SO YOU THINK YOU CAN LOVE ME AND LEAVE ME TO DIE?  So, I was all set to herald the return of Constantine Maroulis (!!) to American Idol, and focus my comments on the oddness of the Iggy Pop performance -- only the possibly-drunk Michael Buble "Call Me Irresponsible" comes close -- but then came the results.

THE TARGET AREA IS ONLY TWO METERS WIDE: Some of the new clubs they're using as The Masters this year, wow.

THE EQUIVALENT OF BUTLER HAVING WON MONDAY NIGHT: In a stunning upset, Esquire online readers have voted 30 Rock's Katrina Bowden their choice as Sexiest Woman Alive. Bowden was a 10 seed, and an underdog in every round, beating Padma Lakshmi, Kim Kardashian, Emmy Rossum, Dianna Agron and Lea Michele, and Megan Fox, before pulling the ultimate Cinderella story and upsetting #1 overall seed and defending champion Brooklyn Decker in the finals. There's no One Shining Moment, but she does have an acceptance speech.

THEY COULD HAVE USED THIS IN THAT NIGHT SHYAMALAN-PRODUCED MOVIE FROM LAST YEAR THAT NO ONE SAW: Where to stand on an elevator to maximize everyone's personal space.

I'M ASKING HIM TO CHANGE HIS WAYS: It's Sing Whatever The Hell You Want (Again) Week on Idol, and Kim and I are here.

Adam: I had a weird feeling at the end of tonight's Idol, Kim. Everyone was more-or-less competent, except for a few ill-advised notes from Casey perhaps, but the overall effect of the show was so dispiriting. It felt like a karaoke night, with no one singing with particular passion, or a song that was particularly meaningful to the singer, and certainly without any of the kind of personal artistry we've come to expect on the show in recent years. Really, Kim, is there a great contemporary artist coming from this?

Kim: You know my views on the show, Adam. The point isn’t to find a great contemporary artist. It’s to sell music on iTunes, and commercial time on Fox. From that standpoint, I think this is a pretty successful season. There isn’t a frontrunner (or even an obvious final 3), and the number of people who are truly outclassed by their fellow competitors is pretty small for a final 9. But you’re right: when the most creative thing that happens on rock-and-roll night is that Casey sings with a stand-up bass, it’s clear that the addition of the professional producers has taken away both the need and the opportunity for the contestants to innovate. There were plenty of performances that I enjoyed tonight (and only a few that I hated), but none that really sent me over the moon.

GENIUS IS WHAT THAT WAS: On the one hand, Survivor-wise, yes.  On the other hand, no.

BUCKWHEAT ZYDECO IS PISSED: The Grammys have dropped 31 categories for next year. Notable consolidations:

• Most categories that previously had a gender divide (pop vocal, R&B vocal, country vocal) now have a single category. Rock and R&B vocal performances are no longer separated between individals and duo/group, though country and pop retain that distinction. R&B gets hit the hardest, going from 8 categories to 4.
• A fair number of the "instrumentals" categories have been eliminated--no more "pop instrumental performance" or "rock instrumental" performance.
• Much squishing together of categories that used to be separate--"hard rock" and "metal," "banda" and "norteno," "regional Mexican" and "Tejano," "latin pop" and "latin rock, alternative, or urban," "traditional blues" and "contemporary blues," "traditional world music" and "contemporary world music," "traditional folk" and "contemporary folk," and "Hawaiian," "Native American," and "Zydeco or cajun" are now all "regional roots music."
• Substantial retooling of the "gospel" category, giving Contemporary Christian Music clearer categorization and its own song award.

When looking at those looking for the G to finish their EGOT, not sure how much this affects them unless Al Pacino finally decides to cut his metal album or Maggie Smith pursues a sideline singing R&B. The traditional EGOT categories like spoken word album and the various score categories are pretty much untouched (save "children's spoken word," which is consolidated with "children's music album"). The Grammys have needed to cut down on categories for a long time now, and this seems a fair way to do it.

THE LITTLE THINGS YOU DO TOGETHER, BUT VIA SKYPE: As this article reveals, the cast of this weekend's Company will not all be in one place for rehearsal till opening day, and the cast and crew have taken some interesting measures to get ready, including learning dancing moves through iPhone videos, Skype, and other methods. Makes me grateful that I'm not seeing it till Saturday matinee, after they've gelled. But more important to much of our audience, it does confirm that the show is being filmed for movie theatre broadcast in June, with (I assume) a DVD and live recording to follow.

AMBITION IS THE WILLINGNESS TO KILL THE THINGS YOU LOVE AND EAT THEM IN ORDER TO STAY ALIVE. HAVEN'T YOU EVER READ MY THROW PILLOW? Alec Baldwin dropped a bomb to a NYMag reporter at a benefit last night:

"I will tell you one thing," he said. "And that is our show next year is our last year of the show." Though Baldwin has made no secret of the fact that he plans to leave 30 Rock in 2012, this was the first time we've heard that the show itself would close up shop, too. But Baldwin says it's a done deal that Fey will be leaving. "Our contracts are expired [in 2012], and Tina is gonna have a big career directing films and writing. She's going to be the next Elaine May. She'll be great." Tina Fey's reps declined to comment.

added: Poniewozik says don't panic. "I tend to treat this kind of news like deaths on 24: I need to see a wound to the head, and preferably a burned body, before I believe it. Katie Couric will, someday, not be CBS' anchor' Vieira will, someday, not host Today; 30 Rock will, someday, go off the air. But I don't consider any a done deal until they're done deals—that goes double for anyone's claim, more than a year in advance, that a certain show is ending. The Sopranos and other shows taught us how these deadlines can move. Alec Baldwin? Well, let's just say, he's an excellent actor, and he says stuff sometimes."

