As a male viewer of Sex in the City since the very beginning, I want to know what would happen to “Big” in this environment?

I am a SITC devotee, but was disappointed in the movie - the characters weren’t nearly as emotionally intelligent as they had been in the TV series and their interactions seemed under-developed. Did parts of the movie wind up on the cutting-room floor?

Makes me glad I don’t have television and have never seen or read anything this woman has written. What a waste of an interview and what utter BS about NYC in the 70’s and 80’s. She has nothing to say.

I’m surprised to hear her so on the defensive about promoting materialism. A little disappointed by what she (doesn’t?) have to say.

Love the show (On Point that is) in general, can’t listen to this interview. I agree with Drew but would just add that “Sex and the City” is not “social anthropology” as she has claimed twice. I don’t think Candance Bushnell knows what anthropology really is. I don’t think she can see past her own ego.

Tom, forget it, it’s like trying to get blood from a rock, get Jack back on a let him riff on the economy if you want to save the rest of this show.

This woman is a total wind bag. My ears hurt from just listening to her. This is a waste of an hour - particularly after the intelligent discussion about the economy that preceded. Who vetted this woman?? Bad programming idea, guys.

I am a little floored that Candace calls this cultural anthropology. Sex and the City, Lipstick Jungle, this is chick lit. Don’t get me wrong - I adored Sex and the City. But it’s fantasy. 99% of the population has never had a 3 martini lunch. Now, tall frosty beers and nachos on the other hand…

I think she’s closer to the characters she writes about than she’s admitting. Look in the mirror lady.

I have to agree w/ Drew. Cultural Anthropology? Yeah. And I feel I would be unable to adhere to civility when expressing how her voice makes me feel physically.

Tom, your guest Candace Bushnell is a Big Crashing Bore! You had such a great show in the previous hour (Issues ‘08) and now we get this. I never watched more than 5 minutes of the TV show “Sex and the City” because it was so superficial and boring. When I was a kid, I played with my Barbie dolls and then I grew up. This cultural flotsam is nothing more than Barbies for immature adults who want to fantasize about what it would be like to be rich and unconcerned about more important issues in the world.

Thousand-dollar shoes? How about the millions of people in the world who not only don’t have shoes but also no food and no access to clean water, etc. etc. I love New York and I love fashion, culture, music; all of that. But, in my opinion, this woman represents nothing but self-indulgence.

I loved Sex in the City, but I think that people who watch it (especially other countries) may get a really unrealistic notion of the lifestyle you can have in NYC and America. Carrie, for example, had a collection of shoes that I don’t believe 99% of writers could afford. If Candice was honest about reality, she would have shown the downfalls of being so irresponsible with her money. Instead Carrie just does better and better despite her irresponsible spending habits.

As a writer at her level what she chooses to write DOES promote a particular lifestyle. That’s very different than saying she’s “causing” consumerism.

This is the dumbest interviewee Tom’s ever had on.

Let’s see — because of the CPI, the entire economy is predicated on consumers consuming. If anyone criticizes the materialism in my anthropological studies, they are both wrong and jealous because materialism is human nature. Think about it. People have been buying things for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

Is that what this lady just said?

Ms. Bushnell got quite upset when a listener questioned her characters and their shallowness, but then went on to wonder if too much money is like porn.

It’s only a good idea if she’s the one talking. It’s a monologue. A boring monologue.

New York is an important center of commerce and culture, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. Many New Yorkers seem to miss this fact.

Tom, I’m sorry you had to spend an hour talking to this vapid label-gazer.

I enjoy SITC, but I can not handle this interview. Sorry, but am turning you off until the top of the hour.

This must have been a difficult interview! From the listener’s standpoint it was laughable, but poor Tom! Hearing this woman talk just confirmed my decision not to watch SITC. I really wanted to hear her answer the question about whether she personifies the characters/lifestyle of SITC, but what she said in response was no answer at all; it seemed like as she was hearing the question she was deciding what she wanted to talk about, then her opportunity came and she went for it - totally off-topic and totally nothing.

What a waste of time. I had to turn it off. But thanks for trying, anyway, Tom.

