D.C. police are investigating the incident and Detective Michael Baylor has been put on desk duty in the meantime. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said in a statement that it was "obvious" Baylor, who was off-duty and in plain clothes, pulled his weapon in response to thrown snowballs hitting his Hummer. "Let me be very clear in stating that I believe the actions of the officer were totally inappropriate!," she continued, "In no way should he have handled the situation in this manner." • Police have recovered the metal sign from the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp, which was stolen on Friday. The "Arbeit macht frei" sign was found in a house cut up in three pieces. Five men from the north of Poland were arrested. Police say they weren't Neo-Nazis, just "ordinary criminals." • Israeli archaeologists have discovered the remains of a home from Jesus' time in the heart of Nazareth. "The building that we found is small and modest and it is most likely typical of the dwellings in Nazareth in that period," said excavation director Yardenna Alexandre. "Until now a number of tombs from the time of Jesus were found in Nazareth; however, no settlement remains have been discovered that are attributed to this period." • This is the third Christmas Amanda Knox will spend in jail and she won't be able to see her family on Christmas because it is not a visiting day. Her mother Edda Mellas says, "She had her tough moments. There were some tears just because she wants out of there and she's just really scared that this mess is not going to get fixed." • Dong Fangxiao and Yang Yun, the two Chinese gymnasts suspected of being only 14 when they competed in the Sydney Olympics, met this weekend with the International Gymnastics Federation's disciplinary commission. Gymnasts must turn 16 in an Olympic year to compete. The commission is expected to make a decision about the girl, who each won a bronze medal, in February. • Today the Obama administration ordered airlines to let people get off planes delayed on the ground after three hours. The airlines said they'll comply with the regulations, which go into effect in 120 days, but threatened it would only result in more cancelled flights. "The requirement of having planes return to the gates within a three-hour window or face significant fines is inconsistent with our goal of completing as many flights as possible. Lengthy tarmac delays benefit no one," said Air Transport Association President and CEO James May. • In a survey of 1,000 middle school students, researchers found that boys explore advanced cell phone features more than girls. "Boys are often taught to explore and be more creative with technology and not to be afraid to take things apart. So it leads to more advanced cell phone uses among boys," said study author Sheila Cotten. • A study of 381 girls, aged 14 to 17 living in U.S. cities found about half acquire at lead one of three STDS — chlamydia, gonorrhea, or trichomoniasis — within two years of becoming sexually active. "This is important because many clinicians are reluctant to address sexual activity with younger teens, and may miss important prevention opportunities," said lead author Dr. J. Dennis Fortenberry, of the Indiana University School of Medicine. • British priest Tim Jones is being criticized for telling his congregation that they should shoplift rather than turning to "prostitution, mugging, or burglary," if they are very poor. He said in his sermon: "My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift. I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither... I would ask that they do not steal from small family businesses, but from large national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices." • Mark Hughes, the pastor of the Church of the Rock in Canada, says the lesson to be learned from a 17-year-old boy and an 18-year-old girl being sentenced to two years in prison for planning a mass murder at the church is that parents should be aware of "gothic youth culture" and vampires. "There is some really dark stuff out there online and other places," Hughes said. "Too many parents are clued out as to what their kids are up to ... when I look at the latest rage in youth movies, it seems to me that pop culture is glorifying the dark spiritual world." • George and Lina Tannous say their son Mike, who died three years ago in a car accident at age 17, should be Australia's first male saint. They say the mysterious oil that leaks from his bedroom walls has healed people. "Our boy is a saint. This is him talking to us, talking to other people," said George Tannous. • A British woman was temporarily blinded when her eyes were glued shut during an eye lash tinting treatment at a beauty salon. She had the procedure done regularly, but this time her eyes got red and swelled shut. A week later, her vision is still blurry, but the salon insists, "any reaction this lady suffered was as a result of any treatment that she received at the salon." • USA Today reports that fast food chains have found "that the triple combo of hot babes, fast food and webcams work well to draw hard-to-reach teen guy prime customers to their sites and, ultimately, into stores." Kim Kardashian has been chatting via webcam with Carl's Jr. customers about the chain's salads and a U.K. Burger King ad features the "Shower Babe," a woman people can watch singing in the shower in a bikini every day. "It's as if we're back in the 1950s the way pop culture portrays women, but with New Age technology," says Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. •

• John Travolta allegedly refused medical help after his son Jett suffered a seizure — which is why the paramedics in the Bahamas were trying to blackmail him.