SHUT UP. WE DIDN'T LOSE VIETNAM. IT WAS A TIE! Kevin Kline does a thoughtful interview with Sam Adams about his past roles, and it's a fine jumping-off point for a discussion as to what his second-best role  has been. (Seriously, is there disagreement about the f-f-f-first?) I'd likely go with The Ice Storm, but if you wanted to go comic with Soapdish or Dave I won't fault you. I just wish he worked more, because he's so damn good ... though, really, Wild Wild West?

I DON'T MIND THEM COMING HERE AND WASTING ALL MY TIME: In May, The Cars are releasing their first new album in twenty-four years. Now, The Cars were a fine band who put together a terrific body of work in the 1970s and 1980s. More than that, if you told me that the new track, Sad Like This, was a B-Side to something off Heartbeat City, I wouldn't have doubted it for a moment. Given that -- and setting aside the perfectly reasonable pursuit of money -- is there something they didn't accomplish musically that merits a new album?

N.B.: Here's a second track, Blue Tip, which again sounds precisely like vintage The Cars.

THIS BLOG ALREADY HAS A FAVORITE PRINCE, AND HIS NAME IS PRINCE: I'm just wondering -- other than opening up space for live commentary that day, are folks expecting us to provide continuing coverage of The Most Important Wedding In The History Of Weddings (Other Than His Parents') over these remaining weeks? Nothing about it has interested me yet, and I'm wondering if I'm an anomaly.

ALSO, WHEN YOU ARE INSIDE THE MIND OF BOB NEWHART: Choire Sicha explains when men may wear a button-down shirt.

GOTTA BE FRESH: Stephen Colbert, the Roots and some special guests sing "Friday." Yes, the first special guest made me smile.

STREAKS ON THE CHINA NEVER MATTERED BEFORE: Forget about last night: name your favorite butlers and Butlers, real or fictional.

MAYBE YOU'D LIKE TO SEE A REAL MAN: Philadelphia's Rocky statute has been yarn-bombed in pink, part of a local guerrilla knitting movement known as Crochet Guevara.

ALOTT5MA SPECIAL BONUS MONDAY GRAMMAR RODEO: I feel like I owe you a legitimate one after Friday's hijinks (and also to verify that the previous two+ months were not merely a set-up for a joke), and it comes by way of Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big To Fail, his inside story of how everyone involved in the Wall Street financial crisis was interrupted from a fabulous vacation at some point or other (and what model of black car each is driven in) (coming next month to HBO), though it does contain at least some detail as to what actually happened and why.

Anyway, at page 264 we see this sentence:

[Fuld] spent ten minutes again imploring Paulson to call Christopher Cox at the SEC to press him to instate a short-selling ban, to announce an investigation -- anything that would give him an opportunity to recover.

Instate. Well, that sounds odd, and my first thought was that this was some kind of wretched back-formation of "reinistate" that someone had made up.  But, apparently, it's real -- or, it was real at some point.

According to Merriam-Webster, instate does predate reinstate, having first been seen in 1603 (and meaning "invest, endow, bestow, confer"), though it is considered obsolete today. The OED dates it to 1613 (Thomas Heywood's Silver Age, "Faire Danaes sonne instated in my throne") and Samuel Pepys's 1667 Diary ("He will enstate the King of Spain in the kingdom of Portugall"), with the term meaning "To put (a person) into a certain state or condition; to place in a certain position; to install, establish. " while also suggesting it's somewhat obsolete.

So, "instate."  Do you use it, will you use it, or should we just let this verb sleep?  There is a poll.\

Poll results: It's not real (60%0, I may try it now (26%), I already use it (13%).

I FEEL LIKE A DEFECTIVE TYPEWRITER:  In the Too Old To Play A Teenager Hall of Fame, Stockard Channing in Grease and 90210's Gabrielle Carteris are first-ballot, no-doubt inner sanctum inductees.  Those two, and many other contenders, are slideshowed here.

DEPENDING ON YOUR PERSPECTIVE, IT'S EITHER FORTUNATE OR UNFORTUNATE THAT THE MOVIE WAS NOT MADE UP ENTIRELY OF ONES AND ZEROES: Based on requests received via Twitter and Facebook, there's desire for a thread to discuss Source Code, which I really liked for the first 80% and am not sure how I felt about the end, which seemed to me to be a case of the movie wanting to have its cake (following the "rules" set up earlier in the film) and eat it too (to have a happy ending). And even though I didn't recognize the voice that has a small but important cameo, it was a nice tribute to a prior work that's a clear influence on the film. Comments will be a spoiler zone, so tread carefully.

UP NEXT - SCHMENDRICK!  A reader asks: are there other cultures/languages which have a word meaning the same thing that mensch does in Yiddish?

ALLIUM VERITE: Jersey Shore's Snooki received $32K to appear at Rutgers. Toni Morrison received $30K.

ALOTT5MA FRIDAY GRAMMAR RODEO: Well, its a surprising one today.  The Guardian (UK) web site today (with the concurrence of The Economist) has heard the masses and is going to grudgingly yield:

The Guardian has revised it's style guide to reflect the necessary consistency of adding apostrophe-s to create the possessive form of the pronoun "it."

I'm a bit taken aback with where this is going to.  But, this is an historic change which makes sense.  The descriptivist in me is ready to yield to the culture for two reasons: first, because in this case it's consistent with possessives generally, and also this might disincent people from unnecessary apostrophes for pluralization.

To be sure, none of the United States' guides have adopted this formally yet, but such a significant shift from across the pond suggests the question as to when it will occur in it's leading guides like the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Style Guide. Still, our language has been evolving since Moses's time, and we must accept it's continual change. Some things are inevitable.