Recently I flipped on the TV and found myself watching the last number of a Celine Dion special, in which the blade-faced Quebecoise swished around in a disconcertingly short skirt before a camera set a few feet below the level of the stage. Watching the show, I reflected that what is so offensive about her is not simply that she's bad but rather that a vast number of stupid people think she's good.

So, the third season of Project Runway is rapidly coming to a close. Tonight, we find out which of the remaining designers will be going on to Fashion Week. (Unless, like me, you happened to read the New York Times article that mentioned the finalists, without so much as a spoiler alert.) Of course, like all reality shows of this ilk, people complain that the quality has declined even as everyone remains fairly addicted to watching it.

Over the past few days Printculture's intrepid M Massino and I have been enaged in a conversation, begun here and continued telephonically, about the relation between a couple current television commercials and our culture. The first half of that dialogue follows; the second half will appear tomorrow.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that an academic, even one given a clothing allowance, will dress like a schlemiel.” So says Regina Barreca in her essay “Why We Look So Bad.” It's no new observation that academics get slammed often for bad fashion. To steal a quote from Bérubé (and follow this link to check out his sweeeeet suit): Dressing fashionably in academia is like clearing the four-foot high jump. The ...

Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran is a celebration of reading and of women. It tells the story of a private class in the Western novel offered to women in the home of a female professor, a class which mixes believers with cosmopolitans. Nafisi’s students become her friends and the characters of her book. Nafisi introduces her students as types: the poet, the lady, the comedian, the wild one. Her prose is not entirely successful in its...

I recently ordered three pairs of sneakers on-line to compare at home. All the sneakers turned out to be good quality and fit well, which surprised me; I had assumed I would make most of my decision on fit alone. I ordered the shoes from Zappo’s, which offers free shipping both ways and a 365-day return policy. Another good site for sneakers is Classic Sport Shoes, which often stocks discontinued models. Growing up, I was never a big shopp...