I was so excited about this interview but… Ms. Bushnell is so shrill and defensive about her contributions to American culture. I loved the Sex and the City TV show, but the world in which it existed is long gone. Satire or not, the world she created certainly had an effect on our wider culture. The contrast between SATC’s materialistic world and our current economic crisis is too much to ignore.

Have to agree with Blair and Drew: such a sad interview! She’s so obviously and obnoxiously defensive that she knows at some level that she’s writing “luxury porn.” Her writing is not much different than real porn. It debases real life by celebrating the physical extremes. The “gloss” of overpriced shoes and clothes isn’t just “dressing”, and she certainly did do a lot to reinforce the shallow materialism that’s made the luxury good industry almost as profitable as the porn industry. And when she tries to defend it, she sounds like Larry Flint talking about how Hustler celebrates relationships!

I love On Point and was interested to hear a show on one of my semi-guilty pleasures. But I have to agree with most of the previous comments. Bushnell pretty much killed my hopes for a great critical analysis with her response to the very intelligent question a caller asked about materialism. I have a hard time believing ANY writer who writes so much about one subject claiming that they are purely a satirist and not at all implicated in what they are satirizing.

I certainly never watched SATC the show for “cultural anthropology.” I appreciated its intelligence and its sometimes sarcastic perspective on the NYC high life, but I watched it for fun. A friend who has read all of Bushnell’s writing (I haven’t) said her work does pretty much the same thing. And I somehow doubt any of it would be so popular if it was truly removed from and critical of materialism.

This would be a much more intelligent broadcast if Bushnell would just admit it (and quit yelling at Tom when he dares challenge her on it!).

I love all of Candace Bushnell’s books and am looking forward to reading her new one. But it is blatantly obvious to me (being an anthropologist) by listening to her on this program that she lives in a very elite and materialistic world. One very much unlike the one that my friends and I live in. It is very unrealistic and unobtainable to most of us. It is nice to peek into this world for the rest of us! Keep writing! We love to read what you’ve written.

A sociologist caller! This should be good.

This poor lady! Tom is sexist! Ha ha ha. No -we’re all god’s children, but the problem with materialism is that it obsesses and there’s so much else that doesn’t get learned and practiced by the materialist. “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Sex and the City as a teaching tool is great, yes -but only along with, say Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, where the young Joyce leaves the priesthood, but learns the difference between the pornographic and the didactic.

Good boy Tom - bring it!

Sex and the City has always struck me as so clearly born of a pre-9/11 mindset. This sort of self-involved, fashion-crazed navel gazing seems so out of place to me now. Ms. Bushnell certainly lacks no ego - I find her to be a rather impolite guest.

Poor Tom, this is one of the worst interviews I’ve ever heard.

I love the series SATC, but I never knew what a dolt Candace Bushnell really was in real life. I wish she would get off her defensive high horse and had something real to say. Poor Tom. Can we end this now?

Candace, On Point is honoring your work by offering you this time on their program. Why are you so angry? I’m not sure I can appreciate your work in the same way in the future.

Could you just get her off?!?!?!?!

Sex in the City to me is the most pretentious piece of joke about modern women!!!!

Get over yourself, Lady! I don’t care how long you have been writing, your stuff is just pink boa junk, even if you have had writen for 100 yrs….
Please, Tom, why do you have to torture us loyal listeners like this??? As if the current crisis is not bad enough….

I’m wondering if she’s sober . . .

It is so funny to listen to Mr. Ashbrook trying to interpret Ms. Bushnell’s work as something seriously reflective of the crises in the world economies. I don’t think you’re going to get there from this sort of material.

My god, this woman has problems. Why is she so offended about the shoe line? I haven’t seen too many episodes, but that stuff certainly wasn’t window dressing. It’s not just the same as a story of a wall-mart manager.

I liked the episodes I saw, though.

“Enough about me. What do you think about my books”?

This, too, will pass — in about 9 minutes.

Looking forward to tomorrow

Makes me glad I don’t have television and have never seen or read anything this woman has written. What a waste of an interview and what utter BS about NYC in the 70’s and 80’s. She has nothing to say.

