And that, people, is the feeling I have on the American Idol finale, and so too then for the entire season. We saw a glimpse of something incredible and dared to believe maybe this was the year (Obama! Obama!) that the uber-dramatic cabaret kid — who was so spookily self-assured, a pretty-eyed thing who didn’t apologize for wanting to give you every inch of his love or who wasn't at all troubled when TMZ tried to out him, or when pictures on the Internet of him kissing a guy merited discussion by Bill O’Reilly — would get confetti dumped on his very glossy goth-y head. Let’s face it, his voice is bananas amazing. But I don’t think it was any of the above that kept Adam Lambert from winning. Nor was it because Kris Allen is a safer choice, or just plain cuter. I just think we’re all suckers for an underdog story and man, that Kris Allen kid had the momentum of underdogdom like nobody’s business, because at some point people just started to assume Adam Lambert had it in the bag.

Oh, well, Adam Lambert will surely go on to fame and stardom, and maybe Kris Allen, with his Ray Pruit-looks (he was so poor he couldn’t afford the second ‘t’!) and easy coffeehouse strumming sound, will, too. Great! But what about that crazy finale? There was too much to look at! But here, in no particular order were the weirdest and perhaps most awesome moments of the night.

*Steve Martin on the American Idol stage. Sure, I had heard this was happening but somehow my brain kept rejecting it as a concept. Steve Martin! American Idol! Playing the banjo and grinning rather tightly while the chick with the crazy tats and the big oil rig dude sang, rather prettily, a song he wrote! Also, extra bonus points for getting a big ole laugh when Ryan Seacrest asked him who he thought would win; “I know it’s a long shot … but I’m hoping I do.” Watch it here. 

*Cindi Lauper and Allison Iraheta duet on “Time after Time.” Sure this song has been covered to death, but you know what? It’s still awesome and these two ladies sang it oh so well together! The video is here.

*When that super-annoying Bikini Girl chick and super-annoying fourth judge Kara DioGuardi had a sing-off which involved Kara stripping off her dress to show that she too has a (hot) bikini body. I’m still not sure if I think this is great, or perhaps the worse thing I’ve ever seen happen live, ever. See?

*Nicole Kidman’s husband and Kris Allen paired up for a very nice-sounding duet on some song I’ve never heard of. It was precisely at this moment that I realized Kris Allen was going to win. Apparently, 38 million out of the 100 million votes for Mr. Allen came from his home state of Arkansas. Which is weird and also very, very impressive. Was Nicole Kidman there? 'Cause Katie Holmes was up in the Nokia the night before.

*Simon Cowell in his weird unbuttoned shirts. There are no fun videos to link to, but for the past two nights, it’s all I could think about. Seriously, unbuttoned down to his socks. I love you, Simon, please don’t leave the idol!

So, goodbye American Idol. You’ve sucked so much time out of my life I’m not sure if I love you or hate you anymore (I do know I'm more than a little embarrassed for thinking about you so much). I guess we'll just have to see what 2010 will cough up. You know I'll be there.

Fox has gone bonkers promoting the heck out of this very special House episode … and we are totally on board! In the creepily titled episode “Locked In” (about the even more creepy Locked-In Syndrome), Mos Def guest stars as a man who is trapped inside his body but can’t move or communicate. Thank goodness there’s a hot, grumpy and brilliant diagnostician at Princeton Plainsboro hospital who got himself banged up in a motorcycle accident and is in the neighboring bed! The entire episode (which you can watch the first two minutes of here) is from the perspective of the patient, so expect lots of confessional moments from Dr. House, and all his little cottages. Also, prepare yourself for lots of icky discussion of the “brain stem” (shudder). [Fox, 8 p.m.]

