Shari’s Final Fantasy, Elon’s $56B D-Day, Biden’s Age Paradox

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon compendium of Puck’s best new reporting.

First up today, Marion Maneker chronicles the commercialization of Art Basel, once the “only art fair in the world that mattered,” under its new-ish owner James Murdoch. Can the event regain its relevance?

Plus, below the fold: William D. Cohan unpacks Shari’s last-minute Paramount twist, the GameStop madness, and Elon’s $56B D-Day. John Heilemann investigates Bidenworld’s newfound sanguinity. Dylan Byers uncovers the true story behind the drama at The Washington Post. On The Town, Matt Belloni and Joshua Lynn ruminate on the science of green-lighting movies. And on The Powers That Be, Jon Kelly and Peter Hamby reunite to dissect WaPo’s tragicomic week.

MARION MANEKER

The art market isn’t in as much trouble as everyone seems to suggest. It just isn’t generating much excitement. This week, the big money crowd arrives in Basel. Will they find anything to make them open their checkbooks?

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WILLIAM D. COHAN

Advice for David Ellison and Gerry Cardinale as they contemplate a last-minute wrinkle in their Paramount deal. Plus, notes on Elon’s comp and the GameStop roller coaster.

JOHN HEILEMANN

The apparent sanguinity of Bidenworld in the face of an allegedly damning portrait of the president’s “slipping” mental faculties has the punditocracy wondering whether Wilmington is experiencing its own sort of delusion. But the hyperbolic response begs the question: Isn’t Biden’s age already fully priced in?

DYLAN BYERS

The latest anxieties and dueling narratives emanating from the expanding Washington Post blast zone on K Street.