The Miami Sound Machine singer opened up her presidential interview with some hard-hitting questions about White House security:

GLORIA ESTEFAN:
It's very beautiful. And by the way, I have a very important question to start off this interview, which chimney will Santa be coming down?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Well, we think that he's going to be coming down into the Yellow Room, which is right at the middle of the Residence. So, that's where we are going to set the cookies and the milk, because after working all night, giving the gifts….

GLORIA ESTEFAN:
And something for the reindeers…

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
And the reindeers, we'll have a little reindeer snack out there…

GLORIA ESTEFAN:
That's wonderful…..

Now, I understand the interview was for a Christmas special called Nuestra Navidad—but, he's the President of the United States. You don't have a single political question for him? A compilation of Gloria's Obama interview utterances—which Ben Smith cleverly thought to isolate here—reads like an Emily Post guide on How to Make Polite Small Talk at a Cocktail Party. A sample:

GLORIA ESTEFAN:
How does it feel having your mother-in-law at the White House?

GLORIA ESTEFAN:
That's wonderful. I loved my mother-in-law as well.

GLORIA ESTEFAN:
Lets move on to the great honor of interviewing you…

GLORIA ESTEFAN:
Without a doubt, there are angels among us who help their neighbors....

GLORIA ESTEFAN:
Mr. President, would you be able to send holiday greeting to all the Hispanics watching? Did you practice your Spanish?

GLORIA ESTEFAN:
That's great.

And you thought the Oprah interview was going to be easy. Then again, Barry totally has a soft spot for Spanish-language pop stars—like the time Thalia convinced him to dance the salsa at a White House dinner—so maybe Univision was trying to take advantage of that.

[Full Obama-Estefan transcript at Politico]

• Madonna once called Guy Ritchie "retarded." Now he's getting revenge by calling her "retarded," too. Shit, celebrities can be so retarded. [Page Six]
  
  
• Oh, good! The gloves are coming off in Peter Brant's divorce from Stephanie Seymour. Court papers say that Seymour, who's famous for being a model, spends $50,000 on clothes every month and has been stealing art from the mansion she shared with Brant, who owns Interview. Yee-haw! [Page Six]
  
  
• Courtney Love, who posts a scary amount of late night tweets, would like to thank her parents for her ass, but nothing else. [Twitter]
  
  
• Get excited, people, because Tina Fey will again impersonate Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. [NYDN]
  
  
• Conrad Murray, the doctor everyone thinks killed Michael Jackson, may be arrested after failing to show up to family court to discuss the $13,000 he owes in back child support. [ET]
  
  
• Dina Lohan has a line of shoes, which we hope will be more bearable than Lindsay's pathetic fashion line. [Page Six]
  
  
• Kanye West loves Alexander McQueen sooo much. But in the straightest way possible, of course. [Kanye]
  
  
• Heidi Fleiss was in a "horrific" car crash back in June. Don't worry, though, she's as alright as she was before the crash, which we suppose isn't saying much, but it's something. [TMZ]
  
  
• Wow! So, Gourmet's closing's a big deal, huh? It's so big, in fact, that a cafe worker at Newark's airport recognized former editor Ruth Reichl and gave her a sandwich. If only all former Conde staffers were getting such treatment... [Page Six]

Doree was nice enough to stay seated at her computer long enough to stop counting the fat stacks of scrilla her and Love, Mom co-author Jessica Grose are raking in to help me with my mommy issues.

Okay. So: I totally flaked on sending my mom a present. Without plugging your book too hard, WTF DO I DO?! She's Jewish, and she's going to guilt me unless I come up with something solid.
well, the most important thing is to call.

Okay. And I shouldn't call collect, right?
that would be a no.

i was discussing this with my mom this morning in fact

because, even though i have now written a book that is of course the best possible present for mother's day, the irony (i think it's irony?) is that my mom was never a huge mother's day mom

she was like, when you were growing up i seem to remember you guys bringing me breakfast in bed

"but since your dad couldn't care less about father's day i felt like i couldn't make a big deal about it"

(my dad is israeli and doesn't really go in for these newfangled american consumerist holidays)

she was like, i'm fine with just some good wishes.

