26 ~- North Shore Nows — Friday, October 27, 2000

‘Sing

Sex and ihe City author promotes new novel

Katharine Hamer

News Reporter
khamer@nsnews.com

TT’S Candace
Bushnell’s first time in
Vancouver, and she’s
found one of the only
places in town where
you can still smoke.

“This place was happen-
ing last night,” she says,
lighting a Merit and looking
approvingly around her at
the Granville Island F Hotel
bar. “They were playin: I,
and because I'm nag poo
you know, I just barged in.”

She’s sipping what must
be an out-of-towner drink,
too: an espresso with double
whipped cream and su
(The waitress looked dubious

_ at her original request — a

latte with half and half —
nobody orders more-fat cof-
fee.) -
The New York author is
here to promote her latest
book, 4 Blondes, at the
writer’s festival. .

Blonde, svelte, and clad in
a fur-trimnied baby blue vest,
Bushnell looks remarkably
like her alter ego, Carrie
Bradshaw, as played by Sarah
Jessica Parker in Bravo’s Sex
and the City. .

The hit show is based on

‘Bushnell’s New York Post col-
umn (and book) of the same

name.

Sex and the City chronicles
the adventures of four thir-
tysomething single women as
they tangle with the social
scene and pitfalls of dating in
Manhattan.

‘Its ribald humour and
 bare-all sex scenes “could
never be shown on network
TV,” says Bushnell. .
“American TV is a very, very
~ lucrative business. They’re

“> -very.cautious about what
"they put on the air, and they

~ always want to put likeable”

characters on the air, because
they need to attract a big
audience.”

Sex arse the City was nom-
inated for several Emmys,
and won the Gulden Globe
last year for best comedy
series, but Bushnell is non-
plussed about her work mak-
ing the leap from page to
screen.

“I was telling everybody,
like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be a
TV series’,” she remembers,
“and everyone was like, ‘Oh,
whatever.” New York is filled
with accomplished people, so
it wasn’t something like, ‘Oh
wow!” Ir was just like, oh,
well, that’s normal.

“I think it was during the
first season, Darren Star, the
producer, went to sce a for-
tune teller, and the fortune

‘teller said, ‘Oh, thees Sex and

the City thing, ‘it’s going to

be beeg, it’s going to be

huge, it’s going to be beeger
than even you can imagine!”

Is the dating world in
New York really as crazy as it
looks?

“Oh, I don’t think that’s
unique to New York,” she
says. “I think that happens
everywhere. Men are so great
until you sleep with them —
then they lose ail their man-
ners. They don’t call, they
don’t write... ;
_ | “When I was writing Sex
and the City, I thought there

"was still hope, but it seems to

7) ‘Horror of the ‘20eb Century by Robert:

Weinberg, Collectors Press,

‘$80.00

256 pages,

~The branch that sc scrapes the window pane
"and sends chills down your spine draws its
power from’ an active imagination and for

many of us, the fuel for those chilling

” thoughts come from the tales of horror which
we have read or watched: Robert Weinberg »
:. has gathered an in-depth collection that

- chronicles the evolution of horror stories.

At the turn of the century a few writers

be getting worse. [ was
recently interviewed by this
lovely, lovely 28-year-old
journalist, who said to me,
‘You know, I just can’t get a
date in this city — and ["m
not fussy.”

“In New York, men will
tell you after three or four
dates, ‘I don’t want a com-
mitted relationship.” I think
it’s partly an economic thing.

it’s such an expensive city to
live in: a decent one-bed-
room apartment in New York
is $5,000. If you go out for
dinner, it’s $100. I guess
maybe men don’t want to
financially look after
women.”

Bushnell’s stories are pep-
pered with roguish men:
characters with names like
Mr. Big, Comstock Dibble,
and Rory Saint John
Cunningsnot-Bedwards.

“J just have this thing
about names,” she muses.
“My favourite so far was
Stanford Blatch (Carrie’s
short, balding, bespectacled
ga friend in Sex and the
Cety). Even when I was a kid,
L always was kind of making
up my own names for people
— just in my head, like for
other kids. When I know the
person’s name, I know the
character.”

Bushnell has never
worked as anything but a
writer — although “there
was a time when I wanted to
be a shrink. I’m interested in
people who are a little bit
messed up, and who have
psychological neuroses. 1 just
find it fascinating.”