Tuesday: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

We have always been fond of the term “Pod People” to describe the men we date, but in fact this coinage dates back to the classic 1956 sci-fi horror/flick Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Set in the small fictional town of Santa Mira, Calif., the movie centers on a local doctor (Kevin McCarthy) who starts to see a bunch of patients who think their loved ones are impostors. At first dismissing the phenomenon as mere mass hysteria, with the aid of a friend (King Donovan) he comes to discover that people are actually being replaced by Pod People—which grew from “seeds drifting through space for years” (augh!)—who look just like regular earthlings except for the fact that they have no emotion (sound familiar, ladies?). [TCM, 9:30]

Wednesday: Make Me a Supermodel

We were totally prepared to pass on this reality crack pipe—a weird hybrid of America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway—until those evil geniuses over at weekend programming at Bravo got us sucked in with a marathon. What we’ve learned so far: Male models are just as vain as the ladies but somehow, they seem to be a lot nicer. Maybe because they’re not starving? Maybe because male models don't really matter? In tonight’s episode, the high-cheekboned lovelies get smutty with one another at a photo shoot and it looks like a tape measure will be used to see who’s hips are too effin' wide to make it. What would Tyra say? [Bravo, 10 p.m.]

Thursday: Romancing the Stone

Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice are both repeats tonight, and NBC is doing a monster ER series finale (but, on the plus side, Ernest Borgnine guest-stars!). If you're watching that, you should record the classic 1984 film Romancing the Stone. Remember this one? Kathleen Turner is a romance novelist who has to fly down to Colombia to rescue her kidnapped sister (Mary Ellen Trainor). Michael Douglas plays our swashbuckling hero Jack T. Colton, who promises to help but really might be after the map. There’s a giant green emerald involved! And Danny DeVito! Trust us, mud slides have never before or since been so incredibly sexy. [WE, 11 p.m.]

Friday: Friday Night Lights

Will everyone please, please, please watch this show already? Of course it airs on Friday night! But if you don't record it you are certainly missing out: There’s the hotness of Tim Riggins, the awesomeness that is Coach and Tami Taylor’s marriage, and after last week we can’t wait to see what the fallout is from the totally bananas father-slapping-son-around-in-the-Applebee’s-parking-lot. We’re at the penultimate episode before season three ends and the fate of this extraordinary television show hangs in the balance. Let’s go, America! Panthers go to State and we’re rooting for a fourth season!  Remember: Clear ears, full hearts, can’t lose. [NBC, 9 p.m.]

It started last year during the reign of David Cook. I think I thought I was being ironic. This is how the show gets you—like, oh look how silly this all is! I can’t believe how into this show people are! But this year, I looked around and saw that I was watching “The Idol” all alone in my apartment, no one there on the couch beside me to laugh at Ryan Seacrest, and I had the epiphany that there was absolutely no irony whatsoever left for me to hide behind. 

The good news is that when you decide to give up and join the rest of America in loving American Idol, you start to discover just how much is out there for you. And hey, how often can us Jewish homo-loving commie New Yorkers feel so in step with the rest of the country? There’s a kabillion articles and random Web sites (including DialIdol, which predicts who is going home based on some sort of scientific study of busy signals, and boasts a 97 percent accuracy rate for last year!) and Entertainment Weekly’s totally awesome exhaustive coverage. For me, there is no better thing in the world than the Television Without Pity recaps, which never fail to help me think about just what is good or bad or just plain bananas about this show. Jacob Clifton is just about my favorite person on the planet these days thanks to his incredible posts—here is a recent example when he attempted to make sense of this season’s biggest enigma, contestant Adam Lampert and his rendition of “Ring of Fire” last week:

“It's sort of like what if that movie Queen Of The Damned were not only real, but interested in slipping you a roofie and selling you on the black market. He screeches out some kind of artsy orgasm and nearly pulls his shirt up over his head, and then just starts wailing like some forgotten homosexual Greek myth about sailors that never come home. It's... Totally awesome. Of course. I feel weird and crazy, and entertained. Those sudden register shifts used to freak me out with Jeff Buckley too, like, "And now I am a lady... And now I am a dude again." I can't imagine how uncomfortable that must have been for lots and lots of people."

Okay? How could anyone not want to watch something that could inspire all that? So, this is where I'm at and my cooler-than-thou friends with their real lives and hopes and dreams are a little disappointed in me. I don't care. I'm glad that big oil-rig dude went home last night! I hope Simon continues to draw little moustaches on Paula! And mostly I'm rooting for that dramatic weirdo, or that little redhead with the big pipes, to win. I suggest watching. You'll see!

