LETTERS - Brief Article

THE BOY BAND BROUHAHA

Dear Interview,

Thank you, and thanks to Gus Van Sant, for the Hanson article in the July 2000 issue. I have been a Hanson fan for almost four years, and up until your article, everything I read consisted of fluff questions like "What's your favorite color?" and "Do you guys have girlfriends?" Hopefully, now, people who dismissed Hanson as just another boy band will see that, though they are young with teen idol looks, they are also an intelligent, real, and talented.

MARTA RAQUEL ORTIZ San Juan, Puerto Rico

Dear Interview,

When I learned there was an eighteen-page Hanson article in your July issue I ran to the nearest store. I found not only a great magazine, but also an article that exceeded my expectations. Instead of finding another interview with questions and pictures showcasing Taylor's "hotness," I found a grown-up, legitimate interview done by a close friend of the band that captured each brother's amazing personality. The icing on the cake was Gus Van Sant's artfully done photographs that seemed to perfectly capture the brothers' essence. Great job!

MARY LEBEAU Los Angeles, CA

Dear Interview,

I'm sure this month you've received lots of letters from teenage female Hanson fans. Well, here's another one! I'll admit the only reason I bought the July 2000 issue of Interview was for the eighteen page "popumentary" on my favorite band, Hanson. The article had many great new pictures and a wonderfully well-written interview. It's refreshing to read an interview on the band that wasn't written by a thirty-year-old editor of some teeny magazine acting like a twelve-year-old. Your interview was one of the best I've ever read. My reading experience got better, though, as I read through the rest of my July 2K issue, and I realized how much I was enjoying the Michael Paterniti article. And then I read the Jeffrey Wright piece, which I enjoyed even more. And though I don't like Moby's music, that interview was great as well, as were all the photographs and drawings throughout the issue. All in all, you have yourselves a new reader!

CLEA BENNETT Alameda, CA

Dear Interview,

I received your July Issue in today's mail here at my getaway retreat at the McNeil Island Corrections Center, and I just had to let you know how much I enjoyed it. Although McNeil is far from being Shawshank incarnate, being here has proven to be a truly humbling experience for me, one which has taught me to appreciate things that I might otherwise have taken for granted, such as your magazine. The glitzy, razzle-dazzle, Manhattan-esque feel of Interview has appealed to me since my teen-age years when I began buying it at the newsstand, but it's only now--under my current circumstances--that I've come to fully appreciate it. As any prison inmate the world over knows, music is the life-force that sustains our spirits, and in your July 2000 issue you featured wonderful, in-depth interviews with both Moby and Hanson--my favorite artist and my favorite group. As over-photographed as Hanson may have become, the unforgettably haunting pictures of the Tulsa trio as shot by Gus Van Sant showed them in a much more ma ture light, presenting them as the introspective young musicians that they have evolved into. Van Sants' accompanying interview further proved that they are much more than eye candy for schoolgirls. The new photo format of Interview would make Warhol proud.

MANUEL MENDEZ McNeil Island Corrections Center, Steilacoom, WA

Dear Interview,

Thank you so much for your article on Hanson. I originally bought the mag just for the article, but I was so impressed with everything else I read as well. Great work!

ERIN KINCHANIN Clifton Park, NY

Dear Interview,

I just read the July 2000 issue. Did you really need to have eighteen pages dedicated to Hanson? I mean, I don't hate the band or anything, but how can you justify eighteen pages of anyone? SUPERFLYGUY via the Internet

GOD IS IN THE DETAILS

Dear Interview,

I just finished the Tammy Faye Messner interview by RuPaul [July, 2000]. I had begun reading with an open mind, but two things killed it for me: First, Tammy's comments about her makeup and her lack of self-confidence without it, were just plain scary. Second, the misspelling of the medication Ativan (spelled "Adavan" in the interview), I thought was a little weak.

MAUREEN BARRETT Chatsworth, CA

Editor's note: Ativan and Adavan are two different medications, both prescribed to manage anxiety and depression.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Brant Publications, Inc.
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