Highlights:

Washington is a small ‘c' conservative kind of society, in which people are aware of the traditions and boundaries of appropriate behavior," said Wayne Berman, a Republican lobbyist. "It's a city about rules, about conventions and if there's no keg at the party, it doesn't get crashed.

"At most parties in New York or Los Angeles, a bouncer will make a snap decision about whether to let you in depending on your looks or some shtick that that sets you apart," says Juleanna Glover, a Washington hostess and a founder of the Ashcroft Group, a legal and consulting firm. "In Washington, there are no snap decisions. It's a lifetime of wise decisions that make it so that you receive a state dinner invitation."

When the Salahis put their collection of digital snaps of the state dinner on Facebook, they flouted all the unwritten rules of power-wall etiquette. (Including a new one that nobody had thought to mention: Don't put your power wall on Facebook.) As an enhancer of prestige, these photographic menageries always target a certain audience - constituents in the case of politicians, potential clients in the case of lobbyists. It tells those audiences, "I know how to get things done."

"Washington has its own version of a celebrity-driven culture, but these people are unattractive and lack charisma so what makes them celebrities is their substance," says Eli Attie, a former White House speech writer in the Clinton administration and now a writer and producer for "House," the Fox television show.

You get the idea. (Indeed, apparently the self-promoting Salahis are such an anomaly in the greater Washington area that Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine declared, "If somebody had said to me, 'Hey, some Virginians tried to crash a party and there are 7 1/2 million Virginians, who do you think it might be?' I think I might have been able to guess it within five seconds, because he's [Tareq Salahi] such a promoter.") And if you flout these "rules" and wear fashion-forward clothes, well, you're suspect. But, did it occur to no one that maybe the Salahis (and the other crashers now crawling out of the woodwork) were just swept up in the blitz of pieces declaring the capital young, hip and happening? They were told things had changed! That the town was swarming with idealistic young go-getters who didn't wear pantyhose! That high fashion had returned to the capital! (Of course, some would argue that, being a large city, it is, and was, rather more multi-faceted than this, and that the Magnetic Fields could have told you that. Also that a few weeks ago a guy in a bar told me that D.C. was "a very sexy town" with "sexier women than New York." So.) And, et tu, Washington Post? In the context of tattoos, one young woman is quoted today saying, "D.C. is culturally one of the most conservative cities I've ever lived in." In the spirit of sweeping statements we say: blame the fickle media. Including us! (Look, we're very busy dealing with bouncers, okay?)

Dinner Crashers Walked All Over Social Code [NY Times]
36 Hours In Washington, D.C. [NY Times]

Disney Actress Snuck Into Inauguration [CBS]
NYC: "OK, DC, You're Hip Now." [DC Met Blogs]
Dinner 'Crashers' Stood Out Years Ago [CNN]
In D.C. Area, Tattoos Are Largely Taboo From 9 To 5 [Washington Post]

Emily Post was the scion of an old and respectable New York family, a great beauty who made a triumphant marriage that soon went sour. After a blackmailing scandal that outed her husband's infidelity, Post started a professional novelist's career. She wrote Etiquette as an alternative to the labrynthine rulebooks that came before.

During the Gilded Age, the rules of etiquette had become increasingly baroque; to be considered well-bred, a lady had to know not just how to wield a knife and fork but where to seat the guest of honor at a formal dinner, how to arrange a receiving line, when to send flowers to whom, and what to wear to a morning function, an afternoon function, and a ball. (As one etiquette writer of the eighteen-eighties observed, "Not even a saint could, from ‘inner consciousness’ alone, evolve a conception of the thousand and one social observances of modern fashionable life.")

In contrast to these esoteric rule books, as The New Yorker tells us, “Etiquette has characters — the Worldlys, the Wellborns, the Toploftys — who periodically appear and reappear to make introductions, hold christenings, and ask friends to their great camps for the weekend." Post's book emphasized conformity — getting along with the customs of your surroundings. Claridge says this allowed anyone, paradoxically, to become an insider, or at least blend in.

When I was a kid, my mom was strict about manners, but we — not to mention my dad — were never sure why. The order of utensils and protocol of introductions seems arbitrary in a world where no one knew or followed the rules. In a sense, etiquette seemed to have lost its purpose — an easy path to conformity. Etiquette was important because it put you at ease, because you knew what to do in a given situation, because rules and structure, when you know them, provide comfort. In a vacuum, the actual ins and outs of protocol are essentially meaningless.

However, a few years ago I ran across something in another old etiquette book — I wish I could remember which — that suddenly really made all this a lot clearer. The gist was: the basis of all good manners is kindness - putting others at ease, making sure no one is uncomfortable. To the extent rules facilitate this, great; but they should exist to make people comfortable rather than the reverse. It's easy to point out lapses in manners or breaches of protocol, but that kind of petty snobbery shouldn't have anything to do with actual etiquette. If you read Emily Post, this was at the root of a lot of her rules, too —paradoxically designed to grease the wheels of social interaction rather than keep things stilted.

Obviously the kind of conformity Post preached can feel anathema to those of us raised on the gospel of individuality, even an artificial imposition of gratuitous strictures designed to further stratify society. Certainly it evokes a society anything but open to diversity. Yes, obviously her work is a time capsule, an anachronism — therein lies much of its fascination. But bridge luncheons aside, I feel like you could argue this about any set of rules: someone needs to set them out; used well they impose order and comfort, but they can be perverted and employed for exclusion. That someone could set them out so authoritatively and immediately be accorded respect seems particularly American — we're always looking for guides and rules, much as we scorn them. And reading her book, it's hard not t have a little nostalgia for a time when using the right fork could alleviate anxiety; it's certainly cheaper than therapy!

Place Settings [The New Yorker]

Pluck facial hair! Even Don does this alone. Huh?

The big runner-up for dudes was picking the nose. For girls it was, perhaps unsurprisingly, tampon related. Most of us will insert a tampon in the presence of others, but not pull out. Unless you're having sex. In which case it's kind of awesome and dirty if he pulls it out, though only commensurately with how gross and dirty it is if you can't find it in the morning and then one day, say, you spot it in the corner just as the cable guy shows up in your room.

Things A Man Should Never Do In The Company Of A Woman [MSN]