"Who would have thought that this island boy, growing up in Samoa in a hut, would design something that was in L.A, Fashion Week, Australian Fashion Week and in Buckingham Palace?"

Said Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, quoted in "'Project Runway' Designer Is Fatally Shot During Utah 'No Kings' Protest/Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, 39, a Samoan-born fashion designer, was participating in an anti-Trump protest in Salt Lake City on Saturday when he was shot by a man working security, the police said" (NYT).

[Ah Loo was] a bystander ... killed during a confrontation between two armed volunteers who were assisting with crowd control at the protest and a man who was carrying an AR-15-style rifle and was dressed in all black. The volunteers drew their guns after the armed man removed the rifle from his backpack and began running toward the crowd, holding his weapon in a “firing position,” the police said. One of them fired three times, wounding the gunman and also striking Mr. Ah Loo, who was pronounced dead at a hospital.... The police arrested the man with the rifle, who was identified as Arturo Gamboa, 24, and charged him with murder....

What did Elon Musk mean by "I’m not just MAGA, I’m Dark MAGA!"

I saw this in real time in the live feed from Saturday's Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and I thought he might just be referring to his black clothing and his black-on-black Make-America-Great-Again cap.

And then I thought it might be a slang use of "dark" as in "Dark Brandon." Remember that? Wikipedia says:

The phrase "Dark Brandon" was initially a meme created by online progressives to parody supporters of "Dark MAGA", a belief promoted by former U.S. representative Madison Cawthorn that former president Trump would return to power "with a vengeance."  It copies the "fashwave" aesthetic used initially by online supporters of figures like Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis....

So Dark MAGA preceded Dark Brandon. 

Remember Madison Cawthorn?

Railing against "the cowardly and weak members of our own party," Cawthorn wrote [in May 2022]: "It's time for the rise of the new right, it's time for Dark MAGA to truly take command." "Dark MAGA" references a fringe movement advocating a vengeful return of Trumpism.

With that background, why would Elon Musk choose to horse around with the phrase "Dark MAGA"? Could he be seriously connecting to the Cawthorn meaning?

In discussions of Elon Musk's recent declaration, I'm seeing various sources that discuss the 2022 use of the phrase, so let me just select one to quote: "Dark MAGA: Will It All End Here?" by David Levi Strauss (in The Brooklyn Rail, which seems like an interesting publication, around since 2000, but only just noticed by me today).

"Is it a big deal that Blake Lively said 'tranny' over ten years ago?"

Asks Out Magazine, in "Blake Lively is catching heat for using a transphobic slur multiple times in past interviews":

Lively is at the center of a lot of controversy right now after a chaotic press tour for her movie It Ends With Us and an alleged feud she had with her director and co-star Justin Baldoni. Now, people are digging into her past to find more reasons not to like her.... 

In the late 2000s the word "tranny" was thrown around with wild abandon, and even became a part of the catchphrase 'hot tranny mess' thanks to beloved designer Christian Siriano coining the phrase on Project Runway.... But does it mean that a celebrity saying it ten to fifteen years ago has little impact on who that celebrity is now as a person? Probably."

Here are the old quotes, which all sound like a young person's light-hearted, self-centered banter:

The entrance, like the song, is perfect in its comical grandiosity.

Trump's "We Are the Champions" entrance:



The cosmic green-blue with the blinding white light across the bottom: at 0:16, it's like the point where the aliens are about to emerge from the spaceship in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."



At 0:24, Trump steps into the light and we know him from his silhouette, though it's just a pudgy old man shape. It's not the kind of glorious female body we're used to seeing introduced in silhouette. For example, the models just before the runway walk on "Project Runway"...



... or this bit from "Seinfeld":



But it's not the only time an unshapely man has worked a silhouette. Alfred Hitchcock used it every week to walk onto our television screen:

Racial fashion... deaf fashion... blind fashion... deaf music....

