Did anyone catch Anna Wintour’s interview with Morley Safer on last night? (Side note: I like the way this YouTube teaser’s headline makes it sound like Anna Wintour is, in fact, the Secretary of Defense. This seems like a sensible foreign policy move to me.)
Despite the frisson of excitement that came with actually seeing and hearing Wintour speak-she lives! she lives!-the interview was mostly a puff piece. However, there was one moment that made me both LOL and die a little: when Safer asked, “When the time comes, will you go quietly?” and Wintour sort of smiled and batted her eyelashes and said, “Certainly. Very quietly.”
First of all, like Amy Odell over at New York magazine’s fashion blog , I’m not even sure what any of that means. Are we talking about when she dies? When she gets kicked off the Vogue masthead for a younger, fresher editrix? Are those concepts one and the same? Even more confusing, am I happy that Wintour plans to make a gracious exit, because I value decorum and civility and don’t want her to be burdened with the “bitch” label any more than she already has been? Or am I a little heartbroken at the thought of this regal woman going off with a whimper and not a bang?
One thing I do know for sure: I wish Andy Rooney had been the one doing the interview. Every week’s segment with him is like a glimpse into some unfathomable, fascinating abyss of cooter-dom. Whenever he’s on, I cannot look away.
