Brow Beat: Slate's Culture Blog

How Did Burton Beat Cameron?

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland shattered Avatar's record for a 3-D premiere this past weekend—raking in $116 million to Avatar's $77 million. Alice also set a record for the "biggest opening weekend for a non-sequel." How did Alice slay the blue cats?

As Box Office Mojo's Brandon Gray explains, Alice opened on more 3-D screens than any movie ever before; 2,251 to Avatar's 2,038. Alice opened on more IMAX screens as well: 188 to Avatar's 178. Gray estimates that inflated ticket prices at IMAX and 3-D showings added around $22 million to Alice's total opening gross.

Alice's PG rating also makes it accessible to more people than Avatar, rated PG-13. Relatedly, Burton's film seems to have a wider demographic appeal. During Avatar's opening weekend, exit polls indicated that 57 percent of the movie's audience was male, and that 62 percent was 25 or older. Alice, though, did well among a number of different groups. According to Disney exit polls (cited by Gray), 55 percent of the film's audience was female and 54 percent was under the age of 25. Parents with children made up 39 percent of Alice's audience, while couples accounted for 36 percent. And crucially, Alice managed to draw in different audiences at different points throughout the weekend. As Disney distribution president Chuck Viane told the Los Angeles Times: Young adults attended midnight showings on Thursday, couples on dates saw the movie on Friday night, and families flocked to Saturday matinees.

Despite these remarkable numbers, it's unlikely that Alice will continue to outpace Avatar, especially since Burton's film will be moved off of most 3-D screens on March 26—to make room for Dreamworks' How To Train Your Dragon. The film's critical reception has also been less than enthusiastic: It currently has a middling 52 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Slate's own Dana Stevens says that Alice "represents the confluence of a number of depressing cinematic trends: the need to ransack classic children's literature for ideas, the unimaginative layering of 3-D technology onto a visual universe that would look just fine without it, and the belief that slathering familiar storylines with a superficial gloss of Gothic ‘darkness' constitutes a substantial reinterpretation." Ouch—maybe Tim Burton should wipe that Cheshire grin off his face.

Help Us Map the Child Star Firmament

It's a bleak day for the Lisa Simpsons of the world: Corey Haim, '80s teen idol, died today at 38, possibly of an overdose.

It's a sad, old Hollywood story, of course—the bright young thing who flames out, thanks to some unholy combination of the pressure, the temptation, the changing celebrity marketplace, or a desire to escape a squeaky-clean image. Gawker just posted a field guide to child stars gone bad, featuring some of the most blatant cases, like Jodie Sweetin of Full House (who became a crystal-meth addict; insert "How rude!" joke here) and Dana Plato of Diff'rent Strokes.

But, clearly, some child stars go on to lead relatively normal, stable lives, at least by Hollywood standards. Some have to spin out of control first: The poster child for this pathway is Drew Barrymore, who landed in rehab at 13 but is now the epitome of sunshine-y good feelings and atta-girl can-do-ism. Some turn out OK because they develop safer, nonshowbiz sideline careers. Science, for instance, seems to be a good way to avoid the demons: See Mayim Bialik from Blossom and Danica McKellar of The Wonder Years. Some celebri-tots just manage to age gracefully into adult stars (Jodie Foster, Reese Witherspoon, Justin Timberlake, to name a few). Still others wait for the roles to catch up with their new, not-so-cute faces (Jackie Earle Haley). 

For every cautionary tale, then, you can come up with a counterexample. But is there a way to predict which child stars will flame out and which will turn out OK? Is it the age at which they start performing? The kinds of roles they play? The amount of fame they achieve right off the bat? "There is nothing natural about the making of child stars," notes critic Margo Jefferson in her 2006 book on Michael Jackson. But would it be possible to engineer one that would turn out sane, happy, and healthy? Help us come up with a unified theory: Add your thoughts and best hypotheses in the comment thread.

Ripped From Which Headline? “Brilliant Disguise”

We all know that Law & Order rips its stories from the headlines—but which headlines? Every week, Brow Beat matches L&O's plot points to the events that inspired them.

March 8, 2010, "Brilliant Disguise"

These Are Their Stories
When a young out-of-towner is murdered in a hotel room, the police suspect Robbie Vickery, a man she ate brunch with shortly after arriving in New York. He works at a university lab and is angry with graduate students who, he believes, treat the lab rats with insufficient respect.

This Is the Real Story
In September 2009, Yale graduate student Annie Le was killed in a research lab on campus, allegedly by Raymond Clark, a lab technician who worked in the building. According to the New York Times, "Some co-workers have said Mr. Clark antagonized colleagues and research students he believed were cavalier about rodent-handling regulations." The New York Post quoted a source who claimed that "Clark was ‘a control freak' who insisted on lab cleanliness and ‘had issues' with the way Le kept her lab and her research mice."

These Are Their Stories
The police eventually become suspicious of Alex Conway, a graduate student who conducts experiments in Vickery's lab. They discover that Conway has been arranging hotel-room meetings with prostitutes, whom he robs to cover his gambling debts. When the police arrest Conway, he is carrying the same kind of plastic zip ties used in the attacks.

This Is the Real Story
In April 2009, Boston University medical student Philip Markoff was arrested en route to Foxwoods Casino and charged with the murder of a woman he met through Craigslist, as well as six other counts, including armed robbery. According to the New York Times, "A search of Mr. Markoff's home ... produced a 9-mm semiautomatic handgun, ammunition and zip ties like those used in the attacks." A timeline produced by the Boston Globe notes, "Authorities say gambling may have been behind the attacks."

The How I Met Your Mother Shame Index: Episode 17

Earlier this season, the Shame Index complained until he was blue in the face about how poorly How I Met Your Mother handled the relationship between Barney and Robin. The Index was especially irritated that the series expected viewers to accept that after the breakup Robin would sit idly by and listen to Barney boast of his conquests just like old times. This week, HIMYM tried to address this issue with a day-late, dollar-short episode that has the Index in a lather all over again.

Shameful:

—Jennifer Lopez. The Shame Index has a rather large soft spot for Lopez, dating back to her work opposite George Clooney in the trunk of a car. Like last week's special guest star, Carrie Underwood, Lopez was perfectly fine in her limited role, but the Index's complaint stands: Too many cameos. They're a crutch.

—Ted's super date musical number. Too soon.

—Also: A carriage ride, ice skating, dinner, and a show—this is Ted Mosby's idea of a superdate? Why not throw in a ride on the Ferris wheel in the Toys "R" Us in Times Square.

—Robin's mourning period. So much wrong here, the Index hardly knows where to begin. First off, the whole set-up doesn't really make much sense. Why is Robin so sad that Barney is taking Anita on a superdate? Robin asked Anita to crush Barney's spirit; she's worried that Anita's vaunted system of saying no will be overcome by a carriage ride, a pair of rented skates, and rear orchestra seats at The Lion King? This is what brings things to a head? Not Barney's attempt to sleep with seven women in seven days? Not Barney's playbook of scams, cons, hustles, hoodwinks, gambits, stratagems, and bamboozles? The writers tried to address the "why now?" question by showing us a flimsy montage of Robin crying after being exposed to Barney's jerkiness over the last few months. But the Index wasn't buying that Sixth Sense-ish trick.