Okay, so, better question: how do I get my Mom to not care about Mother's Day? Enlist her in the IDF?
hmm, well it also helps for her to have a birthday that's really close to mother's day, like my mom does.

because then it's like kids whose birthdays are really close to christmas

you get a combined gift anyway

True. But let's say, uh, theoretically, I only did so-so with the birthday present.
since your mom neither has a birthday close to mother's day, nor is she married to an israeli, you might be out of luck.

In which case, I call and make a case for myself as a decent son. How do I do that?

then you are a bad son and all you can do is promise to atone for all your misdeeds on yom kippur.

but re: your question

i would call to wish her a happy mother's day and say something to the effect of, now that you're older and wiser you feel like you can really appreciate what a great mom she is, even if you were a little shit when you were younger.

etc.

flatter her

moms love flattery!

esp flattery about their mothering skills!

But I turned out like me.

So I should basically just lie to her?

yes.

Doree Shafrir's book, Love Mom, will make her money and your mom happy if you buy it for her.

Notable San Franciscan politician Nancy Pelosi has written a letter to the Justice Dept. asking them to ease antitrust laws so the dying San Francisco Chronicle might be able to merge or consolidate with something somewhere, and not die. This is in fact a fair request, but NANCY PELOSI LIBERAL MEDIA FRIENDS OH SURE, etc.


Whattayaknow, it's an interview with Fox News journalist Courtney Friel. Let's make up our own questions and answers. Courtney, how'd you get your job? "Well...I went on a date with Roger Ailes...OMG- I'm joking!!" Courtney, do you regret posing for Maxim and FHM? "I'm lucky I even had the opportunity to be in those magazines...which only came about as publicity for the show I was hosting at the time- the 'World Poker Tour.'" Wait, those are the real questions and answers.


A tipster tells us that Interview magazine is telling freelancers it can't pay them right about now, because they just don't have the cash. If you know more, email us.


The Writers Guild of America, West, which represents Hollywood screenwriters, is laying off 20 people by the end of the month. They have a $2 million budget gap and they had that writer's strike thing to deal with a while back and all the networks really aren't shelling out as much for writing as they used to, which adds up to 20 layoffs.

Recently departed Time managing editor Jim Kelly, the second-most famous "Jim Kelly" in New York state, tells John Koblin that ""Paid content in some fashion is just inevitable," then admits that the journalism business is so screwed up right now he's happy to just chill at home and read books and go to the movies. Smart man.

Andre Reed is open!

The visual artist and musician tells her friend Wiley that, "Manhattan seems pretty developed, you know what I mean? Like it has peaked in culture. The Village Voice called it McHattan. It's just become impossible for young, creative artists to live in New York." Should she finish that sentence with "and afford to buy my concert tickets?"

Considering the rising hype from this cultural wasteland is what brought the multi-talented musician and artist to prominence in the first place, her subsequent crack that she detects an overwhelming "feeling of entitlement" from the city's denizens is bound to turn off some of her unemployed, struggling supporters.

She recalls attending a recent event at the MoMA:

I performed at a show at the MoMA. There was this big dinner there, and I was seated in this hall with the mayor of New York and all these extremely wealthy art-supporting and art-buying people. There was a piece of work hanging in the hall—it was a fan. This fan was supposed to swing by the momentum of its own propeller. So, while we were having dinner, the fan was stopped, and the guy next to me, a curator at P.S.1, said, "Look, this is what art symbolizes today." Like, that piece of art is supposed to be moving, but just to have dinner we've stopped the art. That's what New York is like today. You can't have real art happen in an institution because rich people can make the world stop.

The conversation drifts towards the subject of authenticity.

That's what I miss, being a real human. Like, I'm just so grateful for the 10 years that I had in Sri Lanka when it was in the middle of a war and I was getting shot at, because now and again I remember glimpses of those times and I just go, "Wow, I'll never, ever see that again in my life. And I'm never gonna feel that, and I'm never gonna feel for a human being like that."

While the pregnant M.I.A. can afford to slam the urban hipster segment of her fanbase, that still doesn't explain why she wants to raise her kid here.

It's not so much dark times now, as profane and loud. Satire you'll have, oh dear me, indeedy yes. "Vomitous" and "awash" are two words that come to mind. It used to be that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. How antediluvian. Rather, everyone will now want a satirical YouTube film with 15 megabytes.

Satire we'll have. Rather, the real dearth in our world will be sweetness, comfort, thoughtfulness and civility. If I could do "Peanuts," that's what I'd be doing. Alas, I've tried. And oh, you get way, way richer.