As long as I've started on the topic of fashion this morning, here are Tom & Lorenzo on last Thursday's finale on "Project Runway," where [SPOILER ALERT] finally, after 12 seasons, a black person has won. Here's how Tom & Lorenzo dealt with the racial element:

Anyway, major congratulations to Dom, not just for winning, but for being the first black winner in the show’s 12-season history. The reason this is notable is because typically, the fashion world has a distinct problem recognizing black (and especially African-American) designers and styles. We’re gonna leave that there, though. Dom doesn’t deserve to be designated a standard-bearer by us or anyone else. It’s enough for us to note it, but the deeper congratulations are for a job well done....

And — because, I guess "enough" is never enough:

2 things about "Project Runway" that were changed to suit Tim Gunn.

"First, he insisted that the designers make their own clothes (the original plan had been for a roomful of seamstresses to sew the competitors’ patterns), and second, he argued that the workroom should close every night so as not to become a competition of endurance rather than talent. (It was planned as a 24-hour work space.) 'Some people can survive on four hours of sleep like Martha Stewart, and others are frail flowers who need nine,' he argued. (The change also gave the added tension of a clock ticking away, as the hour that the workroom had to close increasingly neared each night.)"

Link.

So I tried to watch the pilot episode of "Breaking Bad."

There's much talk about the final episode of "Breaking Bad," and I've got a houseguest arriving on Sunday who importuned me to set the DVR to record that episode but told me I can't just watch the final episode with him. I've got to watch the whole series from the beginning, which is to say I've got to watch 61 hours of the thing before I can hang out with my newly arrived houseguest watching the show he's so excited about and (not that I care much) everyone in the media seems unable to shut up about.

Attending to the assigned recording task, I see that the network (AMC) is running a marathon of all the old episodes leading up to the big finale, so I set the DVR to lay in the requisite 61 hours. Last night, settling in to watch the new episode of "Project Runway," I see that I accidentally bumped it, what with all the incoming "Breaking Bad" and baseball games. (The DVR can record 3 things at once, but not more.) So I call up the "Pilot" episode of "Breaking Bad."

I turn it off after 22 minutes. Interestingly, 22 minutes is the classic length of a sitcom. Have I got Sitcom Mind? Reading the summary of the "Pilot" episode, I see that some exciting stuff was about to happen. When I turned off the show at 22 minutes, Meade and I had a conversation of untimed length about how perhaps there's a Hollywood plot to disparage ordinary American life through the depiction of the bored, boring, declining, dying white man. It started long ago with "The Honeymooners" — notice the shift to sitcoms — but the man we're invited to look down on has become more and more dull and meaningless until he's fully dehumanized and about to fall off the face of the earth anyway. (The "Breaking Bad" guy learns he's dying of lung cancer.)

If we'd hung on past the sitcom length of time, we'd have seen the police bust a meth lab, and other scenes of cooking up drugs, accidental fires, deadly fumes, sirens, a misfired gun, and a reactivated cock. I'm reading the plot summary out loud to Meade as I try to write this. We get into another conversation about television over the years and what it's done to our notions of masculinity. We're talking about Ralph Kramden and Ricky Ricardo as I dump sesame seeds into the stove-top seed roaster. (I like darkly toasted sesame seeds on cottage cheese for lunch, and Meade has been chiding me about over-toasting them, like sesame seeds are going to cause cancer.) The conversation continues as I follow Meade out to the front door, and it's on and on about "Bewitched" and "Leave It to Beaver" and Red Skelton.

"Remember how Red Skelton used to say 'Thank you for inviting me into your living room'?" I ask, and Meade — picking up the dog leash — remembers and entertains my elaborate theory about TV needing to be different from theater and movies because it comes into your home and how in sitcoms you're mostly sitting in your living room looking into some fictional family's living room, and there's this interchange between the sitcom family and the viewers' family. I bring up the transfusion metaphor from "Atlas Shrugged" that we were talking about a couple days ago. How has the poison — is it poison? — been administered all these years? Why have we kept the channel open? Because it only takes 22 minutes? What subversion of our values has taken place? I go on about Archie Bunker in his chair, which faces the TV....