The pre-action viewing of the collection attracted some 35,000 visitors including many French art collectors and a New York-based art dealer named Franck Giraud. The particular buyers for many of the highly-prized works were not disclosed. But it looks like the Daily Transom was correct in predicting that major Russian art collectors would have something to do with bringing back hope to the flailing art market when the time came.

According to the Bloomberg article, "Among the last-minute VIP visitors to the exhibition hall, just four hours before the sale, was Russian billionaire art collector Roman Abramovich, accompanied by dealer Larry Gagosian. Christie’s owner, French billionaire Francois Pinault, was present at the sale."

Last year, Mr. Abramovich made headlines by purchasing a Degas for $26.5 million, a Francis Bacon triptych for $86.3 million, and a painting by Lucian Freud for $33.6 million. And his girlfriend Dasha Zhukova opened an art gallery in Moscow called The Garage not too long ago. Incidentally, Mr. Gagosian was a guest at the gallery's soft opening.

"I can now phone up my clients and say there is nothing wrong with the market," Paolo Vedovi, director of Brussels-based Galerie Vedovi, told Bloomberg after the auction was finished.

When the lights went down, Mr. Mizrahi’s colorful, whimsical collection streamed through purple velvet curtains. The models wore red lipstick, bedroom slippers and, most notably, a fashion innovation not appropriated from some 20th century decade (unless some friends of Marcel Duchamp did it without our noticing): handbags as hats! Ms. Wintour took it in from behind her sunglasses.

She will probably repeat this routine six or seven times today, not because she can’t arrange private viewings, but because her presence, augmented by all those photographs and pithy quotes, supports these designers’ businesses. When the Mizrahi show ended, to cheers, Ms. Wintour leapt up—as she always does—wrapped in her fur and guided by a bodyguard, and darted out of the room before she could get stuck in the slow-moving bottleneck amassing on the runway. One could hardly blame her.

For her show, Ms. Wasson enlisted 15 or so models to wear her downtown, grungy designs (ripped denim, rugged boots, leather and cut-up T-shirt dresses) on an elevated platform where they danced with one another, sat with their tiny limbs dangling and flirted with photographers who were incessantly snapping photos.

The people that filed into Erin Wasson's presentation of her line, Erin Wasson x RVCA, on Wednesday, Feb. 19, at Milk Studios in the meatpacking district, were mostly model-y girls that looked like boys and boys that looked like girls. That's because 27-year-old Ms. Wasson, for whom styling and designing are secondary occupations, is first and foremost an attractive model with even more attractive friends.

For her show, Ms. Wasson enlisted 15 or so models to wear her downtown, grungy designs (ripped denim, rugged boots, leather and cut-up T-shirt dresses) on an elevated platform where they danced with one another, sat with their tiny limbs dangling and flirted with photographers who were incessantly snapping photos. Ms. Wasson, for her part, would occasionally jump onto the platform and fit right in as she squinted her eyes, pouted her lips, and threw her arms around the other girls for the cameras. 

Some of the guests, who were getting buzzed on jello shots, couldn't help but comment on the sexual energy in the room. "I feel like any minute they'll just start making out with one another," one male guest whispered to his friend. 

Standing in line at the bar was designer Alexander Wang, for whom Ms. Wasson has done some styling work in the past.  For his own show last Saturday, Mr. Wang went with chocolate tequila cocktails, which his audience greatly appreciated. 

"It was Valentine's Day and tequila really gets the mood going!" he said.

Did everyone get sloshed backstage on those cocktails?

"Ha-ha. I don't know if everyone did, but I didn't until after the show," he replied. "But now I get to just party till the end of the week. We're going to sales and everything soon, but for now I'm a free bird!"

Elle creative director Joe Zee was also meandering around and taking note of Ms. Wasson's designs. 

"I'm her biggest fan! She has this F-you kind of personal style and that's what I love about her. It's totally on her own terms," said Mr. Zee. "She actually styled a story for me for April. It's this huge 12-page spread with all the new young actors and actresses like Freida Pinto and Anton Yelchin and it's totally inspired by her '90s grunge, Empire Records style. It's seriously so good."

So, Mr. Zee, can Ms. Wasson ever completely make the cross-over from feisty model to serious designer?