Reportedly, Travolta wanted the ambulance to drive his son to an airport so he could be flown back to the US for treatment — instead of to the island hospital, 45 minutes away. [Daily Mail, Mirror]

• John Travolta will be the first witness called today. And there may be a secret videotape which allegedly shows the attempted extortion. [TMZ]
• Jaclyn Smith is not dead, despite what Perez Hilton has reported. He apparently mistranslated a story about her stunt double's suicide attempt. Smith's Twitter reads: "Jaclyn is safe and home with her family. She is not in Honduras. It is a lie." [Vancouver Sun]
• Just to clarify: Jaclyn Smith's former stunt double — from her Charlie's Angels days — may have attempted suicide and may be in critical condition, but Jaclyn Smith is fine. [E!]
• Two photographers are suing Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen, claiming the couple's bodyguard shot at them outside the Costa Rican estate where the couple were having wedding celebrations. [NY Daily News]
• Congrats to Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr., who welcomed newborn daughter Charlotte Grace Prinze on Saturday. [Page Six]
• Mickey Rourke will play The Ice Man in a movie about a a sadistic Mafia hit man who murdered more than 200 people. [Page Six]
• In court documents, Britney's American Express card charges for the first 11 months of her conservatorship have been revealed: She spent $5,183.13 on restaurants; $10,096.53 on travel and $17,370.29 on furniture. [TMZ]
• Chloë Sevigny and Jason Segel drink champagne and eat chocolate and kiss and hold hands and so on. [Page Six]
• Beyoncé has rescheduled a concert in Malaysia after canceling what was supposed to be her first show there. Scheduling conflicts? Or the country's strict dress code? [UPI]
• How much would you love to see Will Ferrell sing a karaoke version of "Wanted Dead Or Alive"? [Page Six]
• Get well soon, Megan Mullally! She was injured in a car crash last week, and while the injuries are minor, she had to cancel performances of her play The Receptionist in L.A. [TMZ]
• According to a court order, Aerosmith's concert next month in Hawaii must be of the same "quality, type and duration" as a regular Aerosmith concert: No half-assing it with a 30-minute gig. [People]
• Billy Joel has a new lady in his life, a "Katie Lee-esqe brunette" named Deborah Dampiere. [HuffPo]
• The Jay Leno Show has lost more than two-thirds of its initial viewers. [USA Today]
• A woman connected to Michael Jackson's personal physician (Dr. Conrad Murray) — she may be his girlfriend — has been ordered to testify before a grand jury in Los Angeles. [CBS News]
• New details in the Anna Nicole Smith case: Two nannies who worked for Anna claim they saw Howard K. Stern and Dr. Khristine Eroshevich inject drugs into Anna's system. Afterward, she would be all messed up — falling in the house; sleeping for two or three days at a time. [TMZ]
• In addition, there are legal documents stating that Anna Nicole Smith and her shrink, Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, took nude pictures together in a bathtub and their relationship "crossed the boundaries of professionalism." [TMZ]
• There will be a court session for the Anna Nicole Smith case this morning, and Howard K. Stern could be charged with 11 different felony counts. [TMZ]
