HBO’s dramas are so dominant on Sunday nights that the network’s comedies tend to get short shrift; I know I don’t tend to watch them live while recapping “Game of Thrones,” since as much as I’m a good multitasker, even I can’t write 2,000 words in 40 minutes while also devoting at least a fraction of my brain to something else. But the debut of “Ballers” and “The Brink,” along with “True Detective” this Sunday, made me wonder: Do you stay tuned for the comedies after the dramas? And if so, which comedies are on your must-catch list?  • “The ‘Into the Woods’ Original Cast Reunion Showed Why Sondheim Is Such a Legend,” by Rob Weinert-Kendt: I love this fractured fairy tale, and it was particularly interesting to hear what the people who originated the roles are up to now.  “The original production ran for nearly two years on Broadway, long enough for the cast to form a stronger-than-usual show family, and many have repeated their roles (or other roles in the same show) often since. Their affinity for each other and the material still shows, in other words, as seen in the still warm-but-tetchy banter of the original Baker and Baker’s Wife, Chip Zien and Joanna Gleason, or the friendly joshing of Ben Wright, the original giant-killing Jack, and Danielle Ferland, the original Little Red Riding Hood,” Weinert-Kendt explains. “But apart from Bernadette Peters, none of the ‘Into the Woods’ actors are stars, and in fact a sobering number don’t perform full-time anymore: [Robert] Westenberg leads the theatre department at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, while Wright works as a financial advisor. You wouldn’t know it from how great they all still sound, 28 years later.”  • “Will Book Publishers Ever Start Fact-checking? They’re Already Starting,” by Boris Kachka: As a former fact-checker, I am still astonished that most publishers shunt off the process onto their authors, so I’m glad to read this.  “Earlier this month, the New York Post found major inaccuracies in ‘Primates of Park Avenue,’ Wednesday Martin’s ‘study’ of Upper East Siders and their wife bonuses, prompting Simon & Schuster to slap a quick disclaimer onto its best-seller. A Salon.com writer found that a key statistic in David Brooks’s ‘The Road to Character’ was badly mangled and wrongly sourced. (Random House will correct it in future editions.) And last week, New York’s Jesse Singal fact-checked ‘On the Run,’ Alice Goffman’s immersive, quasi-academic account of Philadelphia lawbreakers, which has come under fire for its shakiness on details,” Kachka explains. “In fact, the practice of checking books is fairly common, though it’s also expensive. This fall, for the first time, one publisher is even promising to pay for it. Which is a pretty radical departure. Until now, authors have not just cut the check but decided whether to hire a checker, found one themselves, and directed the process. That’s probably not the most effective system, since it means that the most cautious writers are the ones likeliest to end up with fact-checker support, while the writers who need it most are the least likely to get it. That includes, almost definitely, the next big fraud that comes slithering in.”  • “Martha Stewart’s Media Empire Sold for Fraction of Its Former Value,” by Michael J. de la Merced: I am sure Stewart’s prison term has something to do with this valuation, but I also wonder if, at a moment when aesthetics have changed and lifestyle gurus are everywhere, Stewart simply felt somewhat out of step.  “At its peak, Martha Stewart’s media empire, built around her carefully curated and fussily decorated lifestyle brand, was worth well over $1 billion. Yet on Monday, the company agreed to sell itself for a fraction of that,” de la Merced reports. “Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia said that it would sell itself to the Sequential Brands Group, a conglomerate whose brands include Jessica Simpson and the Franklin Mint, for just $353 million. It is in some ways a reminder of how far the company has fallen from its heights, when Ms. Stewart’s particular vision of a perfectly decorated lifestyle commanded attention and investor dollars. The company was dealt a blow in 2004 when Ms. Stewart — a former stockbroker and model who discovered a lucrative knack for decorating and catering — was convicted of obstructing justice and lying about a well-timed stock sale, spending several months in prison in Alderson, W.Va.”  • “Yale’s Rare Books Library Is Saving Old Chipotle Cups,” by Robinson Meyer: Art can be absolutely everywhere, if we want it.  “Yale’s rare book library has acquired a complete set of the Chipotle ‘Cultivating Thought’ series—the series of short, ‘two-minute’ essays and stories printed on the side of the company’s disposable paper goods,” Meyer explains. “George Saunders, Jeffrey Eugenides, Toni Morrison, and Amy Tan all contributed to the series; Jonathan Safran Foer came up with the idea in the first place. Like the idea of the’Cultivating Thought’ series itself, the acquisition sounds like a punch line. Don’t throw out your trash—give it to Yale! But in fact it joins a large archive of poetry printed on material on which poetry is not often printed. The Beinecke Library’s rare book and manuscript library has collected poetry printed on the side of pencils, postage stamps, bumper stickers, and commercial paint chips. It includes poems on posters by Amiri Baraka and Gwendolyn Brooks.”  • Yay! New Janet Jackson music!  Alyssa Rosenberg blogs about pop culture for The Washington Post's Opinions section.
HBO comedies, what the original "Into The Woods" cast is up to now, the decline of Martha Stewart, the return of book fact-checking, and new music from Janet Jackson.