"If you really think about it, all the big editors today were once upon a time a model, so really Erin is just following in those footsteps in her own way," he said.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America are putting together a cookbook with recipes from some 100 designers including, Zac Posen’s butterscotch cookies, Carolina Herrera's pommes toupinel, and Yigal Azrouël's chicken tagine. [WWD] 

For Richie Rich's show last night, the designer paraded pal Amanda Lepore and Pam Anderson in a gold, flower-accented bikini down the runway. [Refinary 29] 

Cynthia Rowley collaborated with Nintendo this season to create carrying cases for the portable Nintendo DS in metallic blue, peachy gold and cranberry pink. [WWD] 

A bunch of fashion photographers played a joke on the paparazzi at the tents, by sending out on of the female photographer and pretending she was a big name in fashion. The paparazzi bought it. [Page Six]

7:30 p.m. The "Chirpy Chirpy Cheap Cheap" concert series welcomes former Blue's Clues host–turned–indie-pop front man Steve Burns with his band the Struggle, performing  alongside musical guests: Secret Life of Sofia and Apollo Run. The $5 admission price = free beer at the Bell House, 149 Seventh Street in Brooklyn.

7 p.m. Author Hannah Tinti speaks on her most recent book, The Good Thief,  "a Dickensian tale of orphans and family" with host Darin Strauss.

7:30 p.m. Bang On! N.Y.C. throws a (really early) Mardi Gras party featuring "burlesque, stilt walkers, a marching band, sexy chair dancers, and D.J. Curly’s mix of electro, rock and disco." At 205 Chrystie Street and Stanton.

7:30 p.m. The "Chirpy Chirpy Cheap Cheap" concert series welcomes former Blue's Clues host–turned–indie-pop front man Steve Burns with his band the Struggle, performing  alongside musical guests: Secret Life of Sofia and Apollo Run. The $5 admission price = free beer at the Bell House, 149 Seventh Street in Brooklyn.

7 p.m. Author Hannah Tinti speaks on her most recent book, The Good Thief,  "a Dickensian tale of orphans and family" with host Darin Strauss. At N.Y.U. Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House, 58 West 10th Street. Free Admission.

8 p.m. Kathy Griffin performs at the WaMu Theatre, Seventh Avenue and 32nd Street.

8 p.m. Leonard Cohen will perform (for the first time in 15 years) at the Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway and 74th Street.

8:30 p.m. "Chuck.Chuck.Chuck." is a multimedia peice based on William Fulkner's As I Lay Dying, presented by Immediate Medium at the Collapsable Hole, 146 Metropolitan Ave and Berry Street. Admission: $12.

Long before suicide bombers were blowing people to bits in London, Sri Lanka, Israel and Iraq, extremists in Western Europe and North America displayed the same sort of callous disregard for the lives of civilians. Although this particular breed of terrorist avoided self-slaughter, they readily exploded deadly bombs in the nests of bourgeois society, blowing up crowded cafes or busy police stations, killing and maiming anonymous bystanders. Anarchists committed a rash of high-profile assassinations, killing prime ministers, emperors and even a president of the United States, William McKinley, who was shot dead in 1901 in Buffalo, N.Y. In The Dynamite Club, John Merriman, a professor of history at Yale, peers into the world of the violently discontented utopians of the late 19th century, shadowy murderers in the grip of extremist ideology.

Although Mr. Merriman takes in the whole sociopolitical climate of turn-of-the-century Europe along with the development of the anarchist movement, most of his work focuses on one man, Émile Henry, a diminutive and passionate Parisian who underwent a startling metamorphosis: A well-educated, middle-class overachiever, he became a bomb-wielding revolutionary who killed at least four people in two separate attacks. “This book,” the author writes, “is motivated by a very simple question: why did Émile Henry do what he did?”

The legwork Mr. Merriman put into his research was surely extensive, and the book is the better for it. The Dynamite Club begins with a short overview of the forces that gave rise to the anarchist movement: rapid industrialization; poor working conditions; a sharp increase in urban population, particularly in working-class suburbs; and extensive political corruption, which in France’s Third Republic included an embarrassing imbroglio involving the president’s son and the Panama Canal. This preamble is interesting and informative but reads a bit like boilerplate.