—The Index gets, of course, that Robin was upset last night because Barney never treated her to a superdate. But, again, the set-up doesn't make sense. The super date isn't romantic. It's just a means to an end—the latest Barney stratagem for nailing the latest woman to present a challenge. And this is what bothers her? That she never got the royal treatment from Barney? She's not troubled by the fact that Barney returned to his promiscuous ways after their breakup without so much as a pang for her?

—Are we meant, now, to feel as though Barney is absolved? Giving Robin his super date and throwing himself in the Hudson were magnanimous acts, sure. But Barney's contrite moment at the shooting range rang hollow after weeks of watching him bed woman after woman as Robin looked on. HIMYM tried to show us a more complicated, thoughtful, emotion-having Barney when he and Robin got together, but the series quickly backed away from that Barney in favor of the sex hungry caricature. You can't have it both ways.

—Don. The Index has expressed skepticism about Don from the moment he first appeared, but he has also held out hope that HIMYM would eventually make some effort to show us why Don is a worthy match for Robin. Unless the Index missed an episode, however, Don's lone act of gentlemanliness to date consists of agreeing to wear pants when he's on set. Marshall seems to think Don is a great guy (and even claimed last night that Don is smart, which came as a surprise). But the series has given us very little reason to share Marshall's estimation. Did any viewer out there pump a fist when Robin and Don kissed against the romantic backdrop of a poorly green-screened fireworks display? What a waste of a courtship.

Awesome:

—Robin's recent story: "Which rodents to avoid on the subway—the answer may surprise you."

—The bang-bang song. The Index, in a bad mood after this upsetting episode, was ready to put the bang-bang song in the Shameful ledger. Then he caught himself singing it in the shower this morning. It is catchy.

—Barney and Anita's hot and heavy discussion of small, flaccid fibers. "You're in luck because mine's the tiniest."

—Of Course You're Still Single, Take a Look at Yourself You Dumb Slut.

—"But um"

—"And frankly I'm still angry at the empire."

Bang, bang, bangety-bang. Bang, bang, bang bangety-bang ... Sing along in the comments.

Previous Shame Indices: Episode 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

Giving Chinese Food the Poptimist-Revisionist Treatment

Last week, The New Yorker and The Oxford American each ran stories about the enigmatic, vagabond Szechuan chef Peter Chang—an award-winning cook who has, over the years, set up shop in a string of unassuming, strip-mall-type restaurants from Virginia to Georgia to Tennessee. Chang has a tantalizing m.o.: After a while—often no more than a matter of months—he will ditch a restaurant, leaving his growing camp of devotees to groan in dismay, speculate about his motives on message boards, and, in some cases, hunt him down at his newest gig. In his delightful Oxford American piece, the food writer Todd Kliman recalls with a mixture of awe and shame the day he drove a full six hours to gorge himself on Chang's ma la wizardry, and Calvin Trillin's New Yorker story features a similar, if less epic, pilgrimage.

The stories got me hungry. But they also got me thinking: Is it possible "authenticity" is overrated in the cult of Chinese cooking? Both stories have in common an implicit privileging of real-deal Chinese cuisine over its Americanized, beef-and-broccoli incarnation. In Kliman's story, he steps into one of Chang's restaurants and momentarily fears he has the wrong place when a man "in running shorts" picks up his order: "chicken and green beans, orange beef, General Tso's chicken."

Kliman isn't snobbish about this (although his decision to mention the running shorts suggests, perhaps, some low-level irritation at this patron's lack of reverence in the temple). But his piece (and Trillin's) invokes some received foodie wisdom about Chinese cooking: That the stuff they make for themselves is better than the stuff they make for us. Chowhound types often fill message boards with their scorn for the ignorant diners who think "Chinese food" means General Tso and his sham, mongrel army.

Interestingly, this isn't really a question of high versus low cuisine, nor is it a question of native versus non-native chefs. The foodie line on the supremacy of authentic Chinese cooking pits one perceived "folk" consensus (everyday Chinese food, cooked by Chinese people, as Chinese people like it) against another (everyday Chinese food, cooked by Chinese people, as Americans like it). But it's important to note that what we understand as authentic Chinese cooking is often itself a hybridized beast to begin with: Dishes from Qingdao, for instance, feature pine nuts, creamed corn, and, according to the critic Robert Sietsema, a pervasive German influence. Qingdao-based Chinese food has an impure bloodline, in other words-and it can still be fantastic. Are we participating in a sort of knee-jerk exoticism if we decide that impure, American-based Chinese food is of a lesser order, by definition?

Of course, if you only ever order General Tso's Chicken at your local take-out spot, your experience of Chinese food is a narrow one, mediated by the desires and preferences of the "mainstream" American palate. But isn't it possible, say, that Peter Chang's General Tso's is a divine dish in its own right? Would a chef this stellar really send out a sub-par plate just because it falls on his restaurant's "American," rather than Chinese, menu? If I order orange beef at a Chang restaurant—or, say, one of its Flushing, Queens, brethren—am I necessarily getting the weak stuff and squandering an opportunity? Sure, it won't be as nuclear-fallout hot as the chengdu spicy aromatic fish broth, but does that mean it won't be as delicious—a taste worth savoring and knowing about?

The answers to these questions may be simply: "Nope," "Yep," "Yep," and "Nope!" I'm ready to accept that there's an intrinsic limit to the complexity of Americanized Chinese food—or that otherwise virtuoso chefs phone it in for that half of their menu. But don't we owe it to our stomachs to at least interrogate the prejudice a bit? 

Project Runway Post-Show Chat, Week 7

After each episode of Project Runway's seventh season, a gaggle of Slatesters gather to dish about the show. This week the challenge was to create an unconventional look from hardware materials, along with an accessory to complement and enhance the look. Jay Nicolas Sario was the winner; Jesse LeNoir was sent home.

June Thomas: Well, we got the challenge we had been wanting, something with unconventional materials that really pushed the designers to be creative ... but I can't say that I enjoyed it. Perhaps because I feel cheated about the elimination.

David Plotz: That was a travesty. I don't see how they could possibly allow Emilio to continue after that obscenity of a bikini. Nina obviously saved him, but why?

Hanna Rosin: Well unfortunately you can't kick people out for mild dishonesty or unpleasantness. If Emilio had only said: Well, I had this idea, and it didn't quite come together, so I rigged up this Valley of the Dolls slutsuit—in other words, if Emilio had been Anthony—we would have forgiven him. But instead he pretended that he had planned it that way all along.

What I found most unappealing about him is that he is one of those fashion snobs who insists on "sophistication."

DP: I was so moved by Anthony's corny, but totally apt, remark about Emilio's horror: "One thing that never goes out of style is making a woman look like a lady." This is why Anthony will be going home in the next two weeks, but it is a wonderfully humane sentiment, and it did capture the fundamental vileness of Emilio's look, which is that it was prurient trickery, trying to disguise its incompetence and lack of innovation with pure sluttiness. And that's why he should have gone.

HR: David, one nice thing about this season is how Anthony always comes through (as a personality, not as a designer). He walks that edge of being a gay mama's boy front-pew Georgia cliché, but then he always tips back into the genuine.