• Take a minute and read this interview with Charlotte Gainsbourg, about her experience shooting Lars von Trier's Antichrist. She talks about panic attacks, self-harm, working with a porn actor (or trying to) and doing movies with taboo subjects like incest. And she says: "Lars does portray his own fear of women and the sexuality of women. It's not at all a hatred against women-it's really quite the opposite. He's sincere in the way that he's talking about his own fears, his own questions, but he's not accusing women… Of course, [my character] has some kind of an evil part to her, but for me, it had a lot to do with the grieving and going into madness. And then the act of physically cutting herself was the extreme of madness and just trying, with her guilt, to-there's no way of coping with it, so how do you hurt yourself in the most horrific way?" [Village Voice]
• Alexandra Richards was hired to DJ a party but left after 38 minutes to go have dinner — yet she expected to be paid for the full 3 hours her contract stipulated. [Page Six]
• Shannon Elizabeth and Derek Hough: Maybe back on, if you care. [Page Six]
• Friends and family attended the funeral of Jasmine Fiore over the weekend, and "everyone was crying." [NY Times]
• "The cow's a diva; it's a little known fact.  She's not very giving." — Josh Jackson on his costar in Fox TV show Fringe. [Teen Television]
• "What I try to do is take the best bits of my mother's charitable work and the best bits of my father's charitable work and do them both together. I'm not in their league, but I'm warming up, hopefully, and I'm trying to do what I can." — Prince William. [Telegraph]
• "I was funny in school. I was funny in the classroom. I really got tired of giving it away for free. People say, 'How can you talk all day?' I could do it on the phone or do it on television. A painter paints. I yak yak all day." — Joy Behar, whose new show on HLN (formerly Headline News) begins next week. [WaPo]
• "I saw her on a chat show. I'd worked with her before on Alias and she's always happy and always pleasant to everyone really and when she swears she says thing like 'darnit' and 'darn' — now even The Waltons go a bit (further). Her favourite swear word is 'rats' - that's not a swear word! Rats isn't a swear word." — Ricky Gervais on Jennifer Garner, who he calls "Miss Goody Two Shoes." [Mirror]
• "This was a very joyous moment where I've got new life. It was also a very sorrowful moment, where my sister had gone on, and the family that donated the kidney had lost their daughter as well. My first reaction was that I wished I were back on dialysis to have my sister. These two people had left this earth – and I was here. Why? I feel like I don't deserve it." — Natalie Cole, on getting a life-saving kidney transplant and then learning that her sister Cookie had passed away. [People]
• "I was about 24 years old, and I had tons of acne. I met some random girl on a bus who told me to quit dairy and all those symptoms would go away three days later. By God, she was right." — Woody Harrelson. [Page Six]
• "She's not playing the victim! The press plays the victim for her. All the stories about her-'She's so lonely.' Please! She's having the time of her life! She goes to Mexico every other weekend with her girlfriends, while Angelina and Brad shuffle their kids across country. Would you rather wake up with a margarita or eight children?" — Chelsea Handler, on Jennifer Aniston, who will be a guest on Chelsea's show. [Village Voice]