I agree 100%. I watched Lipstick Jungle once; I like Brooke Shields and I thought I would give it a shot. It was the worse show I have seen in a long time.

The script is full of one dimensional shallow characters. Although Shields’ character has some depth but compared to the others that’s not saying much.

This is TV at its worst. Now I know why I watch Masterpiece Theater.

Tom, I really give you credit for keeping your cool with this self-indulgent idiot. Listening to her would surely have given me an anxiety attack were it not for your example of tolerance evidenced by the fact that you didn’t strangle her!

I am impressed that Bushnell made a career as a writer, coming up from nothing and no money. That is a feat — no question.

But what she writes is rather like porn. Again, it *is* label-gazing, taken to a high art form. I never watched more than a few seconds of SATC, and even *I* knew about the Manolo Blahniks. The Blahniks were NOT window dressing in SATC. They were central to what the show was about, it seems.

You can have beautiful, gorgeous shoes and dresses for 1/100 the price of those Blahniks and have some money left over to send to charity. Or, lately, maybe, “eat”.

If people are less interested in “celebrity culture”, as Bushnell fears, I say “Bravo”. Focusing on the films that a movie actor makes are one thing, but many of us are very tired of the “In Style” magazine journalism, giving us an exclusive view of Scarlett Johansen’s bathroom.

Small minds think about people. Medium size minds think about events. Large minds think about ideas. Miniscule minds think about the brand name of shoes that Sarah Jessica Parker wears.

(yawn)

Havr a drink after this one Tom.

Personally, I would kick the combative woman off the air. She simply doesn’t deserve air time. Frankly put, she is a shameless, self-promoting, abrasive, holier -than-thou woman in self-denial.

This woman is a hack. I was a fan of “Sex and the City”, but it was just a diversion - a piece of candy. Bushnell has nothing to say. Who is she to tell Tom what to ask her? He should ask her about the Internet? Please, let’s move on to the next program.

THIS WOMAN IS AN IDIOT AND BORING….I WAS THRILLED TO SEE THAT MANY OF THE COMMENTS WERE NEGATIVE…IT’S THE FIRST TIME EVER THAT I HAVE NOT ENJOYED A SESSION WITH TOM ASHBROOK!!!!

I just turned it off, sad day for On Point, very sad.

Tom you should have done a two hour special on the economy. We the people demand this. After all our tax dollars and donations are paying for this show.

Please stop this!!!!

It’s a good thing that I enjoy Ms. Bushnell’s writing; if all I had to go on was her oral narrative, I would consider her a failure.

This is the first time I’ve wanted to turn off “On Point”.

I hope Tom and his staff have a few cosmos at lunch to recover from this interview…

I’ve never been moved to comment on a radio show in real time before. This woman just spouted the largest load of horse-pucky I have ever ever heard on the radio.

All those people working 18 hour days at two jobs will be relieved to know that if they just worked a little harder or smarter, they could live in 1 Fifth Avenue apartments too.

Let this stuff go out on Fox radio, we don’t need it where there’s supposed to be intelligent discussion.

Tom, where was the come-back on that egregious statement? Did she have you totally cowed just because she disagreed with you?

30-something woman here. Why am I surprised to hear how shrill and defensive this woman is? Her work is pop-culture titillation, nothing more. Found the show to be amusing at best, find her to be obnoxious as can be. Good for you for making a bundle, honey, but let’s not make more of your work than it is.

She’s tougher in person than is on the page or screen. Aren’t “sociologists” supposed to have listening skills?

~

This show is un-listenable.

Everything Candace says is idiotic.

The sound of her voice is grating.

She would have better off professionally if she had never spoken.

One of On Point’s worst shows ever. I switched off after the first break when she ummed-and-ahhed her way right into the music because she had nothing to say. Moron.

~

Tom, I am fascinated not by the interviewee, but the incredible skill you have in navigating through what is a rather strange interview! Great job!

What an uncomfortable listening experience. Ms Bushnell was barely able to communicate her thoughts with complete sentences and was generally hostile. Very disappointing.

It was hard for Tom to even get a word in edgewise, b/c she just shouted over him - LET ME FINISH! Yikes.