JT: I didn't feel like the judges were playing fair this week. Although I never expected Jesse to get very far, he has surprised me in the last few weeks by turning out some genuinely creative looks. Jesse's outfit had an interesting shape and a couple of nice touches. Emilio's ensemble was indecent. I couldn't bring myself to examine it too closely for fear of seeing the model's lady bits. Jesse was sent home because the judges didn't like that his clothes looked like hardware, but Emilio's washers and bolts? What were they but hardware? (And what was Emilio's accessory? As far as I could tell, other than a bolt on a string around her wrist, there was nothing to Emilio's look but a skimpy swimsuit.)

HR: But, June, other than that belted lady noir look from the kid challenge, what memorable thing has Jesse produced? He was one of the buzzed-about contestants before this season started, the Thurston Howell of the bunch. And he pretty much faded into the background. I do have the sense that Emilio—despite this hardware breakdown—is the more evolved designer.

JT: I've not been a fan of Jesse's—he was often unlikable. His pre-series buzz was that he didn't really belong—he was someone who wanted to be on a reality show rather than someone who wanted to be in fashion. Other than the Madeleine dress for the kids challenge and a couple of things that you saw only if you slowed down the super-fast runway shows, he was definitely middle of the pack. You're right that Emilio has a much better chance of being a real designer. All that said, I still think that Emilio should not be on the show after what he sent down the runway tonight. We know that contestants get booted from Project Runway for one bad garment. And that was a very bad garment.

DP: As always, the unusual materials challenge brought out the best in the best designers. Amy could easily have been a fourth finalist with her dignified sandpaper dress. (If Mila's skill is color blocking, whatever that is, Amy's is clearly building texture with layering—sedimentary dresses.) Jay's trash bags were gorgeous. Maya's necklace was the coolest thing I've ever seen. And even Jonathan and Ben made their copper beautiful.

JT: Jay's garbage-bags-to-leather trick was all the more miraculous because, as Heidi said, we've seen it tried before. In Season 5, Stella almost went home early because she couldn't work magic on trash bags. Jay did, though, and I loved seeing him make the fit work. (And what a sound bite his model provided when she told him, "If you need me to Crisco, I will.") Tonight, Jay solved a problem, and Emilio most certainly did not.

HR: Fashion-wise, I thought this was the highlight for this season. Jay's faux-leather outfit was amazing. Mila's kicky skirt was awesome. And I'll eat my hat if they don't start selling key necklaces on the streets of midtown Manhattan this summer.

JT: Tonight I was glad I didn't have to choose a winner: I loved all the top three designs, and I agree that Amy's sandpaper-and-grommets creation was gorgeous. She has a gift for finding subtly beautiful color combinations. (She does seem incapable of designing a garment with an even hem, however.) I also liked Maya's look—and I hate that she didn't get any perceptible reward for her fabulous accessory, a part of the challenge that was important enough that they put a jewelry designer on the judging panel ... until it didn't suit the storyline, and they forget all about it. Mila's dress felt costumey to me—at least in the bodice—and it was obvious that it was made of hardware store materials, but the skirt had fabulous movement. Her accessory was a joke, though. That wasn't a cuff. That was a tag stuck around her model's wrist.

HR: So disagree about the cuff. What a witty idea, to turn a mini metal sign into a bracelet. The key necklace was more beautiful, but the cuff showed a rare flash of humor.

JT: I admit that the color scheme was right. I guess I'm feeling a bit burned by the whole accessory challenge. We didn't even see most of the designers' accessories. What was Jay's? His braided belt?

DP: I have been watching American Idol for the past couple of weeks, and one striking difference between the two shows—which are in some ways very similar in their respect for virtuosity and hard work—is how obviously intelligent (in a verbal, smarty-pants way) the Project Runway contestants are. We heard so much witty cross talk this week—Anthony's quip, Emilio and Jonathan's riff on everyone being in the bottom 10, Jonathan and Amy joking about copper. PR contestants would make great dinner party guests, in part, I suppose, because so much of fashion is being able to tell a story about fashion.

HR: That's a great observation, David. I think it also has to do with the kinds of people who go into fashion and the kinds who become singers. Fashion people tend to have spent their adolescence as outsiders and oddballs—gay boy in an oversized family hiding in the closet sketching; girl who spends too much time alone in her room making collages. Singers, meanwhile, are the opposite types—showy, center of attention, popular, or at least desperate-to-be-popular types.

DP: You guys have not taken my question! Why did Nina save Emilio? What did she see there?

JT: I think Hanna is right that Emilio has done more in previous weeks (though not in the last two or three) to show that he has what it takes to make it in fashion. It cannot have been anything in tonight's design. Yes, the styling was bold, but that's because it was a smoke screen.

DP: If by "have what it takes to make it in fashion" you mean saying vicious things about fellow competitors, bragging unjustifiably about his own talent, and brazenly lying, I guess you're right.

HR: I also think Nina was seeing something there. Jesse pulled the oldest trick in the Project Runway book—throw out the word futuristic to explain away the Tin Man. Emilio's was indecent—and he was indecently humorless and dishonest about it—but it does take some kind of eye to combine aluminum washers with hot pink string.

But before I come close to defending Emilio, I want to remind us all that he described that look as "strong and sexy." That was really his final crime. Barbie and the Valley of the Dolls are many things, but strong and sexy are not among them.

Previous chats: Weeks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Lost's Ben Linus' Secret Past, Revealed

In their Lost TV Club discussions, Slate's Jack Shafer, Seth Stevenson, and Chadwick Matlin have found plenty to take issue with in the show's final season. My biggest gripe with the series this year, though, might be the drastically reduced screen time for Ben Linus. How could this fascinatingly inscrutable mind-gamer—adored by fans, loathed by Jack Shephard—transform so rapidly into such a sniveling has-been? Among my hopes for the show is that Linus's raditude will be restored. In the meantime, however, I have this recently unearthed YouTube clip to help me along:

Yes, that's a much younger Linus himself—or, in the alternate universe we call "real life," the actor Michael Emerson—portraying a prison counselor in a 1992 Department of Corrections training video. This video is, for the most part, a happy curiosity, but there's also something uncanny about it. At first, Emerson's Counselor Andrews isn't given much room to flex: A voice-over steps on his lines something nasty up top. But when he tries to calm down a tantrum-throwing prisoner, it's pure Linus: the disarmingly bugged eyeballs, the hyper-articulated speech, the eerily calm affect giving way to agitated twitching, the smug grin that telegraphs levels of menace, the weird hair.

When Andrews says, "How you doing, Higgins? Hear we got a little bit of a misunderstanding here," a little shiver runs down my spine. That's Ben Linus, Higgins! He will call down a smoke monster on your unruly ass! Or, you know, the prison psychologist.

Ripped From Which Headline? "Steel-Eyed Death" and "Boy on Fire"

We all know that Law & Order rips its stories from the headlines—but which headlines? Every week, Brow Beat matches L&O's plot points to the events that inspired them.