... and we are on the other side of the TV, in our chairs, looking through at them, as if we are on their TV. What are we doing? Are the women nudged to look over at their men and see them as Edith, above, sees Archie? What has been happening in these 22-minute treatments we've volunteered for all these years?

Meade inquires about the 22 minutes — the time for the show in a 30-minute slot with commercial — and he seems to notice for the first time that the premium cable channels don't have commercials, and I tease him that he's like these sitcom husbands who are never fully clued in. He's off to get Zeus (the dog) to take him for a walk, and I make some wisecrack — like I think I'm in a sitcom — about how he should do well with the dog, since dogs don't even know the difference between the show and the commercial.

Ha ha. Back in the kitchen of my sitcom life, I see — through billows of smoke — that the sesame seeds are on fire.

"Reality TV constructs its quite openly fake reality in order to elicit emotional responses in the audience..."

"... so what’s the point of watching crazy people melt down and then get shown the door? Especially when no one will have the nerve to say to him, 'I’m glad you’re leaving. You shouldn’t be here and you made things hell for the rest of us,' instead of the half-assed and completely unbelievable nicey-nice being made at the end?"

"A Unicornucopia of Crazy."

"Princess Snowflake Sustainicorn can’t get through an hour without constant hugging and encouragement from everyone around him, lest he collapse into a puddle of unicorn tears...."

We suppose we should examine the whole psycho-drama and declare who was at fault for what and who was the victim of bullying here, but frankly, we can’t be bothered. We wouldn’t want to take a 1-minute elevator ride with either of them. They honestly should never have been allowed on the show, so crazy and off-base were their actions last night.

And the dress they made wasn't just bad, it had the kind of mullet hem that Vogue is distressed about seeing on high street in anytown. In the case of Princess Snowflake Sustainicorn and Grumpy Diana Prince, that town is Milwaukee, and I was distressed to witness the wipeout of "Team Wisconsin."

"Sweetie, we don’t mean to alarm you..."

"... but there is smoke positively pouring out of your vagina."

(No, this isn't Monica Lewinsky theme day on the blog. Despite 2 earlier posts today on Lewinsky and despite the cigar thing, I'm quoting a caption to a photograph in a recap of last night's "Project Runway." Click through. I guarantee a laugh.)

Freddy Mercuryovich and The Floating Vulva Box.

You know what I'm talking about?

AND: Much as I love Tom and Lorenzo's on the armpit-sniffing unicorn boy from Milwaukee...

You signed up for reality TV and then proceeded to act like a ridiculously obnoxious attention whore. Now cranky queens are making it their life’s mission to make you cry before this is all over.

... the guy knows he won't win, and he's going all out making himself a character who's got a shot at getting cast in some other reality shows. You can only blame the producers for spiking the show with comic noncontenders like this. Timothy must go big and comic, and so must Tom and Lorenzo. It simply must be done. For sustainability.

Project Abby.

Michelle Obama does not know how to kiss up to people in Wisconsin.

Yesterday in Racine, she began with: "For the next 16 days, coming here to Racine is the closest thing I'm going to get to being at home in Chicago, so you know I'm happy."

People in Wisconsin tend to exhibit antagonism toward Illinois, and I don't think they enjoy hearing that what's nice about Wisconsin is that it's close to Chicago. There's a word for it: FIB.

By the way, what is Michelle wearing? It looks like something designed by Dmitry of "Project Runway."

IN THE COMMENTS: chickelit said:

She pronounced "Racine" as "RAY-seen." I grew up pronouncing it "RUH-seen"

I said:

Remember when John Kerry came to Wisconsin and mispronounced "brat."

From a Straight Dope forum on the topic of how to say "Racine":

Wisconsinite born and raised; I pronounce it "Ruh-seen." My Chicago-suburban born-and-raised husband, who spent a lot of time in Wisconsin, calls it "Ray-seen."