She says the time she
logged as a journalist was just
a means to an end: “I really
always was going to be a fic-
tion writer. I was always writ-
ing short stories and starting
novels. Then I graduated
from college and my parents
were like, ‘Well, we think
you’ve got to get a job.” The
realities of life icked in.”

eveloping pulp fiction

BLONDE, stender, and glamorous, Candace Bushnell _

is a fot ike her alter ego, Carrie Bradshaw, in Bravo's
hit TV show Sex and the City.

4 Blondes certainly has
some of the same witty
ripostes and sharp observa-
tions of Sex and the City —
but its tone is also more -
sombre. It’s about women
who in many ways have to
adapt their expectations of
happiness according to what
society expects of them: get-
ting a good man; making a
marriage lock like it works,
even if it’s only from the out-
side.

- Bushnell believes in the
notion of independent, gutsy
women who say what they
mean. But she also thinks
there’s still “a big, big cle-
ment of women secretly hop-
ing there's going to be a rich

Why live with a diet that says

“man. It's 's a huge myth in our

society for women, the myth

of romance and the myth of

marriage and the myth of the
rich guy.

“Until women make as
much money as men, it’s
always going to be an issue.
To be single, you really have
to strongly believe in your-
self, and it’s a lot scarier to
be single than it is to be mar-
tied.”

At 41, Bushnell isn’t mar-
ried, but she does have a
steady boyfriend. He’s
English.:

4 Blondes is out now. Sex
and the City is on Bravo -
(Channel 28), Fridays at 9
p.m. and Saturdays at 8 p.m.

. week but quickly grew

WV director
loves animals ©

From page 21

vocal and peaceful creatures
that live in small, ightly-knit
clans in one small area of the
Congoese jungle on the banks
of the Zaire river.

The episode documents
the heightened intellect of
two bonobos — Kanzi and his -.:
sister Panbanisha — and the
Adanta primate researcher,
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, that
studies their development
from her lab at Georgia State
University.

The apes not only demon-
strate learned and applied
knowledge with the aid of
flash cards and a lexigram (a
bank of coded symbols that
represent various words), they
also display a mastery-of com-
puter. games and everyday

ouschold chores. wally d

They’re emotionally deep, ©
thoughtful creatures with :
expressions and behaviour — .. ~:
including an alarmingly accel-
erated desire to procreate —~
that’s often very similar to

ours. In fact, at times, it’s

downright eerie how close the
comparisons can come.

“['ve wanted to do some-
thing on the great apes since
the season (of :
Champions),” said Bruytre, -
who previously called the :
shots on an episode profiling
the mountain gorillas of
Rwanda.
dodger, Brayére sid he had

lodger, Bruyére said he
no inkling he’d be doing ch chis
when he was a youngster -
growing up on the rough ~—. °:
streets of South Central Los ”
Angeles. :

He was previously :
employed as a line producer |.
on features and movies of the -
disen-
chanted with the work. “It’s

- been like a five-year vacation: ’

for me (with Champions),” he.

"said. “I love animals. Just the

chance to get up close to
these wild creatures is some-

‘thing that I really enjoy.”

ds . The extremely succesful |
lécumentary series will top’. :
65 episodes by the end of the’
season — syndication territo-: .
ry, which could spell a larger
audience for Bruyére’s prod-: :
uct. Ware

no pizza,

no cake, no fun? (Now there’ s no reason to)

@
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" Sarah, Duchess of York .

Ke

- were pushing the boundaries of Gothic novels -

* and venturing into new territory. Early horror.

novels, such as Oscar Wilde's. The Portrait of

Dorian Gray, Henry James’. The Turn of the

. Serew, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, all set new
” .. standards for fiction that could terrify the

“ peader. ~~
Movies became the. new playground for

~ terror, as monsters < appeared on. screens big-

- ger than life-size. When Lon Chaney died

before the filming of Drac#da began, Bela

; ~ Lugosi was cast, and became with one film, a

Star.

"2": Weinberg shows the development of pulp
“: fiction horror tales through the ’40s ap 50s.
Then into the sixties and a whole new era of
frightening films developed new fans, with
» Alfred Hitchcock leading the way in 1960
with Psycho. William Fredkin set the next
benchmark i in. 1973 with The Exorcist. The

«Movies kept reinventing the genre with slash-

~ er films, vampires and more. At the same
time authors like Anne Rice and Stephen

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King were selling thousands of horror novels.
. Weinberg offers a huge selection of book, -
- magazine and movie art to illustrate this very
thorou ugh collection. He covers the highs and
lows of the type of entertainment that keeps
people awake at night and perpetually afraid
of the dark.
— Terry Peters

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