• A London man found the album from Amy Winehouse's wedding to Blake Fielder-Civil in a dumpster with some photos torn out and Amy's beehive colored in.

• The man said, "I don't know if Amy threw the album away or her ex (did), but my wife said that's what she would do if we ever divorced, so it could have been the actions of an angry woman... Whoever threw it away obviously never wanted to look at that album again." Amy's rep issued a statement that she wanted it back, and the man returned it. [The Daily Express]
• A 44-year-old woman has accused Dr. Phil or sexually molesting her when she was being treated by him and interning for him in the summer of 1985, according to The National Enquirer. "He profoundly affected the course of my life. The world should know this man is a predator and a bully. He shouldn't be telling Americans how to live their lives, how to improve themselves." said the woman. [The National Enquirer]
• Vanessa Hudgens lawyer says she's considering filing criminal charges against websites that publish nude photos of her taken when she was underage. She took the photos herself and believes her computer may have been hacked. [TMZ]
• Tony Curtis claims in his new book The Making of 'Some Like It Hot' that he and Marilyn Monroe had an affair while filming the movie. They were both married to other people, and he says she was pregnant with his child, but miscarried. [The Daily Mail]
• Despite recent rumors that Katherine Jackson is so convinced foul play was involved in Michael Jackson's death she wants a third autopsy done on his body, a family source says, "there is neither a plan nor a need for another autopsy." [E!]
• The Jackson family has finally decided to bury Michael Jackson at Forest Lawn cemetery six weeks after his death. [WENN]
• In a federal complaint filed in New York, DEA agents say Michael Douglas' son Cameron Douglas has moved "pounds" of crystal meth since 2006. He was investigated for three years and allegedly tens of thousands of dollars of crystal meth. Three of his former clients are cooperating with prosecutors in the hope that the sentence for their narcotics convictions will be reduced. [TMZ]
• Miley Cyrus has been granted a temporary restraining order against Mark McLeod, the man arrested on Tuesday for allegedly attempting to stalk her. [TMZ]
• Wrigley's has "formally terminated" their relationship with Chris Brown. When news of his assault on Rihanna originally came out the company just suspended his campaign. [TMZ]
• Many American Idol staffers are excited to see Paula Abdul go according to a "veteran key Idol staff member" who said, "Can't you hear our celebration? We broke out the good champagne tonight." [Chicago Sun-Times]
• Paula says Simon Cowell already misses her and claims she hasn't heard that Nigel Lythgoe of offered her a guest judge spot on an episode of So You Think You Can Dance. [TMZ]
• Some American Idol sources say there's a good chance Paula Abdul will come back to the show next season. [TMZ]
• Victoria Beckham will guest judge one episode of American Idol next season. [The Daily Mail]
• Tom Sizemore was arrested on domestic violence charges after an altercation with a woman in L.A. last night and is still in custody. [TMZ]
• Polish fire emergency services have to approve evacuation routes before Madonna's Warsaw concert can take place. Some Polish Roman Catholics are protesting the concert, which is scheduled to take place during the feast of the Assumption of the Holly Virgin Mary because they say Madonna is anti-Christian. [UPI]
• A lawyer for Samantha Burke, who is having Jude Law's baby in October, responded to an interview request saying, "At this time, Samantha has decided not to give an exclusive story," which Radar thinks is news. [Radar Online]
• Does the following sentence mean anything to you? "Leonardo DiCaprio went on a mad bender in Ibiza last night - with Jodie Marsh's ex-hubby Matt Peacock." We know how to say, "Where is the library?" and "Did Peter Andre cheat on Jordan?" but are still not fluent in British. [The Sun]
• Kid Rock sent over $1,500 to a pizza boy who was beaten by a gang and needed emergency reconstructive surgery after reading about his story in The Cincinnati Enquirer. [The Daily Express]
• Steven Tyler was dancing onstage and fell off the stage at a show in South Dakota. He was taken to the hospital and treated for minor head, neck, and shoulder injuries. Video at the link. [TMZ]
• Kate Gosselin will be on Today on Monday for her first interview since she and Jon Gosselin announced that they're divorcing. [Associated Press]
• On August 15 Alyssa Milano will marry talent agent David Bugliari at a private home in New Jersey. [Radar Online]
• Milla Jovovich and director Paul Anderson will marry on August 22. "It's going to be small," she said, "It's just going to be family and close friends. And it's at our home and it's going to be kind of like Havana/Cuban, like very California-Spanish feeling. It's going to be nice." [People]
• The Jay Leno Show will premiere on September 14 with musical guests Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West. [Variety]
• Britney Spears will appear at the Teen Choice Awards on Monday night. [BritneySpears.com]
• Kristen Wiig bought a Manhattan co-op from Mad Men and Sopranos director Alan Taylor. [N.Y. Observer]
• In the video at the link RHOA's NeNe Leakes says, "I TiVo a lot of things I'm on. I'm just the bomb," and discusses her love for Anderson Cooper and Maxwell. [Entertainment Weekly]
• In Paul Giamatti's new film Cold Souls he plays "an angst-ridden actor who is also Paul Giamatti and who literally has his soul surgically removed to help him cope with the stress of his career and life." He says of playing a fictional version of himself, "The only time it really struck me as very weird was when someone said my whole name during a scene, and I'd go, 'We should cut and start again because there's obviously a mistake there.' Then I'd remember I was actually playing me." [Reuters]
• Molly Ringwald says of her new twins Roman Stylianos and Adele Georgiana, "You get up with one of the babies and feed and change that one and get the baby back to sleep, and the other wakes up, and then you feed and change that one. It is exhausting, but it's wonderful," [People]
• "My friends love coming over [to my house], because they get fed," says Jennifer Aniston. "It's the best restaurant in town." Her personal chef adds, "Jen's a homebody. It's been so much fun to create a place where everybody feels comfortable, like one big family." [People]
• Sienna Miller says she "probably looked awful" for dating married father of four Balthazar Getty. "I probably seem like not a particularly nice person, not a girl's girl," she said. "I do think sometimes people get morally superior without understanding situations and the situation I got into was not ideal, but it happened and if I could go back and be more responsible, I would." [Us]