This guide to Wisconsin pronunciation has "Ruh-seen." on the audio but also: "Locals argue between RAY-seen and ruh-SEEN." Miscellaneous Racine information:

In 1887, malted milk was invented by William Horlick in Racine. The garbage disposal was invented in 1927 by architect John Hammes of Racine.

Also at the Straight Dope forum: "I thought this was the playwright Racine, so I voted the second..." The French influence! Well, Racine was, in fact, settled by the French:

On October 10, 1699, a fleet of eight canoes bearing a party of French explorers entered the mouth of Root River. These were the first Europeans known to visit what is now Racine County. Led by Jonathan Paradise, they founded a trading post in the area that eventually became a small settlement on Lake Michigan near where the Root River empties into Lake Michigan. "Racine" is French for "root."

Both of the argued-for pronunciations are wrong if you want to go with the French. The first syllable "a" should be more like the "a" in "cat" (and not "brat"!).

AND: Commenter Mr. D said:

She said "Ray-seen" because that's how Chicagoans pronounce the name of Racine Avenue in Chicago. They used to call the Chicago Cardinals football team the Ray-seen Cardinals because their field was on Racine Avenue.

Ah-ha!

"Ah, Godspell. How you shaped our ’70s Catholic school childhoods by influencing an entire generation..."

"... of semi-closeted nuns to pick up their guitars and force us to learn half the songbook. Do they still have guitar masses? Or did all those Birkenstock’d nuns finally drop the veil and head off to the Lilith Fair?"

The first paragraph of Tom and Lorenzo's recap of the most recent episode of "Project Runway All Stars."

Are you watching this season? I am. I still can't tell you the names of the 2 people they've got in the Heidi and Tim positions, but they're doing a decent job helping us deal with being deprived of familiar things.

And, as long as I'm rummaging around at Tom and Lorenzo's, check out these stiletto-heeled ice skates.

"What Not to Wear" is not the kind of reality show I would normally watch.

It's a "how-to" reality show, to use the Television Without Pity categories. The reality shows I enjoy are nearly all in the "competitive" category: "Survivor," "America's Next Top Model," "Project Runway," and — though "enjoy" isn't really the right word — "American Idol." I used to like "The Apprentice" and "Top Chef," too, but I don't want to watch any more seasons of the thing. I've had enough. The other category of reality show is "candid," and I love this category when it's at its best, like the first season of "The Osbournes" or the third season of "The Real World." The first season of "The Newlyweds" was good, and I don't mind stooping to some really trashy things sometimes, like "Wife Swap" and, in its day, the Anna Nicole Smith show — was it called "The Anna Nicole Smith Show"? But how-to? I don't want anybody telling me what to do, so why would it entertain me to see some purported experts telling somebody else what to do?

But I watched the new episode of "What Not to Wear" because part of it was filmed at a cool Brooklyn shop called Lee Lee's Valise:

This place is run by the wife of one of our very best commenters here on the Althouse blog, Trooper York. And he tipped me off that they were filming the episode, so I came down to the shop that evening after my class. The filming was over, but the stars of the show were there along with their how-to victim, and I wanted to photograph the store.

I wasn't trying to photograph the characters from the show or even act like I noticed them. I talked to the guy a little at one point, but just in the way that a shopper would chat with another customer. I didn't want to bother them, and I certainly wasn't going to act like a fan of the show, which I'm not. In fact, I still don't know the man's name. I'd have to look it up even now. Trooper York showed me a lot of merchandise and explained his theory of the place, which was very well worked out to appeal to young women who need large sizes but don't want to be hit in the face with the fact they they are shopping in a large-sizes store. The place is at the intersection of Court and President streets, which is easy for law types to remember — 2 out of the 3 branches of government.

Anyway, I just watched the show, which made over a 29-year-old woman who is a student at my old law school NYU. They converged on her at some law lecture and, horrifyingly informed her that they'd been secretly filming her to get footage of her wearing terrible clothes. They must get some kind of advance approval before they start the filming, right? If someone did that to me without my prior approval, I'd want to sue them. It's stalking!