So what do you think is the issue that people will end up voting on?
STEWART: Whatever happens that week. It all depends on when that Michelle Obama ''I hate whitey'' tape comes out. If it comes out now, it could dissipate by the election. But if it comes out a couple days before, that could be dangerous.
COLBERT: Jon? I have it.

There are a lot of issues in this election. The biggest one right now is the economy.
STEWART: We were in this huge credit crisis, out of money. Then the Fed goes, We'll give you a trillion dollars, and all of a sudden Wall Street is like, ''I can't believe we got away with it!'' Can you imagine if someone said, ''I shouldn't have bought that sports car because it means I can't have my house,'' and the bank just said, ''All right, you can have your house. And you know what? Keep the car.'' [He throws up his arms joyfully and shouts] ''Yeaaaaah, I get to keep the car! Wait, do I have to give the money back?'' ''No, it doesn't matter.'' ''Yeah, I'm gonna get another car! I'm gonna do the same thing the same way, except twice as fucked up!''
COLBERT: The idea that Lehman Brothers doesn't get any money and AIG does reminds me very much of ''Iran is a mortal enemy because they have not achieved a nuclear weapon. But North Korea is a country we can work with, because they have a nuclear weapon.'' The idea is, Get big or go home. How big can you fuck up? Can you fuck up so bad that you would ruin the world economy? If it's just 15,000 who are out of jobs, no. You have to actually be a global fuck up to get any help.

Can any [politician] break through this mess?
STEWART: I worry that those people are there, but we won't recognize them — or we'll destroy them so thoroughly that their voice won't be heard. I just imagine Lincoln out there, and people throwing the gay stuff at him. ''And what about depression running in his family?''

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You guys regularly make a mockery of the 24-hour news networks. Do you see anything good about the format?
JON STEWART: It's Muzak now. You ever walk into a clothing store in New York City and they're not playing music? And you go, ''What's going on here? Did a virus hit? This doesn't seem right.'' Twenty-four-hour news now is this weird companion to my life.
STEPHEN COLBERT: There's not more news now than there was when we were kids. There's the same amount from when it was just Cronkite. And the easiest way to fill it is to have someone's opinion on it. Then you have an opposite opinion, and then you have a mishmash of fact and opinion, and you leave it the least informed you can possibly be.
STEWART: We've got three financial networks on all day. The bottom falls out of the credit market, and they were all running around. On CNBC I saw a guy talking to eight people in [eight different onscreen] boxes, and they were all like, ''I don't know!'' It'd be like if Hurricane Ike hit, and you put on the Weather Channel, and they were yelling, ''I don't know what the fuck is going on! I'm getting wet and it's windy and I don't know why and it's making me sad! Maybe the president could come down and put up some sort of windscreen?'' By being on 24 hours a day, you begin to not be able to tell what's salient anymore.

Read the whole interview here.

Palin is expected to do the interview in the middle of this week, when she gets back to Alaska. The ABC/Gibson treatment will probably suit campaign manager Rick Davis, who has been whining that the press dares to ask questions about Palin's beliefs and record, but insisted on Fox News this morning, "She's not scared to answer questions."

Joe Biden, meanwhile, challenged Palin on today's Meet the Press, saying, "Eventually she's going to have to sit in front of you like I'm doing and have done. Eventually she's going to have to answer questions and not be sequestered. Eventually she's going to have to answer questions about her record." [Newsweek]

Yeah, but not on Meet the Press.

What does Cheech think about your book? You say some things in there about him "going straight" and wearing his Nash Bridges suits.
Yeah, well he hasn't read it yet. [Laughs]

What do you think he's going to say?
He won't like it, for sure. But Cheech has a habit of not dealing with unpleasantness. He probably won't read it.

Are you nervous about the comedy tour? Reuniting after 26 years?
Well, I wasn't really sold until we went onstage together in La Jolla, California two weekends ago. We absolutely destroyed the audience. They were so happy. We were so happy. It was as if we'd been off for two weeks. And the bits just fell together.

What do you think about the latest batch of stoner films — Pineapple Express, Harold & Kumar?
I read some reviews about Pineapple Express and one was very interesting. They said these movies, including ours, are an experience. It's like a contact high. If you look at all the Cheech and Chong movies, no one ever got hurt, no one ever got killed — the most you ever got was high.