Regarding the series, Sex in the City, although I have found it humorous and entertaining, and my sister and lots of old college roomates never miss an episode, I often wonder if the people who dramatize and celebrate people behaving immorraly ever feel partly responsible for the demise of morality in our society? Sex in the City, is like some rap music, which often times celebrates violence and crime, or like those dolls for little girls, Bratz, who dress trashy and are supposed to appeal to little girls. The show is funny but people who glamorize this type of behavior and make young people think “thats the way it really is out there” I feel are encouraging this behavior in the real world and are making it a worse place to live.

oh, and I love that she had the nerve to compare herself to Flaubert. Classic.

I loved SITC…thought the movie was entertaining also…but we have to remember — it’s just that: entertainment.
I understand the celebration of female friendship but to comment on it as some sort of anthropological study is giving more credit than it’s due. SITC was sharp, funny and satirical — but it certainly wasn’t epic, and the book was again, entertaining but no great literary work…and it didn’t have to be. Ms. Bushnell seemed so defensive about everything; and honestly I tuned out because she became tiresome, smug and almost shrewish. I thought she gave really smart attuned women a bad name.

I have long loathed sex in the city. To me it is as bad as rap songs talking about pimps and ho’s with the artist justifying the money making song with “hey it’s what I see.”
We all see bad things everyday but those in public life who have been true inspirers and artist exposed them, judged them, or created an alternative to them.
By saying materialism is “human nature” this author justifies glorifying in immature selfish sexual misadventures and narcissistic views of life balance the tv show has portrayed. Like a politician when being interviewed she double spoke and talked about the ills of this excess.
Whatever her goals may be I have seen how she has influenced women in their 20’s and early 30’s in a very negative way. It’s “giddy, glossy, rich and naughty decade” and the author doesn’t seem to realize why thats bad. From the many episodes Ive had to suffer through “including the movie” I am not being short sided or simplistic by saying I have little sympathy for any one man or woman who’s pursuit of power creates so many problems in their personal lives creating immature escapes in fantastical irresponsibility.
If it were a critique ok, but it’s glorification.

What an utterly contemptuous and shallow woman, I felt like I wanted to reach into the radio and shake her.

Tom did a good job at trying to get her to say something relatable. When they got to the underling issue of her glamorizing the decadent and materialistic NYC culture. Tom seamed to be saying “I see you identifying these less then admirable human traits, but why do you not make a commentary”

I think it when right over her narrow mind.

As an avid fan of Sex & The City, I have to say, I am completely disappointed by Ms. Bushnell. For someone wo apparently seems to think that her work has shaped past, present, and future, she has little of worth to say. She constantly repeats herself and even has the audacity to challenge the host…as if he couldn’t possibly understand how important her work is?! To Ms. Bushnell: Stick to the behind the scenes writing!! Your public persona is awful.

oh, and I love that she had the nerve to compare herself to Flaubert. Classic.
Posted by Jennifer, on October 9th, 2008 at 12:04 pm EDT

ROTFLMAO!

Tom!!!

After BRILLIANTLY moderating a show on one of the most significant and intellectually difficult topics in our lifetimes (The Economy, ‘08), you BRILLIANTLY survived the subsequent interview (One Fifth) WITH YOUR POISE IN TACT!!!

LOVE your show!!!

Tom, I feel like you deserve a sympathy card for having to endure Ms Bushnell for a whole hour. I tuned in halfway through.

Most of the callers and all of the reviewers were an order of magnitude more articulate than she was. If she is the cultural anthroplogist she claims she would have been able to answer questions without talking about herself, money and shoes. What a limited perspective. There is more to us than consuming.

And mentioning herself and Flaubert in the same time-space continuum was beyond astonishing.

This was the most awful hour of radio I’ve ever heard. Ms. Bushnell takes herself just a tad too seriously - I mean, cultural anthropology? I (guiltily) loved SATC and part of the fun of the show was the clothes and shoes, which seemed to be characters in the show as much as Carrie, et al. I don’t understand why something so frivolous has to be weighted down w/ this ‘intellectual’ gravitas. Please. Bushnell has apparently spent too much time w/ obsequious, vapid people and has bought into the hype that her writing is a) good, b) an important social commentary and/or satire and c) smart. It is none of the aforementioned. Why can’t she just find happiness in her success at providing millions of people a pleasurable escape from mundane life? Why must she indulge herself - and bore listeners - w/ pseudo-intellectual nothing-speak? Insulting.

