THE ARTS

Finley’s Aborted Valentine: Performance artist Karen Finley, who drew the ire of the National Endowment for the Arts in the 1980s as one of the so-called NEA Four, has a few suggestions for celebrating Valentine’s Day: Telephone ex-lovers and hang up on them or dash to the supermarket in a heart costume for junk food and beer. But those and other suggestions from Finley, who is perhaps best known for smearing her body in chocolate, won’t be making their way to bookstores any time soon. Finley’s book, a parody of celebrity homemaker Martha Stewart, has been shelved by Crown Publishers, Stewart’s longtime publisher. Publisher Chip Gibson told the New York Times that Finley’s project, which had been approved by a previous publisher, amounted to “potshots” at Stewart. Finley decried the decision as censorship.