Something else you wrote is that you think it's harder now to produce these kind of movies. Why do you think that is?
Nowadays, with Seth [Rogen] and those guys, they have directors, you know, and writers, a lot of people writing, and they've got money and a lot of intelligence and energy. Cheech and I, we lucked into this. The only thing I would do that these guys do, and I would definitely do next time we do a movie is rehearse. Cheech and I never used to rehearse, especially movies, you know. And you can see it. In Still Smoking, you can see first takes. Everything was first takes. [Laughs] We never got really comfortable and, all of a sudden, we're onto the next because I wanted to capture that rawness, that newness. But since I've been on That 70s Show, I learned the joy of rehearsing; If it's funny the first take, you can make it hilarious the 7th, 8th, 10th take.

When was the last time you and Cheech smoked together?
Couple of years ago. Oh no, what am I saying? The other day. We had an autograph session. We smoked up. See how pot does? It's either a couple of years, or yesterday. [Time]

[via LATblog]

One second you're on a squeaky-clean Canadian soap, the next moment you're in high heels and panties in a Maxim shoot.

I wasn't like 18, where it was sending off sparks and it was taboo, you know how the American public likes to do that. The show's publicist one day called and said, "Would you be interested in doing Maxim?" And I said, "Do I get the cover?" And she said no. And I said, "Hell yeah!" So she broke it down and I was really happy with it. And that helped me get "Cleaner." Not that I was dressing like that — but it put a different image in people's heads.

When we know you as someone in an armor bodysuit, it does change the perspective on you.

Just look at media, and how they like to do headlines. You want to catch people's attention. Eh, I dunno! It happened to work. Some people will go further than others.

Are there points where you've sat down with your professionals and said, "OK, what do I do? How do I get to where I want to be?"

Not really! At that point I only had one, if you want to say "people," I only had an agent. I didn't have anyone in L.A. — I had an agent in Vancouver. And meanwhile I know people in the States collect a dozen people. Talking to my castmates, they say, "Oh, my financial manager, publicist, manager, agent" — there are so many. . . . I think I actually follow my gut a little bit more. If there was a Jim Carrey movie? For sure I'd want to be in it. We have our lists. I just haven't hit too many of those [...]

You would think we were, on the coasts, a nation of hedonist atheists. You know, all those godless gays and Jews in Hollywood.

There's a lot of Jewish people in L.A. and I didn't know that! I was like, "Jewfro? What's a Jewfro?" And half the people were laughing. I was like, "What are you guys in on?" What's matzo ball soup? What's actually in it? Everybody just knows, right? I was like, "Is it meat? Is it flour?" I just had my first a few months ago.

[Ah, Choire. Always with the gay Jews. Read the rest of the interview here.]

Q. Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris in an Internet musical in which the lovable loser baddy is kind of the good guy, and the good guy is kind of a dick—and it's a musical?! Um, how? Wha? How on earth did this develop?

A. Who is to say who is the villain and who is the hero? Probably the dictionary. But I know that people who grow up identifying with outsiders are the people I are. Plus singing is the universal language, along with being on fire.

Q. You worked with Nathan on the last season of Buffy—he was scary and he thumbed poor Xander's eye out!! I hate him! But, oh, he was awesome in Firefly and Serenity, so I love him!—but how did you hook up with Neil Patrick Harris for "Dr. Horrible"? Do geek heros (or heros of geeks) just hang out in all the same places?

A. You can go to Famousperson.org and rent them. You can also get lesser celebrities on EBaio. Hey-oh!

Q. Nathan Fillion strikes me as a great big pirate/cowboy sort of man-among-men. Surely such men cannot sing! Can he? LIke really?

A. Nate's got pipes. (But we used Marni Nixon's voice anyway.) There's very little Nate can't do. He's a renaissance man! Like with the sculpting and the Italian guys!

Q. In my dreams I traverse great depths and voids of unnamed space and find myself in a netherworld where untold numbers of Buffy and Firefly props are just laying around and I can just take them back to my apartment and mount them in the sweetest little shrines. What Buffy/Firefly props have you held onto as personal mementos?

A. I have a life-sized Sean Maher made of human flesh that keeps screaming that it's the real Sean Maher and I should unchain it. Amazing technology!