Tom? Have you recovered yet? I was worried you’d blow a gasket trying to get through that ordeal. I think you might need a cosmo to recouperate from that simply noxious woman.
She takes herself entirely too seriously, yet writes poor chick lit, and thinks everyone around needs to see her as a ‘cultural anthropologist’. We see her for what she writes ‘escapism and drivel’. When we call her on it, she falls apart, ummms and ahhaas and proves our theory correct. suprised? not.

I, like most of the people who have commented, found Ms. Bushnell abrasive, brittle, and defensive. It’s not interesting to listen to a conversation with someone who can only accept adulation and who becomes hostile at any the first sign of difference of opinion or critique.

My preference would be for Ms. Bushnell never be asked back to On Point.

Oh, thank Goodness, the interview is over.

Ms. Bushnell, thank you for driving so many listeners crazy for nearly an hour. Without you, this comment thread would not exist.

And I can’t forget the listeners. Thank you for one of the most entertaining threads I’ve had the honor to read.

And Mr. Ashbrook, just thanks in general.

I haven’t even listened to this episode yet because it hasn’t aired in my market yet, but I’ve already gotten so much out of it. How can I not listen to it now?!!?

And even more important, how long will I last?

Over/under is 17 minutes. Place your bets. All proceeds go directly to the Bushnell Shoe Fund.

Tom, as one of the callers who phoned in this morning, I tried to be as polite as possible in asking your guest if she was not somehow conscious of the fact that in “satirizing” money, status, and power, she was not subtly glorifying it as well. Her reaction to this fair question was abrasive, immature and disappointing. I felt sorry for her an author–as she is defensive to honest criticism. Her works (which are not literary fiction) are part of a cannon of pop culture that does far more than reflect society, they influence it as well: to claim otherwise is disingenious. Her voice this morning–in both substance and form–is only further evidence (at least to me) that those who “create” and profit from this type of “art” or entertainment are very much a part of what is sinking american culture to the lowest common denominator (yet most profitable) of cliche, sexual voyeurism and bottom-line driven “anthropolgy”?. What ever happened to smart TV–like “Northern Exposure”, “St. Elsewhere” etc? I created the Emerson Circle at Sundance as an antidote to precisely the kind of “culture’/art/entertainment your guest promotes. I was looking forward to a civil exchange of opposing views; instead we all heard a pellmell of vanity and self-jusitification. Good work on biting your own tongue Tom. I know enough about you by now to assume this was a difficult hour for you. Matt

I was skeptical when I heard that Candace Bushnell would be on the show–how could it be relevant?–but Tom’s and the callers’ questions were at least valid and interesting. Her answers, however, were excruciating self-deluded tirades that wasted everyone’s time.

I’ll take an interview with one of the characters from Sex and the City over Candace anyday.

Tom, I am so used to the engaging interviews that you provide, that I was stunned to hear the intellectually and educationally barren soliloquys of Candace Bushnell during today’s interview. She is a boring person who thinks she knows everything and actually knows nothing. Her glaring lack of self confidence and her unattractive defensiveness was shown during the interview as she repeatedly was unable to answer, or even understand, your compelling big picture questions. She is a prime example of a middling business person in the literary world. Please book interviewees in the future who at least can understand your questions!

Normally we “hunker down” with consideration, but as bankkers one and all, the command is to “hunker up.” This means that we are to review potential value of a particular asset as a whole, as a component, and as a socially operable point of exhange. “Hunkering up” with such endless abundance as pervades Candace Bushnell leads one to conclude “human” and seek ecology untill it sings of the council of Trent. It hurts, an obscure pain resulting from losing our own sense of gravity. In the end a very valuable bank can spring up even though it should support only boron, proving yet again that money is only as fungible as its base unit, and as dangerous as any derivitives. Funding outflows of capital from highly rated institutions can, as we are seeing, lack the personnel to “bank on soaps” correctly. Though stack implies sachel, a kind of financial dissentary can display itself in a true resumption of economics as a liberal art. Don’t but tickets. Call 911 there is no value, but in life. Just goes to show you, you never can tell.

