "Inside the Actors Studio" (Bravo, 8 p.m. EDT); and John Waters hosts the debut of "'Til Death Do Us Part" (Court TV, 10 p.m. EDT) .

Talk

Fix contributors: Heather Havrilesky, Scott Lamb, Kerry Lauerman, David Marchese, Laura Miller, Andrew O'Hehir, Amy Reiter, Stephanie Zacharek

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