March 1, 2010, "Steel-Eyed Death"

These Are Their Stories
Four members of the Morgan family are found stabbed to death in their apartment—the father with a knife in his neck. After some dogged gumshoe work, Detectives Lupo and Bernard track down a horror-core band that uses a knife in the neck as its logo. They also find a Web site for horror-core fans, or "Juggalos," with photos of the Morgan crime scene taken before the police arrived. Justin Sachs, a Juggalo who always carries a hatchet in his backpack and sometimes wears clown makeup, is convicted of the murders.

This Is the Real Story
As a story in the Phoenix New Times explained in November 2008, "Juggalos are fans of [Insane Clown Posse], a Detroit-bred rap duo with KISS-like face-paint and ludicrously profane lyrics. The band has a massive underground following, particularly in their native Midwest, as well as Colorado, Utah, and Arizona." The logo of Psychopathic Records, ICP's label, features a man carrying a hatchet.

March 1, 2010 "Boy on Fire"

These Are Their Stories
Cesar Ramirez, a charter-school student, is set on fire and killed on his way home from school. Several students at a nearby public school are found to have footage of the murder on their cell phones. It turns out that the killers, also students at the public school, had stolen Cesar's phone before lighting him on fire to record the attack.

This Is the Real Story
In September 2009, 16-year-old Chicago honor student Derrion Albert was beaten to death on his way home from school. A passer-by made a cell-phone video of the beating, which was later distributed by police and made available by broadcast and online media outlets.

Readers, did I miss any headlines? Share your thoughts in the comments.

The How I Met Your Mother Shame Index: Episode 16

CBS put its comedies into reruns out of deference to NBC's Olympics juggernaut, so it had been a couple of weeks since the last installment of How I Met Your Mother. The Shame Index, an aspiring Nordic skier and adamant supporter of Julia Mancuso's tiara, thoroughly enjoyed the XXI Winter Games, but had one issue he'd like to take up with the planners in Vancouver: No Robin Sparkles. The Index would have slotted a performance of "Let's Go to the Mall" in the closing ceremonies, somewhere between Inward Eye's "Day After Day" and Neil Young's "Long May You Run."

Awesome:

—Barney's catalog of failed "bait." Slot machine: too fun. Trampoline: too dangerous.

—Teacup pig: just right.

—The revelation that a Wu-Tang poster played a key role in Marshall and Lily's courtship. The Index wonders if Marshall set the mood by playing one of the more romantic numbers in the Wu Tang catalog. "Ice Cream," perhaps, or "Camay."

—"On the hook": The Shame Index has complained this season when HIMYM has constructed episodes around strained concepts—the sexless innkeeper, for example, which failed to elicit laughs or describe romance in 21st century New York. (It was like a bad riff on the New York of The Apartment.) The hook, by contrast, was a sharply observed phenomenon, one the Index suspects most HIMYM fans have experienced, either as hookee or hooker.

—"No money changed hands."

—Marshall's complexion circa 1994. (Also: What hip hop artist do we suppose was featured on the poster 1994 Marshall was so eager to show off? The Index's educated guess.)

—What it took to get girls in 1994 St. Cloud: A LeBaron convertible and an in at the roller rink.

—Ted's inadvertent proposal to Henrietta. A little telegraphed, but still an amusing set-up. Though poor Henrietta. The Index admired her work with ice sculpture, and hopes she finds a man who appreciates her talents.

Shameful:

—Carrie Underwood. The Index actually thought she was fine in the part; the Index is just getting tired of all the cameos this season. [Ed. note: The Shame Index, a longtime admirer of Jennifer Lopez's work, reserves the right to praise her forthcoming cameo.]

—Hot female professions down the ages. What might have been a funny bit was tainted by the lameness of Barney's laugh lines. The Index gets it, they were supposed to be corny, to go with Barney's wink, but a homo erectus joke? Not even 1994 Marshall would laugh at that. And are the HIMYM writers, who earlier this season showed us a different side of Barney during his short-lived romance with Robin, now only going to use him in high-concept set pieces about sex? That would be disappointing. (The Index confesses that he enjoyed the specificity of Barney's prediction that soon, Pharma girls will start looking like "the crew on a Southwest flight from Albuquerque to Little Rock." There's nothing becoming about those chinos Southwest forces on its flight attendants.)

—Marshall's professed belief that the Lunch Lady Scooter was a scooter for lunch ladies. Come on. That's just silly.

—The entire Scooter subplot, actually. The teacup pig was undeniably adorable, but this storyline didn't really go anywhere.

—Barney's psychotropically altered behavior in the kicker. As with the Scooter plot, not terrible, just not particularly inventive or funny. A wasted opportunity. Would have liked to see Henrietta walk into McClaren's with some hunkier-than-Ted dude on her arm.

Index readers, what did you make of the episode? Share your thoughts in the comments. And happy Tijuana Tuesday.

Previous Shame Indices: Episode 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

I'm Good at Skating, Please Buy This Air Conditioner

Sometimes Kim is called on to play a more straightforward role. In this case, she's a wood nymph eating yogurt in the forest.

As to be expected, many of the skater's commercials take place on the ice. This cell phone ad, which shows Kim gunning down suitors with a coquettish finger-pistol, makes direct reference to her on-ice James Bond routine.

On the rare occasion when she's not shilling lipstick with girlish glee, Kim is just a great Olympian. This classic-looking Nike spot, in which she skates over a collection of questions and doubts, could be fodder for any world-class athlete. Her familiar winning formula: "Just Do It."

And then there are the commercials that subvert all expectations. Is Kim hugging a paramour-or something even more delightfully cuddly?

Ferguson and Fry Rock Late Night by Having Actual Conversation

In the recent battles over late-night talk-show television, one host remained in the background: Craig Ferguson, the brainy, silly, endearing Scotsman who hosts CBS's Late Late Show. Last night, Ferguson conducted an experiment: He recorded his entire show with only one guest, the English actor and writer Stephen Fry, and with no studio audience present. (You can watch the episode here.) What inspired Ferguson to try this stunt I don't know—perhaps his longstanding friendship with Fry, or his frustration with the limitations of the conventional talk show format after five years on the air. But the show left this viewer wishing that the spectacle of two adults engaged in long-form conversation would stop being a stunt and start being a show.

Fry was his usual delightful self, cheerfully tossing about high-register words like "demotic" and "tautology" and comparing Twitter's 140-character word count to Robert Graves' theory of poetic compression. Instead of occupying the usual host-at-a-desk, guest-on-a-couch setup, Ferguson and Fry simply sat face-to-face in armchairs, sipped beverages out of bizarrely ornate mugs (any guess as to what they were supposed to be shaped like?) and kibitzed about whatever came to mind: Fry's bipolar disorder, their history of drug and alcohol abuse and their shared love for American culture, the etiquette of responding to Internet trolls, and the universal assumption that everyone else in the world somehow got a memo on how to live that you missed. There was no part of their chat that wasn't something one might overhear at an interesting dinner party. But in the talk-show world, where appearances are usually pegged to publicity tours and anecdotes prepped in advance, spontaneous and thoughtful conversation constitutes a radical novelty.

