"I get communism from this ad," said Meade...

... looking at the March issue of Bike magazine and alluding to the funniest thing Isaac Mizrahi ever said on "Project Runway." ("I get communism from this dress.")



That's my snapshot — which Meade urged me to take — with the "L" in "motherland" buried in the binding. Meade and I take opposite positions on whether this is a terrible ad. He's saying a company wouldn't appropriate Nazi imagery to push a product, and Soviet communism ought to be considered equally toxic.

I observed that the ad is anti-communist, with the headline: "This ain't the motherland, comrade. You have a CHOICE." In the Soviet Union, you had no choice. In America, you have choice! And "CCCP" — normally, a way to write USSR — is redefined as "Custom Color Choice Program."

Meade says it's still wrong, citing the millions of victims of Soviet communism upon whose dead bodies you cannot construct jokes. And I was all: Hey, wait a minute! The reason you wanted me to take the photo is because your right-wing friend has a Santa Cruz bike and you wanted to needle him!"

And thus the conversation gets good enough that I end up feeling like it's bloggable, and now Meade has leveraged my interest in whatever's interesting to the point where he can now needle [unnamed friend] with this blog post.

In looking up the Isaac Mizrahi quote, I found a blogger (Tina Waltke) who had heard the quote before seeing the dress — which you can see at the first link, above — and she was wondering what makes a dress look communist. Her idea was derived from an old Wendy's ad, which basically uses the same "choice" theme that Santa Cruz is using:



Hilarious ad! Now... are we not supposed to do that with communism? I'm saying mockery is great. And we do mock Nazism too (but we never connect a product to Nazism, even to distinguish it from Nazism, the way the Santa Cruz and the Wendy's ad distinguish their product from communism).

IN THE COMMENTS: k said: "I'm pretty sure CCCP was actually USSR in Cyrillic letters. Wasn't it?" And I said: "That's what I thought too... and then I trusted Wikipedia!"

ADDED: I've corrected the original now, and Wikipedia confused me but didn't really get this wrong. I was distracted by the "disambiguation" stuff at the top of the page.

When "Project Runway" went from Bravo to Lifetime...

... this was all so predictable. Spoilers after the break and — presumably soon — in the comments.

"They tried like hell to squeeze some drama out of the last few moments of competition."

"Instead we got 'I learned that I'm strong'-style monologues that only made us feel embarrassed for the people forced to utter them."

[Spoiler alert if you haven't watched and care about the new episode of "Project Runway."]

"We have our PhD's in Runwayology as well as our Master's in General Reality Television Studies and..."

"... reading between the lines and between the edits, we detect zero manipulation."

Did you think it was possible — 16 years after Pedro Zamora on "The Real World" — to wring intense pathos out of a reality show character's HIV-positive status? But that's what happened on "Project Runway," where perhaps there have already been HIV-positive contestants and the fact that a male contestant is gay is no revelation at all.

Anyway, I've loved Mondo Guerra all along, and Episode 10 made me cry. You can watch the whole thing here.

"Ivy, when she wasn't repeating whatever Gretchen said, told us that this collection was so awe-inspiring and soul-wrenching that it felt like giving birth. Well, Ivy?"

"You made yourself one ugly baby."

Colors that affected us recently.

There was that acorn that made you want to repaint biggest room in the house...



There was this...



... which made me fantasize that I was a contestant on "Project Runway" and the challenge was to design a dress it inspired...

And this...



... which made me think of the old days when I painted with real paint on canvas. What was that red? Alizarin?

"Now President Barack Obama is finally coming, and he's being greeted with 'Oba Mao' T-shirts and a statue of him that bursts into flames."

Obama — Oba Mao — goes to China. Oh, settle down! They're not saying he's a big old Communist:

"It's just kind of avant garde," Liu said of the images, saying they were no longer political, just fashion.

Lighten up. It's just fashion.

Instead of shouting "You lie," try: "I’m incredulous at that utterly preposterous spewing of fiction."

That is: talk like Tim Gunn.

(Commenting, last night on "Project Runway," about Johnny's story about the spluttering iron ruining the newspaper dress.)

Yes, the task last night was to make something out of newspapers — the L.A. Times to be specific. And you thought the L.A. Times had become useless.

"Towards the end I realized: it would be one thing to have a career that I could be great at..."

"... but it was another thing to have a career that I could be passionate about."

That's what Ra'Mon said about leaving medical school and the study of neurosurgery to become a fashion designer.