So then they have to tell her everything she thinks is wrong, even when it isn't. She wears black skirts. Yes, most of them are too large, but the woman has lost a 100 pounds and is still in the process of losing weight. But the basic idea of wearing black skirts is obviously a good one, and the experts insist that it's not, and then they have to backtrack and say that actually it is. They are shocked that she wears black knee-high hosiery instead of full tights under a long skirt, but why? It's comfortable and invisible unless you yank up her skirt — which the fashion experts did, for the amusement of TV viewers.

She had a nice, neat black jacket that was just way too large, but instead of talking about how she needed new clothes because she's lost so much weight, the experts showed her a completely different style of jacket, a gray plaid thing that they insisted was "young" and "professional" because it had wide, high lapels and buttoned up tightly under the breasts. There was no acknowledgment at all that the jacket won't look right or feel right buttoned up like that when she's sitting down, which she will be nearly all of the time working as a lawyer.

They showed her a gaudy dress and contended that a loud print camouflages the shape of your body. This seemed insane, and it was also inconsistent with another one of their theories — that you should love your body as it is and show off the shape you have.

They spent some time doing the young woman's hair and makeup. Since she really needed a good haircut and wasn't wearing any makeup, this made a big improvement, but it had nothing to do with "what not to wear." Nor did it teach us anything useful. You already know you need to get a good haircut, don't you? And what woman doesn't realize she'd look better with some foundation and a little eye and lip makeup? That's not hard.

The show ends with everyone celebrating the amazing changes in the woman's appearance. You have scenes where everyone claps and cheers and the makeover target twirls around in her new clothes — which look ugly to me — and professes to be transformed. We're assured — typical woman's TV pap — that the young woman was always a wonderful person and now her exterior matches her wonderful interior.

Blah! I'd rather see a show where philosophers descend on a woman with a perfect exterior and rip into her for her intellectual and spiritual failings, put her on some kind of internally transformative regime, and turn her into a human being of substance. Can we get that?

TiVo-blogging the Emmys.

The Emmy show gets off to a spectacularly bad beginning with a prerecorded comedy sketch. We see Conan O'Brien on a plane, asked by a flight attendant if he's nervous, and he says, "What could possibly go wrong?" There's an explosion that rocks the plane, and then there's a cut to a beach, with Conan crawling out of the surf and the plane, in the background, sinking into the ocean. The folks on the laugh track are yukking it up. That would have been pushing it, considering the recent foiled terrorist plot, but with a plane crash in the news today -- 49 people were killed -- it's just atrocious. Don't they have the sense to pull it? The message is, we've got this preprogrammed, and there's nobody here with a brain.

Well, they worked so hard on it. It's a play on "Lost," and Conan finds a hatch. Descending, he's in the set of "The Office." This leads into a "24" sequence. Am I forgiving them? No! He encounters "House," then he enters the "South Park" trapped-in-a-closet closet. And then on to a "Dateline" exposé about child predators.

Man, they put a lot of effort into this. They should have thought of the air crash problem when they planned it.

Okay, Althouse. Settle down. Your censoriousness will only drive readers away.

Conan paces back and forth on the stage, spitting out his monologue jokes, interspersed with shots of the audience, seemingly enjoying it. There's lots of actress flesh on view, and it jiggles as they applaud the jokes. Whatever happened to anorexia? Everyone looks plump tonight. Are the jokes any good? He hands out rules for acceptance speeches. Sample: "Anyone who makes a heavy-handed political comment tonight will be forced to make out with Al Gore in a Prius."

He does a parody of "Trouble" (from "The Music Man"). It's about how bad NBC ratings are. Why should we care? Get to the awards! It's like they're desperate to prove to us that they're putting on a show. And it's a show on NBC. And if this is your idea of a show, well, maybe you deserve your bad ratings. Go cry about it in private somewhere.