A little stiff at first in the cavernous silence of the empty studio, Ferguson soon got wrapped up in the topics at hand. "I forgot that we're doing a TV show," he apologized as he interrupted Fry for a commercial break. Later, he observed as a piece of equipment clattered in the background, "Usually the audience's hooting and braying covers up these technical errors." Wrapping up the show, Ferguson recalled Fry's earlier appearances, complete with audience and couch: "I'm sorry that in our past conversations I've been so shouty." "It's your job, and you do it very well," Fry replied graciously—but it was hard to repress a sense of sadness that this brief window of intelligent discourse was about to slam shut. This morning, Ferguson tweeted: "Back to normal crap tonight." But does Ferguson's small but devoted audience really want a return to the "normal crap"? If he sat down with CBS and issued an ultimatum (in the way talk-show hosts seem fond of doing lately), could Ferguson make this an opportunity to reinvent the late-night talk show?

Squash Trash Talk

It has come to my attention, as Slate's official squash correspondent, that a video of one squash player attempting to eat the head of another squash player is making the rounds on the Internet. This is another bad mainstream moment for squash. Squash fans are still depressed that our sport was denied a berth in the London Olympics. More beach volleyball, anyone? Ooh, can't wait for the rhythmic gymnastics to begin!

Anyway, on Sunday, Baset Chaudhry—who is 6-foot-5, hails from Pakistan, and is co-captain of the legendary squash powerhouse, the Trinity Bantams—defeated the top player from Yale, the freshman Kenneth Chan, from Singapore. The victory gave the bantams their 12th-straight national title—they haven't lost a team match since 1998. The sportsmanship fail happened at the end of the match, when Chaudhry does a victory yell over Chan, creating an awkward Goliath-confronting-David moment. Next, Chaudhry leaves the court, gives his dad a hug, and then pushes Chan back into the court when the Yale player tries to exit.

The jocks at ESPN's SportsCenter were soon having fun with this episode of squash "trash talking." In the video, the analyst Merril Hoge breaks down the "questionable sportsmanship" with the help of his telestrator while his colleagues chuckle along. Hoge's contempt for squash starts with an attempt to explain the rules: "You got a couple lines here. A line up top." Then he zooms in on the "verbal spraying" and concluded by connecting the whole incident to the importance of "buttocks"-blocking in the NFL.

Sure, there's some residue of truth to what a commenter on Deadspin had to say: "Squash: the sport rich kids play when they suck at lacrosse." But as Slate's Seth Stevenson pointed out almost a decade ago, collegiate squash has become an international game, with the Baset Chaudhrys replacing the Baxter Thatcher Hatchers at the top of the ladders. At both the pro and the top collegiate level, squash players are elite athletes—aerobic freaks with amazing hand-eye, foot speed, racquet discipline, and guile. Watch this rally, nonbelievers:

Back to the matter at hand, Chaudhry displayed improper squash dominance. The best way to win is with nonchalance. You stalk the court in such a manner to imply that the calls, your opponent's shots, and the crowd simply don't matter, such is your obvious dominance over your opponent. If you do deign to yell, you yell at the refs. (There is a lawyer-esque element to competitive squash matches, as each call can be appealed.)

We are also left to wonder what it was that set off Chaudhry. Trinity's coach said that Chan had been "getting in [Chaudhry's] pants for the entire match" (i.e., crowding him) and that the outburst was an outpouring of that frustration. There is also loose talk of an earlier Chan-initiated staring-down moment. We may never learn the truth of this alleged "trash talk," but it's more fun to conjure our own imaginary squash insults.

Some suggestions:

1. I've seen better drop shots in John Irving novels.
2. I've seen better rails in West Coast cities known for their sprawl and lack of public transit options.
3. Where'd you learn to serve, Hotchkiss?

Let's hear your best squash trash talk in the comments.

L.L. Bean Goes High Fashion?

I was recently perusing the pre-sale items for L.L. Bean's new signature collection, when I was distracted by the blond model wearing the $79 textured pullover. Why did she look so familiar? This wasn't one of the blandly attractive, patently frumpy denizens of the mail-order catalog. It was none other than Maggie Rizer, the supermodel famous for her Nordic good looks and for losing her fortune to her father's gambling problem, who just a few years ago used to regularly grace the covers of Vogue and Elle. Poking around on the site further, I watched a promotional video for the new line, and caught a glimpse of—could it really be?—Missy Rayder, younger half of the famous Rayder sisters, and also a bona fide supermodel of the early aughts.

Since when do high fashion and L.L. Bean, long-time purveyor of mom jeans and mock turtlenecks, even belong in the same sentence? Is this just another example of the sad fate of aging supermodels? (Rizer is 32 and Rayder 33, so, basically, ancient.) Or is the stodgy old Maine brand positioning itself to become the next big thing? The signature collection—for which the company hired creative director Alex Carlton, founder of the nautically hip Rogues Gallery—is an assortment of new designs and updated classics, cut trimmer than the standard, boxy Bean fare and marked up 20 to 25 percent. Not coincidentally, Rizer and Rayder are also both "American classics reinterpreted for today," according to a company spokesperson.

Someone at Bean clearly got the memo that in the age of Vampire Weekend, their preppy-meets-outdoorsy look is all of a sudden kind of trendy. Everywhere I look in New York this winter, people are wearing Bean boots again—I resurrected my sister's old pair from college. The boot is one of the mainstays the new line revamps, introducing a Filson-esque waxed cotton version that has already sold out on pre-order. If L.L. Bean wants to de-frump their image and update their classics, I'm excited to see the results. But a word of caution to those who have loved their Bean boots and canvas totes forever: When a genuine old-school American outfitter starts pandering to a younger set, the results aren't always pretty.

The Making of George Stephafluffulos

This week's New York Observer examines how George Stephanopoulos has been "adjusting to a life of fluff" since assuming a co-anchor spot on Good Morning America in mid-December. "From the get-go," writes reporter Felix Gillette, "various observers have questioned Mr. Stephanopoulos' suitability for the GMA job. Call it the reverse Katie Couric syndrome. As in, isn't he just a little too qualified for morning TV?"

Gillette leaves his readers to conclude that Stephanopoulos will not master the delivery of dumb news until he overcomes his ingrained circumspection and sheds some propriety. We are talking, after all, about an arena in which Couric once felt comfortable, if that's the right word, in submitting to an on-air colonoscopy—for a good cause, yes, but c'mon, man, really? While I do not expect that Stephanopoulos will ever invite viewers into his small bowel, I must observe that he has made notable progress toward ceasing to be quite such an on-camera tight-ass.

The early days were rough. On some mornings, Stephanopoulos just barely managed to feign interest in Emeril Lagasse's sauté pan; on others, his fake enthusiasm was all too blatant. During a holiday-shopping segment, a heedless G. Steph breezed incomprehensibly through the French-language title of a book about coquillages he was buying for himself. His Dec. 21 interview with Meryl Streep, who was promoting It's Complicated, turned into a minor farce. "What's complicated about your life, Meryl?" he asked, almost visibly straining. Well, her daughter was about to get married, she answered, careful to state that her future son-in-law, "Ben," was a lovely guy. "Ben Harper!" said George, as if buzzing in on a quiz show. "No," said Meryl, confused and amused. "But he's also nice!"

He could only go up from there, and he did, much helped along by his wife, actress Ali Wentworth, who began popping in on a semi-regular basis. She de-wonkified her husband, as it were, by sprinkling the scene with her daffy screwball-dame charm. I don't remember whether she was referring to her dog's house training or her daughters' potty training when delivering one classic line about home life with George: "When we wake up in the morning, we're usually covered in pee and we don't know whose it is."