Forgive me, but did brother just say he left med school towards the END? To make clothes? If he wins this thing, I guess he'll be using the money to pay off the loans he took out to learn how to save people's lives from debilitating brain disorders.

Yeah, what's the whole story on why Ra'Mon walked away from a career in neurosurgery at the last minute? I'm thinking he must have screwed up somehow, or do you think he's a brilliant artist who simply must follow his passion? And by the way, if you needed brain surgery, would you trust a doctor who said he was passionate about neurosurgery?

So, to review. The questions are:

1. Did Ram'on really leave medical school at the end of the study of neurosurgery?

2. Do you think a background in neurosurgery would help in the design and construction of clothing? Be specific.

3. Should we abandon careers into which we have poured our time, effort, and money when we detect that we lack passion, assuming there is something else about which we do feel passion?

4. When do you want the provider of goods or services to be passionate about what he or she is doing and when do you see passion as a warning sign?

Bonus topic: Is leaving neurosurgery for fashion analogous to being married and having an affair, and does that suggest that Ra'Mon has made a mistake?

"Bringing up the subject of the current first lady's shorts — indeed even admitting to noticing them — already has people booting up their laptops..."

"... and taking big, gulping swigs of self-righteousness before firing off e-mails and tweets declaring the whole discussion pointless."

Robin Givhan wants to talk about Michelle Obama's shorts. She's a fashion writer, okay? Deal with it!

And fashion is important. ("[C]lothes are part of our broader aesthetic obligation to each other.")

By the way, did you watch the first episode of the new season of "Project Runway"? On — ugh! — Lifetime now, instead of Bravo.

"'Project Runway' finalist Kenley Collins was arrested today after assaulting her fiance with their cat."

Authorities say.

Clint Eastwood, admitting he voted Republican, said "but Republicans are supposed to be libertarians, aren't they?"

He said it to Randy Barnett, who's back posting at Volokh Conspiracy — with the comments turned off. Barnett does not detail the circumstance under which he met Eastwood and got the chance to interrogate him about his politics. I'm picturing something along the lines of...



Anyway, Randy's post bounces off my post about the new Clint Eastwood movie "Gran Torino." He writes that the character Walt Kowalski is basically the same as Harry Callahan ("Dirty Harry"):

[I]n Gran Torino he treats the character with complete respect--without a hint of self-parody--thereby respecting and satisfying those who always liked the character. Anyone who enjoyed this character then, like Ann ("a guilty pleasure for us peace-and-love hippies"), will enjoy him now all the more. The big difference is the critical hype that Eastwood gets today, that he never got back then, thus permitting those who despised Harry to buy Walt. OK, I admit that Eastwood has grown over the years as an actor though, like John Wayne, he was always far better than the critics would admit.

Do you remember back when Pauline Kael was reviewing movies and she deplored Dirty Harry for his "fascism"? I can't find her old review on line, but I did find this 2005 article by Christopher Orr which reads "Million Dollar Baby" as Eastwood's attempt "to make amends for his early career, when he became famous as the vengeful loner, the angel of violent retribution, the Man with a Gun":

Eastwood is the rare artist who has gone from being condemned as a fascist propagandist by the left to being condemned as a fascist propagandist by the right. The former charge was leveled in 1971, when the New Yorker's Pauline Kael described "Dirty Harry" as "fascist medievalism"; the latter, earlier this month, when Ted Baehr, the head of the Christian Film and Television Commission, declared "Million Dollar Baby" to be a "neo-Nazi movie." The particulars of the accusations have little in common: Kael was objecting to "Dirty Harry's" enthusiasm for vigilante justice, Baehr to "Million Dollar Baby's" perceived support of euthanasia....

[W]hile it's true that Eastwood's work, as an actor and especially as a director, has espoused a vague political philosophy -- and one that has evolved over time -- it has never been nearly as programmatic as either his admirers or his detractors imagine. The films he made early in his career were never as "conservative" as their reputation, and even his most prominent revisionist works -- "Unforgiven," "Mystic River" and "Million Dollar Baby" -- are not as "liberal" as theirs. Both the fascist medievalist of the 1970s and the neo-Nazi eugenicist of today have been largely the projections of his accusers' own political nightmares.

Or maybe he's a libertarian!

IN THE COMMENTS: Chuck b. writes:

Clint Eastwood should play Tim Gunn in the movie version of Project Runway. He can sing too, so make it a musical.

"That's a lot of look. Make my day!"

