Bravo Channel

Bravo channel reruns of NBC's "The West Wing" in recent days have had a surprisingly topical plot line: a bloody coup in Haiti, an elected president fears for his life, U.S. Marines sent to restore order, and the White House aswirl with military, diplomatic and political considerations. "A shootout in the presidential palace is the worst possible alternative," says the fictional national security advisor.

CHILDREN Children can learn to make snow globes at a workshop Saturday at the Petersen Automotive Museum in L.A. (323) 930-CARS. ANTIQUES Pomona hosts the Antique Street Fair on Saturday between the 100 and 300 blocks of East 2nd Street. (909) 623-9835. POETRY "Feb. 21, 1965: Revisit the Sixties" re-creates a South-Central poetry reading at the Watts Center in L.A. on Sunday. (213) 847-4646.

"Quarterlife," the first Web-based drama to air on network television, has been canceled by NBC after a dismally rated first episode, but will move to sister cable channel Bravo, people close to the show said Thursday. The highly touted online series about a group of young artists bombed in its NBC debut Tuesday night, drawing the network's lowest ratings and smallest audience for that time slot in at least 20 years, according to Nielsen Media Research. The show ranked a distant third place for the 10 p.m. hour, averaging just 3.1 million viewers and a meager 1.3 rating among advertisers' favorite demographic, adults ages 18 to 49, which is the audience for whom the series was designed.

"At the Catfish Hotel," to be seen at midnight tonight on the Bravo Channel, was presumably designed as a nostalgic glance at the formative years of jazz. Recorded at the Columns Hotel in New Orleans, it was produced and directed by Jim Gabour. Although Curt Jerde, who plays tuba and was the musical director, is credited with historical research, there is almost nothing to be learned from the script. The story of the New Orleans funeral is told as if we hadn't heard it a thousand times before.

One-time pop superstar Whitney Houston has filed for divorce from faded R&B phenom Bobby Brown, ending a famously volatile marriage that inspired relentless tabloid coverage and a short-lived TV reality series. "She has filed for divorce," Nancy Seltzer, the singer's publicist, confirmed Wednesday. Seltzer said Brown was served with the papers on Tuesday.

The daring idea at the heart of Luigi Pirandello's brilliant, sorrowful play, "Six Characters in Search of an Author," is that fictional characters can be more real, true and vital than living human beings. Taken to one extreme, this notion can lead to fascism--which it certainly did for some of Pirandello's friends a little more than a decade after he brought out his revolutionary work in 1921. Taken another way, "Six Characters" was a liberation for the theater.

Teen actress Scout Taylor-Compton has been missing from her Apple Valley home for nearly two weeks, though San Bernardino County authorities describe the case as "a typical juvenile runaway." Family members told authorities Aug. 12 that Taylor-Compton, 16, had left the family's high desert home that morning.

Elizabeth Jensen's article about the history and problems of the Bravo cable channel ("A Bravo New World," April 30) does not mention Bravo's pernicious practice of censorship, which has plagued its presentations of art house films from the start and driven away countless viewers. Imagine, if you will, the mentality of this cable channel service, which decides to specialize in foreign films that are often replete with language and nudity (which it will not permit to be shown), all the while expressing its respect for the arts.

"Doo Bop," a single from Miles Davis' last studio recording, is to be released on Monday. That's the late trumpeter's birthday. Davis, who died in September of pneumonia, would have been 66. The album is a hip-hop project for Warner Bros. Records, and the single is the title track. The number features a rap about Davis delivered by Easy Mo Bee, who also produced the album. Davis plays behind the rap, according to Matt Pierson, director of artists and repertoire for Warner.