By early January, he was feeling relaxed enough to put his foot up on GMA's coffee table. Instead of struggling to shine with enthusiasm about every dental-care tidbit and dopey romantic comedy, he began allowing himself to be merely curious about them—becoming more authentic and appealing. I'd like to think that the real breakthrough came when the Project Runway gang dropped in on Jan. 13, and George repeated Tim Gunn's catchphrase with a full throat: "Make it work!"

Going forward, GMA needs to give Stephanopoulos as many opportunities as possible to talk about his kids. Why? Because it is cute. "You've got something over here that my daughter Ellie is gonna love," he beamed during a January gadget demo. "She loves to take her temperature!" Then, demonstrating a forehead-scan thermometer, George took his own—97.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Indeed, Stephanopoulos still runs just a little bit too cool to serve morning fluff at its proper consistency, but he is steadily warming to the task.

Project Runway Post-Show Chat, Week 6

Jessica Grose: This week was a big improvement over last week. Including children was a genius twist—the little buggers certainly were charming, especially Anthony's vampy wee one. The top designers are really pulling ahead of the pack: The tailoring on Seth Aaron's modish motorcycle jacket was impeccable, and the design on his kids outfit was whimsical and sweet. As you predicted last week, David, Janeane was auf'd, and good riddance to that Debbie Downer. Her "taste level" as the Proj Run judges often put it, was not up to snuff. Janeane is so down on herself that in her exit interview, she said: "I'm going to be international in the next two years. Not huge, but around." With that kind of attitude—not to mention her sub-pardesign skills—she is destined for mediocrity.

David Plotz: I knew Janeane was gone as soon as they showed her on the phone with her husband. That always telegraphs: I'm done.

I'm sure I can't be trusted, because I have a crush on her, but I thought the banishing of Amy to the bottom two was absurd. Her kid outfit was incredibly cute in all respects, and the petal clown pants were courageous.

June Thomas: I'm with you. I was mad at the judges for not respecting Amy's risk-taking. And I loved her kids outfit—it felt sophisticated andage-appropriate. And that's without noting some of the horror shows that thesafe designers snuck by the judges. Emilio has lost it for me. His kid's dress looked like a combination nightgown/communion dress, and the adult outfit that was supposed to "correspond" with it was straight-up hooker.

D.P.: Totally agree about Emilio, who seemed to have sized his ugly communion dress for a 10-year-old, not a 6-year-old. No daughter of mine would be permitted in Jonathan's scratchy yellow horror. Jay's outfit would be perfect for a little girl—a little girl who spends most of her time in S&M-themed wine bars.

J.T.: The ruffles on Jay's ensembles were technically impressive—I wanted to stare at them like some kind of optical illusion—but the colors felt way too dark.

J.G.: I agree about Amy's kids outfit! It reminded me of something from the now-defunct kiddie store Oilily. I thought the colors were vibrant and fun.

D.P.: I mostly loved the little girls, but the couture-ing of children is a generally repellent phenomenon. Whenever I see children tarted up in fashion magazines, I want to stick my daughter in a potato sack. I'm all for little girls dressing cute, but I hate the idea of indoctrinating them with fashionism. They will learn it in due time—why rush it? And why praise it?

J.G.: I don't think this was indoctrinating them with "fashionism." The majority of little girls like dressing up—this wasn't the tarted-up ickiness of Toddlers and Tiaras. These outfits were age-appropriate, and the girls appeared to be excited for the opportunity to prance down the runway, not as if they were pushed into expressing themselves.

BTW, Plotz, when I was 10, I coveted a pair of jeans shorts with brown leather fringe. Make of that what you will.

But back to the designs—I thought the way Jesse's designs worked together was quite clever, but good God, I hate his stupid hats and his untied bowtie. Does his little cap not make you want to punch him in the face?

J.T.: Until tonight, Jesse's only role in the show was to draw my hate. He comes across as a selfish, unserious person. But I have to admit, I'm a sucker for an untied bowtie. It's a look I'd sport myself if I were a little more confident.

Still, I liked his kids outfit, with its askew lines and the lovely gray and red palette. And all praise for the jacket, but I didn't like his adult look. It was poorly made around the bodice, and he seemed to use the same belt that Ben did last week—though I suppose there's only so much to choose from on the Bluefly.com Accessories Wall (TM).

J.G.: It would be adorable on you, June, and not raise my ire. Maybe it's just his smug, annoying face beneath the chapeau.

What did we think of guest judge Tory Burch? I thought her Quaalude delivery didn't add much to the proceedings.

J.T.: Tory Burch was a human-size dollop of prettiness sitting in the guest judge's chair, but she contributed nothing beyond that.

D.P.: Besides Amy, the dresses that meet my dress code were Mila's dress, which was dull but fine, and Jesse's (though I thought the adult outfit was slightly Nazi stewardess). Seth Aaron certainly deserved to win—I loved the watermelon-shaped pockets—though I personally am not a gigantic fan of little kids in hoodies.

J.T.: I loved the whimsicality of Seth Aaron's kids look, and I'm glad he won. I'm hoodie agnostic, but it did seem as if there was too much stuff bunched up around the back of his adorable model's head. All that fabric reminded me of the ultra-padded Olympic snowboarders uniforms.

D.P.: Curiously, though Janeane certainly deserved the boot, I didn't object to her sacky red kid's dress. It wasn't fashion, but a girl would look fine in it.

J.T.: There was absolutely no doubt that Janeane had to go, but her looks were inoffensive. Her adult jacket, the one that Michael said looked like a "home ec. Project," was far from the worst thing on the runway tonight. But Heidi was right: It's a design competition, and producing garments that women will look "fine" in is not the point of the show.

J.G.: I thought Kors was on fire tonight with the quips. I particularly enjoyed when he called Jonathan's models "Conceptual toilet paper twins."

D.P.: Jonathan's pitch-perfect imitation of Kors early in the hour inoculated me against the quips. Jonathan's mockery made it obvious how formulaic Kors' one-liners can be.

J.T.: Amen. Best Project Runway impression since Santino's Tim Gunn.

D.P.: We've barely mentioned what I think was the truly stellar design of the night, which is Seth Aaron's mod, fake-houndstooth, adult jacket. Wow that was cool!

J.T.: It was gorgeous, and he styled the hell out of his model. Her look was edgy but nothing that would scare the kids.

J.G.: Agreed! Best thing that's been on the runway all season.

D.P.: So over the years, P.R. has done moms, pro wrestlers, teenage girls, formerly fat ladies, heart disease victims, and now little girls. I am worried that there is only one place left to go next season ... dogs.

J.G.: They did dogs in Season 3. And drag queens.

D.P.: Oh, my God, you're right. Then it will probably be the homeless.

J.G.: Tyra's already done a homeless challenge on America's Next Top Model, so they'd be following in her big, brassy footsteps. 

Previous chats: Weeks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Fifty-Five Days Until Glee Returns

The second half of Glee's first season kicks off April 13, but on Wednesday, the show released a brand-new trailer through its official Twitter account. It is filled with tantalizingly brief glimpses of how things have (for the most part not) changed at McKinley High School since the glee club won sectionals.

