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Withering Glance: What happened to class?

Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, etiquette, culture, relationships, grooming and more.

June 11, 2011 at 6:17PM

RN: In honor of this evening's Tony Awards, I have a Broadway-musical-inspired question for you.

CP: Lemme guess: You want to know if I can name the star who said, "The only reason anyone goes to Broadway is because they can't get work in the movies."

RN: Hardly. To borrow from famed "Chicago" lyricist Fred Ebb, I ask you, "Whatever happened to class?"

CP: Why didn't you say so at the outset? That query allows us to point out boorish behavior ... by others.

RN: Exactly. When Miss Manners goes to that great cotillion in the sky, we've so got the job, Gentle Glancer. Do you have an example in mind?

CP: Well, it would appear that New York Rep. Anthony Weiner has lent new meaning to the word Twitpic.

RN: I'm thinking more along the lines of the fellow citizen who recently made an obscene gesture at my 76-year-old mother while she was driving. Classy.

CP: I hope you leveled him with a very severe frown. Of course, there's nothing new about piggishness. I'm reading Edna O'Brien's terrific "Byron in Love." Unaided by social media, that clubfooted 19th-century poet was bedding anything that moved, including men, boys, women, married women, eunuchs, his half-sister. When did you find time to write, Lord B?

RN: Suddenly, "She walks in beauty, like the night" takes on a whole new meaning. I'm always taken aback by our fellow citizens who treat retail clerks, waiters, bartenders and other service-industry workers like the domestics in "The Help."

CP: What about treating a hotel maid like your personal plaything? Bonjour, Monsieur DSK, try keeping it in your pantalons.

RN: That kind of behavior belongs in the Ish Hall of Fame. I'm still taken aback by the urinal users among us who don't view flushing as a key clause in the social contract. What's with that?

CP: If it's yellow, leave it mellow. Remember, protecting Mom Earth is classy.

RN: How very Ed Begley Jr. of you, although a low-flush toilet does the trick, too.

CP: I was at a party recently where a guy kept referring to his oversized buying power. As in, "where we're looking at houses, you can't touch anything for less than a million." I am so thrilled for him.

RN: Lovely. And now I feel the need to take a shower.

E-mail: witheringglance@startribune.com.

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