Genius

A one-minute-and-seven-second tutorial in group dynamics courtesy of Miss Conduct's favorite sitcom, " Parks & Recreation . " Watch and learn:

Boston author Ben Mezrich was on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Wednesday picking up a Blue Chip Book Award for his oeuvre, which includes "The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal. " Other honorees include Michael Lewis, James Stewart, Burton Malkiel, Tim Ferriss, James Surowiecki, and Steve Wozniak.

By Peter Abraham, Globe Staff DETROIT — By all accounts, Ty Cobb was a terrible guy. But he also was one of the greatest players ever. He hit a record .366 for his career with a .945 OPS. His career WAR is 159.5. This plaque hangs outside of Comerica Park. It was originally at the old Tiger Stadium and was moved over. Always walk around ballparks and see what you can see. There's really good stuff.

Street smarts mean more than genius. John D. Spooner WWW.REFLECTIONFORTHEDAY.COM.Collected by Tom Fitzpatrick. All rights reserved.

Halfway through the film, a viewer finally figures out what "Van Gogh: Brush With Genius" is up to. The camera moves so close to the canvas that the smears of paint almost turn tactile, and the narrator points out that the artist's wide-angle way of framing his landscapes has the effect of pulling viewers in, surrounding them with vibrating colors. That's right: Vincent van Gogh was the first IMAX artist. It's one of many meta-moments in a featurette studded with them. "Brush With Genius" is now showing at the New England Aquarium's IMAX Theatre, so you can accept the film's intriguing, occasionally...

Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse By Kenneth Silverman Knopf, 503 pp., illustrated, $35 The first half of the 19th century saw the everyday world made new. The technology of ordinary life had not changed much in previous eras, and the 18th century's major contribution had been carriage springs, which made riding on the awful roads of the time much more comfortable. The last big change before that had been the chimney, invented in the High Middle Ages.

TODD PAVLISKO: All of Nothing At: Samson, 450 Harrison Ave., through July 9. 617-357-7177, www.samsonprojects.com MICHAEL WETZEL: Sunny Today At: LaMontagne Gallery, 555 East 2d St., South Boston, through July 8. 617-464-4640, www.lamontagnegallery.com NAHID KHAKI: A Home Forgotten, 30 Years Later: A Personal Journey to Iran At: Khaki Gallery, 9 Crest Road, Wellesley, through Aug.15....

As recorded music becomes increasingly digitized and intangible, CD box sets have evolved into a more specialized and elite product. Case in point: “The Genius of Miles Davis,’’ a whopper of a set that collects all eight of Columbia/Legacy’s Grammy Award-winning Miles Davis box sets. (Unavailable at standard retail, the set can be ordered at www.geniusofmilesdavis.com.) Over the course of these 43 discs, the many mutations of 20th-century jazz are painstakingly plotted out. From orchestral collaborations with Gil Evans (“Porgy & Bess,’’...

Street smarts mean more than genius. John D. Spooner WWW.REFLECTIONFORTHEDAY.COM.Collected by Tom Fitzpatrick. All rights reserved.

Boston author Ben Mezrich was on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Wednesday picking up a Blue Chip Book Award for his oeuvre, which includes "The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal. " Other honorees include Michael Lewis, James Stewart, Burton Malkiel, Tim Ferriss, James Surowiecki, and Steve Wozniak.

Season two of the Food Network's cooking competition show "Sweet Genius" includes a roster stacked with local foodies. Thursday night's debut episode featured Braintree's Charlene Smith, who was declared the winner by host Ron Ben-Israel and will return for the show's finale. Some of the other locals vying for the $10,000 prize are Steve Butters of Butter Cafe and Bakery in Walpole, Phillip Caramello, a pastry chef and owner of Rollin' Dough, as well as Dorian McCarron, Erin Gardner, Charles Draghi, and Victoria Donnelly.

FLORENCE - College art history class almost ruined Florence for me. Every tale about a struggling artist of the 15th century eventually came around to the largesse of the Medici clan. Irrational or not, I began to see Lorenzo de' Medici as the George Steinbrenner of the Renaissance: the guy with deep pockets who always got the best talent that money could buy. That made Florence the New York Yankees of art, so I had resisted its charms for years. When I finally visited last fall, I fell for the city, Medici and all. What won me over was...

Producing and sustaining a horror show for the American television audience is not a mission for the squeamish. Over television's 60-some years, very few continuing horror series have truly taken hold in this country. "Dark Shadows" survived five years in the 1960s by blending camp and soap opera. Joss Whedon succeeded by making "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" into a "Beverly Hills, 90210" of the undead. "Supernatural" works because it is, in effect, about two brothers on a really long road trip, and "True Blood" pins its allure on sex and deep bayou weirdness.

CAMBRIDGE - In the history of hip-hop disses, there never has been a line as scientifically literate as this: "Most rappers don't know diamonds are minerals, that they're crystalline, and that's what gives a diamond its shine. They talk about gold and they don't even know it's an element. " But that's the kind of bookish lyricism you get when Harvard and MIT professors hang out with a hip-hop superstar nicknamed "The Genius. " GZA - a.k.a. Gary Grice, founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan - is known for an omnivorous intellect and complex lyrics that reference, among...

I changed my mind. I'm on board with Bobby Valentine. After reading Tim Kurkijan , how could you not be? The ESPN columnist breathlessly ticks off Valentine's great accomplishments today, and they are as follows: He was a great football player; he once scored six touchdowns in the first half of a game at Stamford (Conn.) High School. There have been few ballroom dancers better than Bobby Valentine He knows about a lot of stuff. He is a successful restaurateur, and says, half-jokingly, that he invented the wrap...

In summer, many Bostonians head off for vacation, forgetting that hundreds of thousands of others have saved all year for the opportunity to vacation here. Boston is a great place to be in the summer and much of what is best about it revolves around the Emerald Necklace, the string of parks that includes Boston Common and Public Garden, Jamaica Pond, Arnold Arboretum, Com Ave. Mall, Back Bay Fens, The Riverway, Olmsted Park, and Franklin Park. It then seems fitting that we pause for a moment and give thanks to Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed the Necklace, along with the demonstrably inferior...

CAMBRIDGE -- There's only one painting in "Rembrandt and the Aesthetics of Technique" at Harvard's Busch-Reisinger Museum, and in it, his genius is evident. "Bust of an Old Man" (1632) displays Rembrandt's tonal moodiness, the empathy he felt for his subject, his virtuosity with a brush. What we may not see so clearly are the hard work and technical ingenuity the artist put into the painting. Instead we lose ourselves in the illusion he created, and we marvel at his creative power. Leave it up to the drawings and prints in this delightfully...

It says something curious that "Weird Al" Yankovic is arguably at his most respected at the very moment his entire approach is most threatened by anybody with a video camera and a YouTube account. But nobody's clamoring for them to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Saturday at the Orpheum, the man who is simultaneously just one among thousands of parodists and the last of his breed played to a deliriously enthusiastic audience. And Yankovic demonstrated what still sets him apart.