One of the first presenters is Ellen Pompeo, wearing a long dark blue dress that she's clutching together with her hand at the right buttock. Is she just holding it up so she won't trip? No, she's at the mike, and she's still keeping her grip! Must be a wardrobe malfunction. The award is Best Supporting Actress. Megan Mullally wins. Doesn't she always win? She's in dark blue too. Sort of a bathrobe-like thing. She incites us to be all emotional about the end of "Will and Grace." Sorry. I don't care.

In the next presenter set, we've got Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and she's wearing a white dress that has a sparkly black "H" superimposed around the breasts. The award is Best Supporting Actor. The clip of William Shatner makes me laugh out loud so I switch my loyalty t0 him from Michael Imperioli. Alan Alda wins, and he's the only one not there. That's so wrong.

Dragging things out, Conan has a comedy bit about how the show won't go over three hours. They've got Bob Newhart sealed in a tube with only three hours of air. He's about 80 years old, so threatening to kill him is a little disturbing. But it's nice to see Bob again, albeit entubed.

Martin and Charlie Sheen. They awkwardly read the cue cards. Best Supporting Actress again? Oh, now it's in a drama. Sorry, those previous awards were limited to comedies. Emmys, I see, follow the Golden Globe, not the Oscars, approach. Blythe Danner wins. She's all actressily effusive, like it's not memorized. And her dress is yards of teal-colored fabric that looks like it was draped together in a 1-day challenge by the losing contestant on "Project Runway."

Supporting Actor in a Comedy. Oh, I see the previous supporting actor award was for the drama actor. They are not doing this in an orderly way. I will catch on. As you can see, I'm not a regular Emmy viewer. The winner is Jeremy Piven.

Oh, Heidi Klum is giving an award. Variety, Music or Comedy Series. "The Daily Show" beats "The Colbert Report" (and Conan O'Brien).

Ooh, Simon Cowell, with the neck of his shirt all open revealing his furry chest. It's a tribute to Dick Clark and "Bandstand." You know, I watched that show, even as far back as the 1950s. I remember seeing "Little" Stevie Wonder on the show doing "Fingertips" on his 13th birthday. I remember when the kids who danced on the show were celebrities, written about in the teen magazines. It was once necessary when talking about Dick Clark to make a joke about how he looked forever young. But that's not the way it is anymore. He looks very old. He can't walk out, and, recovering from a stroke, he can't speak clearly, and his voice is very deep. He introduces Barry Manilow who comes out dancing -- and he has hip problems -- and demonstrates that the "Bandstand" theme song has lyrics.

Variety or Musical Performance is the next award. Manilow is one of the nominees. And he wins! Beating Stephen Colbert and David Letterman.

Guest Actor? Oh, come on. Too many categories. But they speed through this, and I'm glad to see Patricia Clarkson won for "Six Feet Under." I'm skipping some of these awards. I'd be crazy not to.

Conan does a routine on TiVo fastforwarding using TiVo fastforwarding, which I discover while fastforwarding on TiVo. So it's double fastforwarded. That was freaky.

Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Tony Shaloub. Doesn't he always win? I don't watch his show, so I was rooting for Steve Carell or Larry David, whose shows I do watch.

Candice Bergen is stuffed into a white shirt and teal-colored skirt and held together with a big bulky leather and metal belt. She says something about TV not being a vast wasteland, and it just draws more attention to her vast waist land. She's introducing a tribute to Aaron Spelling. He was, apparently, a veritable god.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert present the Reality show award, and Colbert throws a tantrum about losing to Barry Manilow. "Singing and dancing is not performing!" "The Amazing Race" wins. I've watched that a couple times. Don't enjoy it. Travel travails. Ugh! I wanted "Project Runway" to win. Did you notice they spotlighted Andrae in the little clip. What happened to Andrae?

In Memoriam: Shelley Winters. Don Knotts. Richard Pryor.

I love the look on Annette Bening's face when Helen Mirren beats her for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Movie. [ADDED: It's the look of no reaction at all, except that in that frozen expanse, there is an expression.] And I love the way Mirren says, "My great triumph is not falling ass over tit as I came up those stairs." It's all British, so it's not rude, right? Ahhss.

