Slate’s Contrarian Timothy Noah

Hotline’s Friday Feature today is Timothy Noah, who writes Slate’s Chatterbox column and launched a head-long assault on the normal but nevertheless difficult slate of questions included in the Feature.

When asked what deceased person he’d like to interview, he dodges the question entirely and when asked what he’ll be doing in 2024, he says the same thing he’s doing now–perhaps with a researcher–and then a few questions later, when asked his favorite meal, he says “Really, I’m starting to think that what I want to be doing in 2024 is make enough money to provide more authoritative answers to these sybaritic questions.” Similarly, when asked his favorite vacation spot, he demures, writing, “I haven’t experienced enough of the good ones to have an opinion anyone should take seriously.”

He claims two hometowns–New Rochelle, N.Y., where he lived till the age of 12, and Beverly Hills, Calif., where he lived from 12 until leaving for college at 18. “My natural inclination is to talk up my happy formative years in New Rochelle and to suppress disclosure of Beverly Hills, because … well, wouldn’t you? Even at the time, growing up in Beverly Hills was embarrassing; it made my former leafy Westchester suburb look like Bed-Sty.”

There’s really only place in the interview where he obviously sobers up. Responding to last week‘s question posed by CNN’s Andrea Koppel (Who are the three or four people who most influenced the person you are today, and describe how they influenced you?), Noah cites his parents, Charlie Peters, the founding editor of the Washington Monthly, and Slate’s founding editor Michael Kinsley.

He saves his warmest words, though, for his wife, Marjorie Williams, who passed away in January. “Of course, being married is all about learning things from one another — we wrote something about this into our wedding service — but she actually taught me a lot about journalism, too. And continues to, as I prepare an anthology of her journalism for publication in the fall.”

The book, “The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family and Fate,” will be out in November.

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