Evan Clark ties up the disastrous year for the fashion industry with the observation that the New Frugality caused by the financial crisis seems "destined to reshape the industry" and means more "lean times and fewer dollars in the till." "We're going to go back to a 1950-, 1960-type mentality, where you save a percentage of your take-home pay to start and you live within your means beyond that," Paul Nolte, director of investments at Hinsdale Associates, tells Clark. Bankruptcies and consolidation are inevitable, people are scared, and cash is king again. "I started in retailing at the …

Laura Petrecca's compilation of the best and worst creative efforts of the year -- as proffered by trend forecasters, marketing consultants, ad agency executives, professors, USA Today readers and the Ad Team reporting staff -- contains links to videos embedded on the newspaper's Web site. The result is the disconcerting sensation of having to suffer through, say, a commercial for Nationwide insurance before watching the upbeat Wal-Mart spot or the "Whassup '08" online video for Obama (YouTube version sans ad) you actually came to see. And the newspaper business wonders why it's in trouble.

When I find myself reading above and beyond the call of duty, there's something special going on -- and that's what I did with Ad Age's "The Book of Tens" issue of Dec. 15. Pithy commentary accompanies such assemblages as "Consumerist's Biggest Business Debacles," "Ads Garfield Loved" and "People Who Made Their Mark." PR stunts have always been a favorite of mine, and disasters are even better. Michael Bush's "Dubious Attempts at Public Relations" doesn't disappoint. Predictably, many of the examples fall on the wrong side of The New Frugality, such as a …

When it comes to automobiles, no one really wants to look in the rearview mirror. But the road ahead is not much better, and Warren Brown's concluding "Happy New Year" drips with irony. "All of the talk about making the domestic car companies 'restructure' and become 'profitable' and 'viable' is nonsense -- as much nonsense as returning Toyota to untroubled, long-term profitability -- if we don't get serious about putting people back to work and paying and treating them in ways that make them feel profitable and viable," he writes.

Tom Petruno's illuminating collection of dimwitted remarks and downright obfuscations will leave you yearning for some good, old-fashioned marketing speak. Take Goldman Sach's chairman Lloyd Blankfein talking about the credit crisis. "We're closer to the end than the beginning," he said. "I think we're getting to that point where people are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel." Later, he said: "Maybe we're at the end of the third quarter, beginning of the fourth quarter. If you watch sports, sometimes there's a lot of timeouts in the fourth quarter. It takes longer to play than any of …

We hate to go out on such a sobering note. "What happened in the world of cocktails this past year, and how are Americans' drinking habits changing?" asks Liane Hansen of Ted Haigh, curator of the Museum of the American Cocktail. It turns out that the big thing of 2008 going into 2009 is a revival of Corpse Reviver No. 2: an ounce of London dry gin, an ounce of Cointreau, an ounce of Lillet blanc, an ounce of fresh lemon juice and two or three drops of absinthe. "It was originally conceived to be consumed in …