NEW JARGON FOR AN OLD TREND? Unfair Park has done a dogged job of tracking the city government’s treatment of historic landmarks (in particular, the fate of 508 Park Avenue, where bluesman Robert Johnson recorded his last great songs). Now the Observer blog has the latest on the city’s exploration of ways to get around its own historic district’s limitations on demolishing old buildings. It’s called “demolition by neglect” and allows the city (and a willing landowner) to tear down a historic building that is an “imminent threat to health or safety.” City officials see it as a way to nudge property owners to get up to code. Preservationists see it as another way developers can tear down, Unfair Park writes, “what little history Dallas has left standing.”

OLD ARTIST, NEW GIG: ’60s poster-art icon, painter Peter Max, 70 — shown in a self-portrait, above — will be appearing Saturday and Sunday at the Samuel Lynne Galleries. Michael Granberry profiles him in the News.

NEW ARTISTS, OLD TROUBLES: dfw.com offers four portraits of young North Texas newcomers to the arts world — actor Brian Daniels, painter James Lassen, writer Douglas Lucas, jazz singer Tatiana Mayfield — and how they’re trying to handle the worst economy in a generation. Lassen works part-time as a security guard at the Modern in Fort Worth. Lucas tutors but is mostly supported by his family. Mayfield works gigs in three different bands and, yep, is planning to graduate from the University of North Texas — and move to New York.

OLD STUFF, BUT FRESHLY SPIFFED UP: TheaterJones reviews Stage West’s revival of the Thorton Wilder classic, The Skin of Our Teeth; Renegade Bus wanders through the Texas Discovery Gardens at Fair Park — newly reopened in time for the State Fair and DART’s new Green Line.

UPDATE: Garrison Keillor is recovering from a minor stroke, reports Minnesota Public Radio. He’s at the Mayo Clinic.