Q. Seriously, though. Nathan Fillion. Singing? James Marsters, maybe, but Fillion?

A. Nathan will sing your scrotum off, Poi-Dog!

Q. Any surprise cameos we can look forward to in "Dr. Horrible"? I know I could use a fix of some Anthony Head or Emma Caulfield about now. I'm dying!

A. Two words, true believer: no. Ah, there was no second word. Sorry.

Q. I love that your fiercest ass-kickers are always girls. Buffy, Willow, Anya, River Tam, and I'm kind of assuming that Eliza Dushku's character in Dollhouse is going to be the main force to be reckoned with. Yet we're in the middle of a summer of action blockbusters and only one of them, Wanted, even involves a powerful woman. Is there some reason that we can have a woman or a girl be the main action hero on TV but not in movies?

A. Movies are from the Devil. Also, it's only recently women got to be action heroes on TV. Progress is slow, and often non-existent. There's plenty of cool comics with female characters... But all it takes is one Catwoman to set the cause back a decade.

Q. Speaking of which. You're becoming an important voice for equal rights and protection for women and girls. The mainstream press seems to think that problem's been largely solved. But it remains, of course, a cultural disaster. You've written and spoken about this quite a bit. Where can people sign up to get involved?

A. Equality Now could always use support. Sadly, always.

Q. On a lighter note: Han or Luke?

A. Admiral Akbar, loser.

Q. Some fans have already launched a campaign to save Dollhouse from fickle network programmers who cancel everything that doesn't have enough fart jokes. Other fans see these organizers as casting a desperate light on Dollhouse since it hasn't even aired yet. Do you have a stand?

A. I love the effort, but do think it tends to put us in the cheap seats.

Q. Battlestar Galactica's Blonde Tomboy Space Girl (AKA Starbuck) is so clearly Wheadonian with her hot, hot fighting abilities and messianic visions... The BSG writers love you. When are you doing a cameo?

A. When Ron Moore stops admiring his shiny mane long enough to realize Starbuck could never love Lee as she would love pasty me.

Q. Quick! Best episode of The Odd Couple ever.

A. The last. No wait! The one in the middle.

Q. No matter where in the world you live nowadays, the monkeys—especially the terrible, terrible spider monkeys—are encroaching with hateful motives. What do you intend to do about this?

A. Until you take Monkey into your heart, you will never be allowed into the Jungle of Heaven.

The trouble started, we hear, when Wintour found out that star fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier had some work in the latest issue of Interview. Demarchelier is closely associated with Vogue, and has shot numerous covers for domestic and international issues of the magazine.

Further, we hear that Demarchelier may be on an extremely lucrative exclusive contract with Vogue. So Wintour "flipped her shit" at the thought of him working for a semi-competitor. She got so upset that eventually she had to go and have a mob-like "Sit down" meeting with Glenn O'Brien, who oversees Interview for Brant Publications and is not a fan of celebrities.

The outcome of that meeting is unclear. But everyone involved better hope that Wintour cools off. Her reaction to Demarchelier's perceived betrayal was to call around to Vogue's top photographers—including Brad Pitt chronicler Steven Klein—and urge (order?) them not to shoot any photos for Interview. We hear that this isn't the first time she's gotten angry like this; she tried to tell photographers not to work for Tina Brown's ill-fated Talk magazine when it launched, too.

The upshot of her earlier attempt to keep all the good photographers for herself? They all got to jack up their own prices, which may have played a role in Demarchelier getting such a lucrative contract from Vogue in the first place.

Such a cut-throat fashion photography world. Or so we hear! If you have anything to add, email us.

Q. Books are weird and old and almost nobody buys them anymore. Why bother writing one? What're you trying to pull?

A. Books may be weird and old, but when the terrorists launch their EMF War against us (electro-magnetic frequency) and all electronic data is erased, isn't it comforting to know that you'll still be able to curl up with a book containing an essay entitled "How to Approach the Sensitive Question - Anal?"

Q. And the people who still buy books are ladies, mostly, and they mostly only buy books written by ladies with a photo of pretty feet and/or shoes on the cover. How are you gonna leap this hurdle?

A. I have an advantage with the female book-buying population in that I am a very attractive man. Women go gaga over my pronounced jaw line, high cheekbones, and full, supple lips. So I'm trying to emphasize those qualities to the book-buying population. How am I doing this? In every interview, I make sure to discuss my jaw line, high cheekbones, and full, supple lips. Also, I smell like chocolate.