That was 15 minutes I’ll never get back. (I couldn’t listen any more than that.)

I have never written to NPR before. But I just have to after hearing the Bushnell interview today. It was PAINFUL–her voice, her cadence, her inability to understand the questions that were presented to her, and her tendency to ramble. At one point, she said another’s comment was “too simplistic”. However, that is how I would describe her attempts at philosophizing/analyzing the world she writes about. I actually listened to 45 mins. of the interview purely to witness this strange event.

Interesting conversation with Candace Bushnell. I particularly enjoyed the line of questioning about the “post-Wall Street Meltdown” and how it related to her vision of New York City.

I grew up in NYC and left during perhaps New York City’s darkest hours in the late 70s and 80s. It has been interesting to watch NYC turnaround from afar.

Perhaps a more interesting conversation for a future show might be Fareed Zakaria. He recently released a book “The Post American World.” Zakaria suggests in his book that money is power and the power center of the world long ago left Wall Street, indeed, left the United States.

Think about how interesting it would be to broaden the Wall Street Meltdown story impacts the entire world would be !

Maybe the one positive thing about an economic crash will be that over-privileged dunces like this will finally learn what it means to suffer a little bit. People are trimming down on nonessential items, and Candace Bushnell is vapid, worthless. Keep clinking that martini glass, baby, you’re goin’ down!

I am sorry to have to echo many of the negative sentiments here, though they do sound pretty harsh. The sad thing is that, at the heart of it, Ms. Bushnell sounds insecure. I know she would never admit that, but that is the feeling I get. The times we seem to be in right now will force all of us, even Candace Bushnell, to re-evaluate what is really important and what constitutes true substance for us individually and collectively. ANd we will quickly learn that substance is not in a slinky pair of shoes or a lipstick jungle. Kudos to Tom for his gracious demeanor, even to his last line where she probably missed the satire of the self-proclaimed satiress, referring to the upcoming Carrie Diaries: “Sounds like a seller.” Bless you, Tom, and bless Candace as she continues on her journey toward balance and truth. We’re all on that journey, so I guess we shouldn’t point fingers.

What a great intellectual contribution to society. I’ve cut turds that had more signifigance. It seems the only thing that’s moving and shaking now is the crack rock inside the glass pipe. Enjoy the ride down.

She really flew off the handle once the first caller asked a pretty simple question. Bushnell came across as cranky, and out of touch. Tom should’ve hit her with some harder questions, since she’s clearly not used to any kind of two-way discussion,

Next time you have someone so didactic and superficial making over-their-head pronunciations about “human nature,” I’m tuning out.

Candace Bushnell was awful! On Point is such a good show, and my sympathy goes out to Tom, who had to try pretend to take such prattle seriously.

I will continue to listen because Tom is so good, but spare me this kind of guest.

I’m a big fan of Tom Ashbrook. I wonder if it was his choice to interview this coke snorting whore or……..what’s the deal here? I think Gordon Gecko boinked her in the backseat of his limo in 1987 while Bud Fox held the beta camcorder. People like Candace Bushnell need to be euthanized in order to save the planet.

That was a truly painful experience.

These comments are the BEST!! They made this otherwise useless interview worthwhile.

Wow. I put this up there with Terry Gross’ interview with Gene Simmons on “Fresh Air”, and I’m even a fan of SATC! I thought the questions were very timely and appropriate and not underminding Ms. Bushnell’s work at all! In fact, they only solidify her mark on American culture. Kudos to you, Tom, for handling this Egomaniac Diva with such grace.

Tom, you’ve proven you’re a very kind person. Ms. Bushnell has a chip on her shoulder or too much wine in her system. She’s busy destroying her image and you keep trying to stop her. Thanks for your kindness.