Lead Actress in a Drama. Ah, here's a big category. Mariska Hargitay wins. Another show I don't watch.... so I have no opinion.

Actress in a Comedy. Okay. This is actually the only thing I care about. I want Lisa Kudrow to win for "The Comeback." Not that I think she will. Julia Louis-Dreyfus wins. She's all weepy, like she can barely get through it.

Actor in a Drama. Kiefer Sutherland. He's the opposite of Julia. He's all calm and mature. Dignified.

Bob Newhart is released from his tube to do the award for Best Comedy Series. He's bizarrely short standing next to Conan O'Brien. "The Office" wins. That makes sense.

Annette Bening does the Drama Series award. I only watch "The Sopranos," but I don't think it should win. It wasn't that good this year. "24" wins.

And that's it for a night at the Emmys!

Did they Wendy-ize Tiffani?

Unless you know the first season of "Project Runway" and have been following "Top Chef," my question can mean little. But there are certain reality show types. We all know what a Puck is, don't we? We all know what an Omarosa is, right? Pop culture literacy has some basic requirements. How can you not know the Wendy role? Then there's the whole issue of editing a person into the role, because it makes a good narrative. Was Wendy really, fully the Wendy character created by the "Project Runway" editors? But Tiffani? Suddenly, on this week's show, she's become the conniver who didn't come here to make friends. And Leann was the one everyone loved -- the Austin. (Or do you think Dave was supposed to be the Austin? No, Dave was the Andrae. Or was Andrae the Austin of "Project Runway's" second season?) Anyway, the two women -- Tiffani and Leann -- were seated side-by-side, and it was supposed to play as good versus evil, and -- oh, no! -- Tiffani makes it through to the finale. We're all supposed to cry for Leann and be stoked to see Tiffani fail in the finale. But what the hell? I'll be watching. Personally, I'm rooting for Dave. He's the underdog. He made it to the finale by making macaroni and cheese (with a truffle at the bottom) when all the others were being hoity-toity for the fancy-schmancy chefs. And he's so emotional. The other two -- Tiffani and Harold -- are steely/serene. Frankly, I'd rather work with either of them, because they radiate competence and control. Who wants a high-pressured work place to feel crazed and chaotic? But still, I'm a Dave fan. I've never seen a reality show where a verge-of-a-nervous breakdown character got this far.

"American Idol" -- the last 8 guys.

Okay, I'm really, really tired, as you know if you read the last post, but today is one of the great TV nights of the year: "American Idol" and the finale of "Project Runway." So all my worries evaporate as I settle in for a delicious evening of television. I've washed the dust out of my hair. I've poured a big glass of cabernet. I've fired up the laptop for the compulsive if not compulsory blogging. So let's look at the guys. There are 8 left and 2 must go this week.

I've been called on this before and I openly admit it: I prefer the guys. It's not just that they are guys, it's that guys who do the competition are different from the women. It's kind of a very girly thing, to go on "American Idol." It's like studying ballet. For a guy to do it, he's got a lot of motivation, and he needs to take pains to hold onto his masculinity. Personally, I have no problem with a guy being completely unmasculine, but to succeed on the show, winning America's votes, a guy has some special problems. We tend to think a guy who can sing will be off doing something else. Start a rock band, dammit! To have credibility on this show, they need to justify themselves in a way that the women do not.

So Gedeon sings "When a Man Loves a Woman" and asserts that he picked the song because of all the women he's loved, and then he slips and says his mother, his grandmother. Aw, Gedeon, you don't have to convince me that you're not gay. But I feel like they've pressured him to project masculinity, and my heart goes out to him. And the fact is, he did a terrific job singing the song. And no one got to him and told him to stop saying "God bless you" at every compliment. Gedeon must stay!

Chris Daughtry isn't as great as last week. But we love him. He does an ultra-masculine handshake with Ryan when Ryan comes at him. He's a manly contestant. And he's a great singer too. I think he's likely to win the whole competition. But he is a little muted tonight. That's okay. He needs to give everyone else a chance to catch up, to make this interesting.