Q. David Sedaris makes me angry and mumbly, but I'm not really sure why. Meanwhile, his sister, Amy Sedaris, makes me want to marry her every time she says or does anything at all. Why does she rule and he kind of makes me want to hang myself in the shower like that guy in An Officer and a Gentleman, or at least fling feces at him like the monkeys at the zoo?

A. This is a question that has bedeviled me for, literally, years! How can one family produce, on one hand, an American icon (Amy) and a virulent anti-American crusader (David)? It just doesn't make sense. I think you can learn a lot by looking at their individual books: David writes poignant, often painful essays about dysfunctionality (a word I think I just made up), while Amy writes recipes for cupcakes. That pretty much tells you all you need to know.

Q. Speaking of monkeys... Some monkeys are dangerous and terrible, while some monkeys are adorable and probably know the Secrets of the Universe. In your estimation, what is the most horrible kind of monkey, and what is the most wonderful kind of monkey? (Warning: I already know the answer, so I will correct you if you get this wrong.)

A. Obviously, the most wonderful kind of monkey is the baby chimpanzee. Michael Jackson proved that to us with Bubbles. Once they get much older than three, though, they get too grabby and should probably be euthanized. As for the most dangerous and terrible kind of monkey, that's easy—flying monkeys.

(The correct answer is that drunk monkeys are the most adorable and the worst monkeys are the terrible, terrible spider monkeys!)

Q. What is the greatest sandwich of all time? And why?

A. You can't beat a good reuben. The reuben is maybe the perfect combination of terrlble-for-you-meat, terrible-for-you-cheese, and terrible-for-you salad dressing, all mushed together on fried bread. It is truly fantastic. Better even than the Big Mac, which is also among the greatest sandwiches of all time, and which also includes salad dressing.

Q. I can't write my own stuff for more than three hours at time, excluding editing. Do you have a process? If so, what is it?

A. Sure. I use the QWERTZ method. I find that it's the most efficient process for writing ever invented. Also, when I write, I tend to try to think as much as I and and then just transcribe my thoughts as fast as I can. Thinking is easier than writing, so I just try to think instead of write.

Q. I actually love every single version of "I Love The..." on VH1. Even that weird 90s one! Is there another in the making?

A. I assume they will continue to make them until time itself comes to an end.

Q. We do our own "I Love The..." for the 80s and the 70s every weekend here. We call it "One More Thing." A theme is presented, and then everyone posts their fave clips and comments and comments and comments. Why won't you help? How hard is that? Just sign in and post a YouTube clip. Geez!

A. The only reason I won't help is because I never read this site. Otherwise, I would be all over that shit.

Q. Has Sedaris or any of his feverish followers contacted you yet? I kind of have to think that they have. Because they would.

A. There have been some Sedaris fans who have taken up his banner for him and defended him, which is at should be. One woman told me I wasn't witty enough to carry his shoes, which I thought was a strange thing to say, because honestly, how witty do you need to be to carry somebody's shoes? Carrying shoes requires no wit at all, which I suppose was her point, but even the completely witless, even those with negative wit, could carry his shoes, particularly because he has such small feet.

Q. Do you have Amazon Fever yet? You know, where you check your book's stats every few hours? And have they coupled your book to someone you can't stand yet? Because they love to do that.

A. They have coupled my book with my comedy album, entitled "I am a Wonderful Man," so to answer your question, yes. Because I am self-loathing. And yes, I do check my Amazon stats all the time because I really don't want to fail in this endeavor as I have in so many others.

Q. Bonus Question: What is the best thing to come out of the 80s? And what is the worst?

A. Best thing to come out of the 80's: the video for Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again." Worst: The phrase, "Hey, did you see the Space Shuttle blow up?"