Diehl writes,

Strangely, when speaking with Ms. Polly Jean Harvey by phone from London, just after she'd performed a low-key show, the acclaimed singer–songwriter seems nothing like the unhinged, unabashedly profane character inhabiting [her new song] 'April.' Decidedly English, with a proper accent, the diva offstage proves articulate, almost demure. When asked about 'April,' she seems to shudder with embarrassment at the thought of discussing it. 'That Luddite chorus-I couldn't even repeat it, because it's bad language,' Harvey says in total seriousness, a blush audible in her voice.

What? You mean what I see on stage is not PJ Harvey's real, unvarnished, everyday self? You mean she does not whale on her guitar and yell "I want your fucking ass!" when she is ordering a cup of tea?

Harvey's collaborator John Parish explains:

Polly can be intense-deranged even-but she never slips into histrionic vocal gymnastics. [...] She's very technically capable, but she's more interested in the emotional intensity of performance. I love that the record has many different voices, which Polly has an incredible gift for. The voices she uses emphasize the change in atmosphere and character from song to song.

Oh, so . . . she's performing. And part of her talent as a performer is that maybe she can convey emotional states that she is not actually feeling in her normal life. Got it.

I don't know if it's just female artists who get this shit (my suspicion is no), but the idea that everything you create must be coming straight from your molten core is pretty grating. Matt Diehl, everybody: people make stuff up. Art isn't always truth; sometimes art is lies. Also, PJ Harvey rocks.

Primal Scream: PJ Harvey's Tortured Genius [BlackBook]

Village Voice:

If Patti Smith's narration to Dream of Life was simplified into a stanza, it might go something like this: As long as I can remember I sought to be free/Bob Dylan once tuned this guitar for me/My mission is to give people my energy/Fred, Jesse, and Jackson are my family tree/New generations, rise up, rise up, take to the streets/Me and Flea talking about pee. Her much more long-winded monologues are just as randomly assembled in the actual documentary, 109 mostly black-and-white minutes of punk's wet nurse floating through the modern world while endlessly ruminating on mortality, art, and the occasional bodily function. Problem is, there's nary a hint of context, even with biographic essentials: When Patti sprinkles the ashes of "Robert" onto her palm, we're momentarily left to guess that's Mapplethorpe; when she and erstwhile paramour Sam Shepard are acoustically jamming and their respective tattoos come up, the playwright muses, "That was a weird night at the Chelsea." More, please?

New York:

Eleven years in the making, fashion photographer and artist Steven Sebring’s gorgeous, up-close-and-personal doc about the legendary rocker is both a journey into Smith’s storied past and a portrait of her life today—less a movie about a musician than a transfixing meditation on her own iconography.