Kevin Covais, this year's biggest nerd, astounds us by singing "Starry, Starry Night," the song Clay Aiken screwed up. It's a cursed song, but he does it anyway. The sweet purity of the singing breaks our heart. I don't care what the judges say. Vote for our dear, sweet Kevin.

Bucky Covington. We find out he has an identical twin, Rocky. Rocky and Bucky. Damn, that's charming. Funny that the twin thing, which is always big in the auditions, didn't surface with Bucky until just now. Ooh, they bring up Rocky... and it's utterly charming. Can someone explain that extra long, hanging down tooth that Bucky has over on the side? Half the time it makes me feel sorry for him that his family couldn't get him braces, but the other half of the time it seems quirky and cool, like maybe they ought to make little Bucky pop-on teeth for the rest of us to get that look.

William Makar sings "How Sweet It Is," and he's kind of okay, but I hear the original in my head and know how far short he falls. Randy and Simon try to pressure America to oust him. Paula expresses the love.

Taylor Hicks. "You don’t know me but I’m your brother. I was raised here in this living hell. You don’t know my kind in your world. Fairly soon the time will tell." What's that? Some kind of terrorist song? Nah, it's the Doobie Brothers, doobing. Who the hell knows what that crap is all about? He's all up in a high register. And he's wearing a white shirt and a beige corduroy jacket. This just isn't reaching me. After it's all over, he does that Joe Cocker lean back to remind us of why we're supposed to like him. Feh! The judges bend over backwards to signal us to vote for him anyway. They know he's good entertainment, and they want him to stay. I'm fed up with this phony.

Elliott Yasmin. Deaf in one ear... like Brian Wilson. Ah! But he's awful, singing that disgusting Bryan Adams song "Heaven." Ack! Randy and Paula push him. They want to keep him, and they are lying! That's so wrong. I'm glad Simon slams him.

Oh, lord, it's that cheeseball Ace. Yikes! It's embarrassing. He's making me long for Corey, as he does an insane falsetto on a Michael Jackson song. Horrendous! You've got to be kidding me! The judges all lie. Because he's cute.

My picks to leave: Ace and anyone but Gedeon, Kevin, or Chris.

Slutskaya wore pants!

And Sasha Cohen?



As they say on "Project Runway," "too much tootie." Quit aiming that thing at me.

Seriously, I love the Slutskaya unitard approach. It creates an unbroken line and feels coherent with the winter setting, unlike naked-looking legs. And with those flesh-tone tights, you've always got that contrasting strip of fabric across the crotch -- like a sanitary napkin! And it is repeatedly displayed, and we can't help staring at it! Why is that not considered grossly vulgar? The unbroken black line of the great Irina Slutskaya speaks of grace and taste.

"Project Runway."

Spoiler alert. Of course!

Oh, that was painful. I hated seeing Nick leave. He was one of my favorites all along.

But what an interesting challenge! They had to design for each other, but they are in competition with each other. How could the hostilities not pop out all over -- bursting and puckering the seams? And the men! They need to design for women, but they have all that horrid hostility toward the women. Meanwhile, the women showed generosity and good feeling toward the men through their styles. Chloe and Kara came out on top. What Santino did to Kara! Unforgivable! I wouldn't want one person to see me sausaged into a jumpsuit like that. Even the color was putrid. Pudenda -- isn't that the name of that color? Oh, the shame swirled around the men tonight!

Nick, who got the kiss off, was the one person who designed for a member of his own sex. And then what did he do? He picked a feminine fabric, a feminine color, a feminine design. A "Golden Girls" jacket, that belonged with leggings, the judges said. Oh, the abject humiliation of it all!

But I was glad Santino didn't get cut. He is more entertaining than Nick. Of all the designers, he's the one whose Fashion Week line I'd most like to see. He's cramped and constrained by the assignments. So let the man loose. Let him fall on his face... or be brilliant.