Judging from the one-minute trailer, the choir geeks are still pariahs among the cool kids, mean cheerleader coach Sue Silvester and glee coach Will Schuester still hate each other's guts, and something might finally happen between hot quarterback Finn and nerdy diva Rachel. So what's new?

The good

—Sue Silvester is back in full force, berating her (stilts-wearing) Cheerios and sporting a Madonna-esque cone-shaped bra.

—Brittany, who says of Rachel, "Those sweaters make her look home-schooled," holds on to the crown of Most Quotable Cheerio. (Not as good as her "Sex is not dating. If it was, Santana and I would be dating" comment, but close.)

The bad

—Where is Puck? That momentary glimpse of him cheering on a break-dancing session was definitely not enough. He deserves more than that, and we deserve more of him serenading and/or shirtless.

—The Glee kids cover the Beatles' "Hello Goodbye," and the few notes we heard do not impress. If, as show creator Ryan Murphy has promised, Glee returns with more singing than ever, let's hope the quality improves. Even a single bar from one of the songs from the Madonna episode would have been better blasted by one of the gleeks, rather than from the Cheerios' speakers at practice.

The maybe

—The trailer shows a nanosecond of "Mr. Schue" and Emma singing together in a bedroom and a few glimpses of quarterback-turned-basketball-star Finn dancing his way through McKinley's hallways. Fox, you are a terrible tease.

It's to Glee's credit that characters don't just burst into song. They are either performing or in a half-rehearsing-half-fantasy state, as when Mercedes danced in a car wash to the tune of "Bust Your Windows" or wheelchair-user Artie sang his heart out to "Dancing With Myself" while rolling around Tina, his crush. Let's hope the show doesn't stray too far from that route. The Cheerios are featured heavily in Finn's sequence, which is a good sign, considering their part in Mercedes' and Quinn's fantasy numbers, but who will save Emma and Mr. Schue?

So many burning questions, so much time to wait for the answers. Readers, have I missed anything? Please offer your own interpretation of the trailer in the comments below.

Copy-Editing the Culture: "Be Good Johnny Weir" and "44 Inch Chest"

Just as we're surrounded by a world of micro-organisms—some good, some bad, many imperceptible—our culture is continually under siege by small perversions of the written language. Today, some of the world's nastiest errata appear on marquees and in book titles, burrowing into the innards of an unsuspecting nation. Copy-Editing the Culture collects the most prominent among these to offer both a diagnosis and a cure.

A few months back, Copy-Editing the Culture took on the tortured grammar of the latest Jamie Foxx movie, Law Abiding Citizen, whose title makes sense only in the context of a particularly trippy thought experiment. Our plea for grammatical integrity, though, went unheard: When the film came out on DVD yesterday, it had not one hyphen more of clarity. We are starting to wonder whether Hollywood has priorities besides its parts of speech.

But so it goes. In the meantime, Copy-Editing the Culture has been beset by other horrors. Be Good Johnny Weir, a Sundance TV show, purports to chronicle the high style of an Olympian skater, but in matters of the written language, this unfortunate program has the style of a garment-district trash heap. The crisis here is a missing comma, one that would separate the command be good from the name to which it is addressed, Johnny Weir. Without that crucial punctuation mark, the title describes a show about a man called Be Good Johnny—a zoot suit of a nickname much more likely to land him in a trunk somewhere in Bergen County, N.J., than on the path toward Olympic glory.

And what is one to make of 44 Inch Chest, the gritty U.K. black comedy that seems to have left its hyphen on the toast rack? Does baroque British profanity preclude proper hyphen use? Abso-bloody-lutely not, muppet! Although there is little chance of the title being misunderstood as it is written, 44 Inch functions as a single modifier and thus deserves its own hyphen. Where did Windsor come from, after all, besides the great house of hyphens, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha?

Spot a grammar clunker in the cultural limelight? Send it to copyeditingtheculture@gmail.com.

Project Runway Post-Show Chat, Week 5

After each episode of Project Runway's seventh season, a gaggle of Slatesters will gather to dish about the show. This week the challenge was to design an outfit for Heidi Klum to wear on the cover of Marie Claire magazine. Anthony Williams was the winner; Anna Lynett was sent home.

David Plotz: I always thought those stories about the viciousness of fashion magazine editors were just self-serving industry propaganda, but apparently not: Guest judge and Marie Claire editor Joanna Coles was gratuitously derisive and cruel. Her cut of Mila—that her dress was "the color of hospital food" was just mean. 

That said, I am less and less impressed by these designers as the weeks pass by. Except for Ben's, whose bold kimono dress would have won my vote, the outfits were worryingly bad—a whole mess of mini-dresses cut an inch below the crotch! All that beige! Emilio's French maid in the boudoir dress—he seemed to have forgotten that red dress week was last week. 

Where did all the color go? Why did they all run away from it, except Ben and Anthony (and boudoir Emilio)? I think they heard Coles warn about black and assumed that type wouldn't show up on anything other than ecru. 

About Anna's and Janeane's outfits, the less said the better. I was hoping Heidi would take them both down at once and save us a week. Janeane obviously deserves auf'ing—why not get it over with?

June Thomas: Not that I want you to take any cues from Joanna Coles, David, but I loved the way she showed off her editor's eye, getting Emilio to whip out his scissors and hack at his dress to make it work the way she wanted it.

Hanna Rosin: I agree, June, but that kind of chilly self-confidence is terrifying. I bet by the end they weren't sure they wanted that cover.

DP: That was one of the greatest moments in Project Runway history. I disagree that it massively improved the dress, though I suppose it slightly diminished its underage-girl-gone-bad quality and made it just slutty. But I, too, loved seeing the action. Do you think they judged the dress as he sent it down, or the dress as they amended it?  

HR: I think they bristle when contestants refuse their advice, so they judged Emilio's dress post-snip. And in this case, they were absolutely right—it did look very Teen Beat with those tie shoulders, while without them it just looked Victoria's Secret, which, I suppose, is preferable. But overall I found that dress completely uninteresting, and the feat of making jersey go hard did nothing for me.

I think they keep Janeane because she is the necessary counterweight to Mila. They are at opposite ends in the spectrum of self-awareness. Mila has none, and thus is pleasantly, cluelessly evil, a stock type in reality TV who can't fathom why no one ever gives her a hug. A hundred bucks says she lives alone, like Kenley from Season 5, and has an overbearing father. Janeane, meanwhile, is crippled by self-awareness, incapable of sewing a stitch without dissolving into piteous self-doubt.  

JT: "Hospital food" is an odd British obsession, by the way. (Young hooligans often ask each other, "Do you like hospital food?" Followed, inevitably, with, "Because that's what you'll be eating when I'm finished with you.") Nina pointed out the bigger problem with Mila's dress: The color blocks acted like a giant arrow pointing at the crotch. On the plus side, that dress was one of the few to show even a bit of cleavage.

