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Bad Impressions: WaPo‘s Dan Zak looks into the troubled history of Susan J. Burns, the woman who attacked (but did not damage) a Gauguin painting at the National Gallery last week. Highlights: She assaulted a police officer in 2000 and went to jail for a year; in July 2002, she returned to a department store she was thrown out of to throw shoes at people; in March 2005 she threw coffee on a bartender and assaulted a police detective, and went to jail for two-and-a-half years; she did more time in 2006 for conspiracy to commit carjacking. It could’ve been worse, Gauguin.
The Shutdown News: A government shutdown is looming, which would have all sorts of implications for arts lovers, or at least arts-loving tourists who don’t realize that the museums on the National Mall can’t stay open if the rest of the government isn’t. Here’s what’s open and closed, via Arts Desk’s Ben Freed and Kriston Capps. More from TBD: “Stravinsky on Film” will screen no matter what; Ford’s Theatre, which is operated by the National Park Service, would largely close.
Infinite Bestseller: DFW! DFW! The unfinished final novel by David Foster Wallace is out there, and the Post has a review. Will noting the book’s underdeveloped plot, Jeff Turentine praises its “tale of nervous bureaucrats,” which “becomes a potent extended metaphor for how we’re able to withstand the crushing tedium of modern life and still derive meaning from it.”
Today on Arts Desk: The Real Housewives of D.C., a requium.