I listen to On Point every evening as I am driving from work/school. I have always found Tom Ashbrook to be exceedingly patient, probing and fundamentally respectful of all his guests. When I listened to the interview with Candace Bushnell this evening with horror. I am a college professor of philosophy and team teach a course in feminist philosophy through Literature. We have used “Sex in the City” as excellent slices of popular culture as a lens to enter more in depth analysis and study. This said, I found Ms. Bushnell to be an effete, arrogant and rude person. I believe that Tom Ashbrook was exceedingly polite, especially when Ms. Bushnell addressed Tom with something similar to “you don’t get the point of my work.” The entire point of novels is for the “reader” to interpret the experience of the written word for themselves. There may be intent the author hopes to convey, but to insult readers is a profound disservice to her readers. For Ms. Bushnell to make claims about being a sociologist, cultural anthropologist and the like is to insult members of the Academy who actually do work in these fields. Ms. Bushnell does not have the academic credentials to make these claims in her self-perception, nor in her work.

I hope Ms. Bushnell reads the comments of these pages. I hope she NEVER appears on any Public Radio program again. As a supporter of NPR and PRI, I would not continue to support such a disrespectful person as Ms. Bushnell.

Kudos to Tom for handling this person with respect and kindness.

Mark in St. Louis

Please do not let this woman darken the air waves again.
SATC was not my cup of tea but what I did watch of it was trite, self centered soap opera.

Bushnell is a joke, and her defensive attitude the lack of her ability to have a rational discussion was sad.

She’s what in her late 40’s or early 50’s, she sounded like a 16 year old spoiled girl from the burbs.

I beg the producers of On Point to never have this person on again.

The Gene Simmons interview was mentioned, I hate to say it this was worse. At least Simmons had half a brain.

I found Candace Bushnell to be both a narcissist and a dullard. Tom’s restraint and civility only accentuated her brassy hubris.

Tom, this interview had to be painful. It was viscerably uncomfortable to listen to! I found absolutley no redeemable value from Candace Bushnell’s inane, self-absorbed commentary. I am not a SITC fan, but am always willing to give any author a listen–until now.

It saddens me to think that she is actually influencing people with her materialistic, twisted views. Please don’t encourage her by giving her a platform to speak publicly on your show again.

Wow. I can’t believe the nerve of this woman.

This interview reminded my of the actress in “Singing in the Rain” who had a brilliant career in the ’silents’, but the moment you heard her in the ‘talkies’, your ears immediately began to bleed. It is a credit to Michael Patrick King and SJP for making this show successful, for if it were up to its creator Ms. Bushnell alone — well perish the thought. (I too think she was on something!).

That being said, when I watched the show I believed the show was more about friendships between women in a somewhat hostile environment than materialism, especially in the first few seasons. Fashion became more of a character later on. Those damned shoes are Carrie’s fetish and obession, not those of the other characters. Furthermore, she pays the price for her financial indiscretions when she realizes she cannot buy an apartment with her fiance Evan because she has frittered her money away, and she has to go to “Big”, her ex for a loan, so some object lessons were made in the show. Nevertheless, I do see how the easily impressionable can get the wrong message and focus on the stuff rather than the ups and downs of the friendships.

Anyway, that’s all I’ll say. We aren’t curing cancer or the world financial crisis here, and Tom, I’m so sorry. She was awful.

I was a big fan of Sex and the City the series, but the movie was a great disappointment: the story was shallow, the characters were caricatures of themselves, the jokes were crass.

When I heard Candace Bushnell’s voice on the radio, it all made sense. This is a vulgar woman, with bad manners and ill-thought out opinions. I had read a review of her new book and had decided I was not interested in reading it. What a waste of time and resources to have her on the radio…

I have to agree with so many previous comments - she sounds like an idiot. What a torture to listen to this! Poor Tom :).

This interview was so horrible I couldn’t look away. I listened to the entire thing and gained new respect for Tom’s restraint as he dealt patiently with one of the worst interviewees ever.
Intelligent disagreement makes for good conversation. But Candace was contrary without substance, inarticulate, self-indulgent, and needlessly rude to both her interviewer and to the callers. She was even bristly toward a caller who took her side!
In generosity toward her, I can only hope that her failure was the result of intoxication (I agree with the other commenter who wondered if she was sober) or illness (the voice?) or even nervousness.