One of the things that bothers me about PR contestants is how clueless they sometimes seem about the basics of the industry they supposedly want more than anything to break into. About half the designers seemed never to have seen the cover of a fashion magazine before, much less that of Marie Claire. And worst of all, they didn't seem to know much about the woman they were designing for. Heidi Klum has been on Project Runway for seven seasons now, and every week she wears short, figure-hugging dresses (who can blame her), usually in strong colors. And yet when tasked with designing an outfit for her to wear on a magazine cover, several of them turned out pale, flouncy numbers that were totally un-Klum.

DP: That seems a very finicky form of criticism. The show is not supposed to pick the most knowing insider. It's supposed to give everyone a chance. Plus, aren't the judges always saying: You're the designer—you can't design just to please the client. They were giving their "point of view"—which happened to suck, but whatever.

JT: I disagree. The show positions the contestants as people who want to work at the highest levels of the fashion industry, not in a mall show. These would-be designers who don't know magazines and design styles are like wannabe journalists who don't read. They have to know trends, they have to be aware of other collections, and they see that stuff in fashion magazines.

HR: It's not so relevant whether they are insiders or not. Mean Joanna instructed them before the challenge on the basics of a cover outfit. And more than half of them completely ignored her advice. If they were her assistant, they would definitely be fired.

DP: What did you think of Anthony's winning dress? I didn't get it. But I think men are constitutionally incapable of understanding dresses with one shoulder strap. Two straps, I get. No straps, I get. One strap? It upsets my sense of physics. And symmetry. 

HR: Well, you can't help but hope for the best for Anthony. As a person, he is like his dresses: costumey and overdone. And I was sure this would turn out to be another garish mother-of-the-bride thing. but then somehow those folds fell exactly right. 

JT: I was shocked at how well Anthony's dress turned out. It was looking messy and a bit hopeless when Tim Gunn went through the workroom, but the color was perfect, and the Frank Gehry-like structure wasn't garish or costumey, just interesting.

Of the other top men, I liked the length of Emilo's dress, but that was about all. And as Joanna Coles pointed out at the beginning, in all likelihood it would be cropped anyway.

I've been enjoying Ben's pieces so far this season (though mostly in the screen captures on Tom & Lorenzo's blog—since this was his first time in the top or bottom three, it's the first time we've really had a chance to stare at his work). He's very superhero-influenced. I loved the colors, but a) someone needs to tell him that Madame Butterfly is a tragic character, not really someone you want Heidi to channel (unless she's going to kill herself as the photographer takes the last shot); b) he needed to show a bit more cleavage; and c) that big chunky belt was heinous.

HR: Disagree! I loved the belt. Without it, this would have been much more Wonder Woman. And I liked the idea of Heidi as superhero. I vastly preferred his dress over Anthony's, but it was much more my style than hers. What did you guys think of Seth's bullet suit?

JT: Seth's S&M suit seemed wrong for the challenge. I could imagine Heidi wearing it at a fetish night somewhere, but not on the cover of Marie Claire. It might work for Mistress May I Monthly, though.

DP: One more word about Anna: Has any designer in the entire history of humankind, ever designed a pair of shorts that looked good? 

JT: I can't recall any special shorts—Mychael Knight made a pair on Season 3 that the judges oohed and aahed over, but they just looked like a saggy too-short pair of shorts to me. Like sad Anna's.

Any theories about Jonathan's negligee? Again, clueless; totally wrong for the magazine and the subject.

HR: Oh God, the romper. He even described it as a romper, the idiot. That's so spring 2009, or so infant 1899.

Previous chats: Weeks 1, 2, 3, 4

Can New Yorker Poets Write About Anything Besides Poetry?

About a year ago, a friend and I noticed a theme running through many New Yorker poems: With astounding frequency, they were about writing poetry. We would read them aloud up until some explicit mention of writing, words, grammar, typewriters, or anything else in the poet's arsenal. It felt like we got to the end of maybe half of them.

Take, for example, the poem "Only So Much" by Rachel Hadas in the Jan. 4, 2010, issue. "I bend to the open notebook," Hadas begins. (Here we would normally stop reading, according the game's rules.) Later the narrator gets distracted by some ants, "I shut the notebook and open it from the back, to write."

"Only So Much" got me wondering whether there was a more scientific way to gauge The New Yorker's fondness for meta-poetry. I downloaded every poem on The New Yorker's Web site—which came out to 316 specimens dating back to January 2008—and conducted a simple computerized search for the words poetry, poem, writing, reading, words, lines, or verse. I granted clemency in cases where words or lines were clearly used in a non-poetry-writing context.

By this measure, 84 poems—27 percent of the whole lot—mentioned poetry, including 32 that used the P word explicitly and 15 that mentioned writing in the title.

There's nothing wrong with a little meta-poetry now and again. William Carlos Williams penned a bit of it and Keats fretted in verse about dying too young to complete his intended oeuvre. In the spirit of the old workshop injunction against "writing about writers writing," however, 27 percent feels a tad steep. Let's review some of The New Yorker bards' favorite tropes.

A poem about writing a poem.This is the most obvious form.See Richard Kenney's "Coda"—"I tried lacing loss into these lines"—or David Mason's "Fathers and Sons": "Some things, they say,/ one should not write about."

A poem about someone else's poetry. Keats could get away with rhapsodizing about a translation of Homer, but we're not all John Keats. See "Wheeling Motel," by Franz Wright: "Then the moon will rise/ like the word reconciliation,/ like Walt Whitman examining the tear on a dead face." Other cameos include Wordsworth, Dante, and Natalie Portman.

A poem about reading a book. "I am reading/ Longinus while the Super Bowl is on," boasts Robert Bly in "Sunday Afternoon." Not to be outdone, Jessica Greenbaum begins "The Two Yvonnes" with "for help he said I should read the new translation of a Gogol story …" (OK, so these aren't precisely about poetry, but they're still about literature.)

A poem about words.Not to be confused with the first category, often disembodied words are the poet's muse. "Romantic? [the purple gorilla] says,/ reading the name out loud, slowly,/ so I am aware of each syllable, each vowel," writes Matthew Dickman in "Grief."In "Phone Booth," Brenda Hillman opens with the simple lament that "There should be more nouns."

I would suggest that a scarcity of nouns is not the problem. Apparently, it's a scarcity of new things to write poems about.

Eve Ensler Thinks Global Warming Causes Earthquakes?

In an effort to cast Sarah Palin as a … I’m not going there … for not believing in global warming, Vagina Monologues playwright Eve Ensler, in an appearance on the Joy Behar Show, made herself look utterly foolish in saying that global warming causes earthquakes and tsunamis. Maybe she takes her cues from Danny Glover, who blamed the Haitian earthquake specifically on global warming. Or maybe she’s well-read and has cherry-picked bits of a highly speculative theory that holds that, in the cases of catastrophic sea-level increases, there’s a small chance that all that heavy water could increase seismic activity.

Or maybe she just doesn’t know what she’s talking about.  I couldn’t agree more with blogger Ann Althouse, who suggests that “When you want to call somebody dumb, try not to say anything dumb.” At any rate, if three examples make a trend, we’re only one celebrity shy of turning this into a full-blown meme. Anyone? Maybe Robert Kennedy Jr. will weigh in once he digs out.

*Correction, Feb. 10, 2010: The headline of the post originally said "hurricanes" instead of "earthquakes."