Q. Another bonus Question! Why is David Sedaris?

A. Because he can.

• "There was more of a flow to my output of writing in the past, certainly. Having no contemporaries left means you cannot say, 'Well, so-and-so will like this,' which you do when you’re younger. You realize there is no so-and-so anymore. You are your own so-and-so. There is a bleak side to it."
• "My general response to boarding school was: anything to get away from that fucking mother of mine. She was a monster."
• "When I was young, I was bored shitless with being desired by others. I don’t look in the mirror anymore."
• "I lived with Howard for fifty years, but what we had was certainly not romantic love, not passionate love. And it certainly was nonsexual. Try and explain that to the fags."
• "Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country."
• "When she was running for the Senate, Hillary’s psephologists discovered that the one group that really hated her was white, middle-aged men of property. She got the whole thing immediately — I heard she said, “I remind them of their first wife.” [Esquire via Hollywood-Elsewhere]

(Photo from David Weisman collection via Hamptons.com)

When we correctly broke the story that Interview Editor-In-Chief Ingrid Sischy was leaving, the mag's PR flacks were like "Naw!" and we were like "okay!" but then they were like "Um actually yeah!" and we were like "ad;flk! told you so!" Also, we didn't really delve into the whole hot lesbian affair side of things. Too much integrity/class! Post's Page Six wasn't afraid to go there. From today, "[Newly sole Interview owner] PETER Brant might as well have told Ingrid Sischy, "And don't let the door hit you on your way out," after he bought out his ex-wife's half of Interview magazine last week. Sischy edited Interview for 18 years, working closely with the publisher, her longtime girlfriend, Sandy Brant. But Peter sounded like he was still wounded that his wife left him for a woman."

Asked what the magazine would be without Sischy and her extensive contacts driving the content, Brant told WWD: "To say that Interview is a product of Ingrid's friends . . . that's like saying, 'What's Vogue going to be like without [former editor] Grace Mirabella?' Anna Wintour does a really great job." Glenn O'Brien, Interview's new editor, whom Peter has cast as the new Wintour, promised in the Times to make Interview "more international and artistic - and definitely funnier." And Brant twisted the knife, saying, "I just thought they could really use some direction, going forward, of a younger generation of people." Friends of Ingrid were shocked at Brant's ungallant slap at a gifted editor who devoted so much work and so many years to making his magazine profitable.

Renowned Editor of Interview Magazine Ingrid Sischy Resigns After 18 Years



NEW YORK, Jan. 23 /PRNewswire/ — Ingrid Sischy today announced her resignation as Editor-in-Chief of Interview Magazine. "I have had the honor of editing one of the most unique titles in magazine publishing and working with tremendously talented people in our industry. With Sandra Brant's decision to sell her interest in Brant Publications, it is only appropriate that I resign at this time. Sandy and I have worked together as a team, and that has been a huge part of the fun of it. While it is difficult to contemplate being away from this extraordinary experience, the time is right and Interview is firmly positioned for even greater success," Sischy commented.

Over Ms. Sischy's tenure she has built Interview into an internationally recognized title that covers the world of art, fashion, entertainment and pop culture. During her more than 18 year tenure as Editor-in-Chief the circulation of the magazine has grown significantly and has become a mainstay vehicle for marketers around the world who are interested in reaching a discerning, culturally aware audience.

"When I was first drafted as editor after Andy Warhol's death I thought I'd stay a few years, devote myself to helping the magazine find its post-Warhol life, and then get back to my writing. Although leaving the magazine and wonderful staff behind is difficult, it is the right decision and one that will allow the new owners to establish their own editorial stamp on the magazine. I am now more than ever, eager to get back to my writing and have several big projects in front of me that need my attention"

"Managing such an important part of Andy Warhol's legacy has been a huge responsibility and I am proud of what Sandy and my editorial team have accomplished in terms of content and growth. I wish everyone the best of luck and hope this great American magazine will continue to flourish," Sischy concluded.

"Ingrid has done a masterful job of making Interview successful. When she first arrived here after Andy's death the future of the magazine was in question and there was an enormous amount of anxiety. She not only moved us through that period but has taken the magazine to a level of success and recognition that is beyond anything we thought possible. Her leadership, thoughtfulness, journalistic expertise and editorial vision have been critical," Sandra Brant commented.

Ms. Sischy started her career at Artforum Magazine in 1979 and is a widely published author on a range of cultural subjects. She has contributed to a broad range of magazines, including The New York Times, and has been the fashion and photography critic for The New Yorker. In 1996 she was the Artistic Director of the first Florence Fashion Biennale, conceiving and organizing the exhibition which occupied 26 museums throughout Florence, Italy and its outskirts. Part of this exhibition was subsequently presented at the Guggenheim Museum. Sischy has been a contributing editor for Vanity Fair since 1997. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she received an honorary PhD in the humanities from the Moore College of Art in 1987.