What is telling is how there are 87 comments for this show and only 2 for the passing of Paul Newman.

Mr.Newman while being a wealthy celebrity was the opposite of Candace Bushnell in the way he lived and by his example. He gave back to society that gave him so much. In countless interviews he would state how he was lucky and that people like him had an obligation to help people less fortunate than himslef.

Ms. Bushnell would be wise to take heed of Mr.Newman’s example.

It’s almost like I rewound the clock a year and was sitting in a university classroom listening to sorority girls pretending they had the intellectual merit to justify being there.

I’m sure Tom made it through this torturous hour with the characteristic grace and composure for which we’ve come to admire him. I couldn’t make it past Flaubert.

I applaud the producer (or host) who recommended this interview at this time. You captured a conversation among a few of my friends about the particularly poor timing of the Sex and the City movie release.

As the conversation started, I wondered why I didn’t just see SITC as another piece of chick lit. But it truly is different and can be held accountable as such.

Bravo Tom for taking on this topic… and that FASCINATING and easily angered woman… you got stuff out of her that no one else could have!!

Glad I found this thread (belatedly). This interview was jarring and so uncharacteristic of On Point.

I *love* SATC, but now I’m convinced that the TV show was the creation of its producers, writers, and directors and only loosely based on this vapid woman’s writing. The characters, plot lines, and observations of the show are full of authentic insights about people and culture — it really is not all about the materialism. But it’s clear that Bushnell is completely clueless about this.

Bushnell shares a salient trait with Madonna: She is oblivious to her mediocrity and mistakes her own fortuitous success with some sort of brilliance (in her case “anthropological”). Truth is, she only supplied the kernel for other talented people to create a TV show possessing layers of insight and commentary that I seriously doubt ever existed in her own original “work”.

The woman sounded obviously drunk or stoned to me, and should probably have been politely steered away from the microphone and into a taxi.

It’s after the fact and no one will be reading this now, but I had to listen to this after Tom referenced it on his show yesterday as a “train wreck” and now I understand why! Good job Tom, as always, remaining tactful. What an awful voice. Her publicist should have known better than to put her on the air.

Wow. What a deluge of contempt for Ms. Bushnell!

I had listened to the interview originally and found Bushnell far more engaging and gutsy than I had expected. (In fact, I took some of her books out of the library and read them for the first time. I have never seen Sex and the City. Not my cup of tea. I have no personal or emotional investment in Candace Bushnell.)

When I heard Mr. Ashbrook refer to this interview as “a bit of a train wreck” a day or so ago, I thought, “Hmmm, was it that bad? I wonder what I missed.” So I went back and listened to it a second time. Yes, a second time!

I am surprised by the amount of vitriol that has been heaped on Ms. Bushnell in these comments. She stepped slightly out of line, by not being deferential and charming. Instead, she was not polished; she was sometimes blunt — really, she talked like a writer. Writers are not generally known for their social elan. Most unforgivably of all, she asked Mr. Ashbrook to let her finish what she was saying!

She doesn’t know how to play the interview game, obviously. But the words used to describe her in this thread — shrill? She never raised her voice. Rude, vulgar, inane, self-absorbed — even “a dullard” and “brassy” at one and the same time! How did she manage that?

Her interview in no way deserved the verbal abuse found in these comments. Some deliberate distortion has also taken place — I took her comment about Flaubert to be an attempt to point out that many authors have written in detail about clothes, expensive items, and so on, because those authors understood them to be important. I didn’t hear her comment as an attempt to assert that she was in the same class as Flaubert.

You know what? Tom Ashbrook, who routinely talks over, interrupts, and drowns out, his guests, met his match in Ms. Bushnell. (The only interviewee I have ever heard him interview politely — asking a question and then listening to the response without interruption — was John Updike. The ONLY one.)

Good for you, Ms. Bushnell.

I think I just now finally stopped cringing…what a truly disastrous interview. Candace Bushnell, you have just lost a reader in Boston. Kudos to Tom for keeping his cool as usual, you are brilliant.

“Surprised Listener” above is obviously Candace Bushnell. This hack will stop at nothing to promote herself.