I’m back from the Dubai Film Festival (expect my coverage early next week) and am now rushing to get the next issue of the magazine together, so that’s why there hasn’t been as much material up on the blog. But I had to quickly post this quote from David Mament that appeared in Variety regarding Jeremy Piven, who has left the Broadway production of Speed the Plow due to a “high mercury count.”

Piven has informed the producers that he hasn’t been feeling well and that the condition is attributable to a high mercury count.

The show’s producers weren’t returning calls, but Daily Variety reached out to David Mamet, who wrote the showbiz satire and seemed skeptical of the reasons for Piven’s departure.

“I talked to Jeremy on the phone, and he told me that he discovered that he had a very high level of mercury,” Mamet said. “So my understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer.”

UPDATE: Mamet’s line is so funny that it’s hard not to quote it and leave it at that. But as a sushi lover who doesn’t eat it more than once a week for pretty much this reason, I should note the follow-up statement from his doctor in which he says that Piven has been hospitalized for extreme fatigue and that this is a very real malady.