Salon:

"Patti Smith: Dream of Life" is frequently beautiful and intermittently haunting and could be called a meditation on aging and mortality, an intimate study of a peculiar variety of fame and a portrait of a genuinely remarkable person. It has played at Sundance and Berlin and all over the film festival world, at least in part because everyone's so amazed it actually got finished. Still, while "Dream of Life" succeeds on its own terms, I can't help feeling there's a missed opportunity here, an opportunity to make clear to younger women and men just how amazing Patti Smith's journey has been. (Maybe, like Julien Temple's wonderful "Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten," that kind of film can't be made while the subject is alive — but I'm not quite sure why that would be so.)

The New York Times:

You may not learn everything you want to know in “Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” an impressionistic portrait of that punk godhead, but you learn just about everything you need. Created over a heroic 11 years, it was directed and mostly shot by Steven Sebring, a high-end commercial photographer whose perseverance and conspicuous unfamiliarity with, or disregard for, the conventions of nonfiction cinema (not to mention the apparently deep-enough pockets that freed him to follow his own muse) have inspired a lovely, drifty first feature that feels less like a documentary and more like an act of rapturous devotion.

Variety:

The titular rocker-poet gets a suitable portrait in Steven Sebring's "Patti Smith: Dream of Life," which runs radically against the grain of American-made pop music docs. The result of 11 years of filming (much of it in wonderfully grainy black-and-white 16mm), pic is designed as a stream-of-consciousness experience, following Smith as she revives her music career and considers every aspect of her life. Death, too, plays a stark role, and the textured, thoughtful results may prove too cerebral and abstract for auds beyond Smith's hardcore followers, but long-term, this will be a loss-leader that gains much respect.

What Sebring — a fashion and pop photographer, painter and commercials maker — doesn't know about doc filmmaking never hurts the film. Starting in 1995, when Smith recorded her comeback album "Gone Again" and toured with her idol, Bob Dylan, after having not performed live for 16 years, Sebring's project clearly developed as it went along, and the effect of watching the film is seeing something in the making — like rummaging through Smith's closet, and stumbling across interesting stuff.

The Hollywood Reporter:

A knowledge of Smith's landmark contribution as a rock 'n' roll pioneer is not essential, and the film should be a joy for anyone interested in pop culture of the past 40 years.

Sebring does not take a conventional route here, which is fitting for his subject. The long gestation period for the film has afforded an intimacy and ease that allows him to penetrate Smith's inner and outer worlds, weaving back and forth in time from her arrival in New York in the late 1960s to raising her two children in Detroit with husband Fred "Sonic" Smith to her triumphant return to performing in the mid-'90s. Structure is anchored in the bedroom of Smith's cluttered New York apartment and jumps around from there as she reflects on her life and art.

Time Out New York:

But having privileged access and elucidating a mysterious figure are two different things. Sebring makes the crucial mistake of assuming his viewers are all Smithologists. (Even for them, the film might be too vague to become a holy object.) Amazingly, there is no testimony to contextualize her impact on the punk world, nothing at all about the horrendous 1977 onstage injury—she broke several neck vertebrae—that almost cost Smith her career. The live footage is choppy and interrupted; almost perversely, we never hear Smith’s gorgeous hit “Because the Night.” And the great question mark over Smith’s life—why she retreated from the spotlight along with her husband, White Panther and former MC5er Fred “Sonic” Smith—is not probed.

Instead, we get a lot of the singer’s poetry and recent political activism, and many sweet moments with her children and doting parents. Sebring is a sentimentalist, and his film comes alive when Smith melts into warm memories of going to Coney Island with Robert Mapplethorpe and getting hot dogs. But the opportunity to introduce newbies to a serious music-world icon—and her significance—feels squandered.

'Patti Smith: Dream of Life' opens today in limited release