The Dynamite Club’s best flourishes come when Mr. Merriman delves into the complicated personal life of his representative terrorist. Émile Henry was born into a middle-class family; his father was a relatively famous socialist and an important figure in the Paris Commune. Born in exile in Barcelona, Émile returned to France and so excelled in school that he was granted an interview at one of France’s prestigious grandes écoles. He failed the interview and moved to Venice to work for an uncle.

After only a short time abroad, Émile returned to Paris and moved in with his older brother, dabbled in spiritualism and socialism, and suffered through an abortive, unrequited love affair. Eventually, he came to embrace the most radical tenets of anarchism, including the virtues of the “propaganda by the deed” and a complete disregard for the safety of civilians. “Émile Henry could not help but soak up the charged atmosphere of fin-de-siècle Paris. The plight of ordinary people was growing ever more serious. Someone would have to carry the mantle of visionaries like Proudhon and Bakunin,” Mr. Merriman writes.

Of course, the anarchist movement was an abject failure. Aside from high-profile assassinations and random bombings, the movement did not bring about a single meaningful reform. Émile Henry was caught immediately after his second attack and executed by guillotine. (How else?) His legacy was quickly forgotten although he did enjoy a spell of posthumous notoriety—martyrdom à la Che Guevara.

The “propaganda by the deed” movement fizzled and was eventually replaced by socialism and unionization, which together accomplished what the anarchists never could: the transformation of society. Toward the end of the book, Mr. Merriman aptly sums up Émile’s star-crossed career: “In his own way, Émile could be described as a nineteenth-century Hamlet. He took arms against the sea of troubles devastating much of humanity, seeking to bring an end to them with his bombs.”

Oliver Haydock is a reporter and the research editor at The Observer. He can be reached a ohaydock@observer.com.

The front row was a mash-up of recognizable Fashion Week personalities: a less-ubiquitous-than-usual Leigh Lezark (not looking misshapen in that white get-up!), cheerful Ugly Betty star Becki Newton, British magazine editor and former Kate Moss paramour Jefferson Hack, Anna Wintour leaning over to chat with Lucy Liu across an aisle. Curiously, several seats down from the Vogue contingent, dating columnist and Internet personality Julia Allison sat in a pink frilly top with pink lipstick, typing into her pink PDA and looking like she was about to burst into tears. (At one point she exchanged words with one of the women working the floor in headsets; perhaps they needed her front-row seat? Hey, we’re just guessing.)

When the show started, billowing smoke poured from backstage and Ms. Trullie’s bass literally shook the poor fragile Tent. But Mr. Lim is the real deal, and though he declined to participate in fashion’s trendy '80s revival, his clothes—moody, with lots of jackets and ruffles—were all things you’d have wanted to walk out of there wearing.

Teen Vogue editor Amy Astley had been perched front row with a vintage Prada bag on her knee before the show. “Today I went by the new Diesel store, the new Armani store, they were packed with people shopping,” she said. “It’s not all doom and gloom. It’s natural people are worried about their jobs and may not feel like splurging in a big, big way, but women have always loved fashion since caveman days, and we still love fashion, and we’re going to keep celebrating it. It’s just pulled back a little bit. You don’t see all the celebrities. I think they feel it’s a little unseemly.” She paused, and laughed: “Or maybe they’re not welcome! It’s a little quieter, for sure. This too shall pass.”

Indeed, the next time this group congregates in New York, in September 2009, it will be at Lincoln Center, not Bryant Park. “Look, I love running back and forth from my office to here,” said Ms. Astley. “We’ve been so spoiled, those of us who work at Condé Nast. Of course we’re going to miss walking one block. But this is the new story, so we’re going to go, we’re going to see how it is. I’m not going to project forward that I’m going to hate it; honestly, I think being in Lincoln center is incredible. It’s probably one of my most favorite places in New York. The Tents right now … what’s to miss? Right now? These crowds on the steps, you can barely walk up! I think a change would be O.K.”

“It would be great if we could go in the New York State Theater for one [show],” she added. “But I think we’re going to be in tents.”