Lecture Hop Editor Pierce Stanley attended this year's New Yorker Festival. Here, he discusses the Festival's ethos and the state of political dialogue. And protein bars, there are those too.

The Metropolitan Pavilion, a sleek hardwood floored and white-walled Chelsea outpost nestled comfortably on 18th Street, played host this weekend to the city's finest exercise in pretension, the New Yorker Festival. The festival, as usual, lived up to all of the bloated expectations of ostentatious spectacle that any New Yorker might anticipate from Condé Nast's favorite love-child, but yesterday's "Campaign Trail" panel on domestic politics surprisingly departed from that mold.

Compared to last year's all-star lineup (Ian Buruma vs. Martin Amis! A master class with Robert Hass!) this year's New Yorker Festival is oddly underwhelming. In any event, there are some things that should prove interesting and worthwhile. Here's what we think they are, not including things that are sold out:

Friday, October 3:

Race and Class in America
With Barbara Ehrenreich, Thomas Frank, John McWhorter, Leslie Sanchez, and Cornel West. Moderated by David Remnick. 7 p.m. Town Hall ($20)

One of the wonkier of the Festival's events, the New Yorker editor himself will moderate the panel of Nickel and Dimed author Ehrenreich, Baffler-founder and author of What's the Matter with Kansas? Frank, market researcher Sanchez, linguist and Sun columnist McWhorter, and Princeton professor (and Matrix star, kind of!) West.