"I'm not sure about this marabou trim. Don't bore Nina." [pulls back his jacket to reveal holstered Colt .45]

"In this world there's two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns, and those who pick carefully and wisely from the Blue-fly accessories wall."

"I know what you're thinking. Do you need six zippers on that pleather skirt, or only five?"

Tantrums and tulle-fights.

I'm thinking about the big VP debate tonight -- and I will be live-blogging it -- but first, I just have to bitch about "Project Runway." Last night's episode was soooo annoying.

[Spoiler alert.]

They got to do evening gowns, inspired by flowers and foliage. That gives them the most possible room to show whatever brilliance they've got in them. And what did we get? Nothing but junk... and -- off the runway -- tantrums and tulle-fights. And after all that, no one is eliminated!

When Varla Jean helped Joe get from Elvis to Ann-Margret.

Didn't you love Project Runway last night?

Unlike Project Rungay, Television Without Pity did not think Joe should have — spoiler alert — won.

True eccentricity.

It's what Manolo wants. He abhors "'faux eccentricity', the tendency of among many young fashion designers to adopt outrageous clothing and patently false personas in the hopes that they will mask the fully conventional heart which beats beneath."

Grotesque tattoos, wacky clothing, and affectedly stereotypical personas do not the unconventional mind make....

Indeed, from the past Project Runway seasons only Jay and Santino have been well, truly, and uniquely eccentric. And it is not the coincidence that both have been outsiders in every sense of the word.

What about Christian?

This season, only Stella, who has decided to live her entire life as if she were in the Whitesnake video, and holds to this position even when evidence suggests otherwise, comes closest to being the true eccentric, although her eccentricity is not in the least ways original.

She has decided to live her entire life as if she were in the Whitesnake video....

What if you had to commit to live your entire life as if you were in some music video? What video? We're talking fashion, attitude, mannerisms, assorted trappings... You need a convincingly eccentric persona for this challenge.

You cannot win by coming up with something crushingly ordinary.

ADDED: So, I mean you can't use something like this:



(Although I bet for a lot of you, that looks pretty eccentric.)

"If we were skinny, cute and 23 in 2008, we'd dress exactly like Wesley."

Project Rungay doesn't "care what you bitches say" about the way Wesley Nault, one of the new "Project Runway" contestants, dresses himself.

"I don't understand why in this industry of politics, I am an airhead."

Says Meghan McCain, who's got a huge WaPo article about her and her blog. She's a nice asset to the campaign. I think in her position it's effectively political to not be political. Talking about mascara and "Project Runway"... that works! It makes John McCain better, doesn't it?

I won't spoil it for you but...

I should have been more careful glancing at articles this morning, because this spoiled the "Project Runway" finale for me. I intend to catch the show this evening, but in case you're in the mood to chat about it, this is the place.

You're living in the monkey house.

Discuss the new "Project Runway."

IN THE COMMENTS: Pogo writes:

The "monkey house" comment was hilarious. Any design that elicits a gag reflux from Mr. Gunn needs to be rethought.

Human hair? Why human? Why mention the origin if the effect was solely the look itself? Because the desire was to shock, which is the last refuge of a hack. It's the fashion equivalent of Andres Serrano's Piss Christ ("It's repellent, so it must be good! Isn't urine pretty?"). It's a territory best left to 19-year-old rockers.

Chris is imaginative, but the hair idea was sophomoric. It made me think for the first time that he really does not understand people very well.

I loved the hair. First, it looked great. Second, it was a retro allusion to monkey fur, which was used in fashion — exactly the way Chris used it — in the 1920s and 1940s. I remember a glorious monkey fur dress that Eartha Kitt wore in the 1960s. I hope that Tim Gunn realized this before he riffed on the stink of a monkey house and that it was merely edited out, or he is not as great as we like to think he is. Third, using human hair as though it were monkey fur is both humorous and philosophical. If we react with disgust or outrage, we should progress to the next step and ask why? Why does it seem different from fur? Why is it worse? Fur entails the death of the animal, and the skin is still attached, making that obvious. No one imagines that a human being died to contribute the hair to Chris's project. So where does the disgust come from? Why didn't Nina Garcia accept the challenge and inquire into her own reaction? Could it be that we cling to our illusion that we are not one with the animals?

"I hope you die in an organza accident, you preening little cockatoo."

I love this dramatization of last night's episode of "Project Runway."

I haven't been blogging episodes of the show this season, but this has been a great season, with excellent work and incredibly amusing characters, especially the adorable — and fierce — Christian Siriano.