Over the past 10 weeks, she's come close a couple of times to surpassing but this is the first instance during that time period when she has more words on the page (310) than the person who the interview is supposedly about (305). When interviewing Benjamin Todd Jealous, Solomon clocked in at 303 words, while Jealous only had 357, and when interviewing Howard Dean, she got off 278 words and 395. Doesn't that mean that the column is now officially about Solomon? Maybe that's why It's called "Questions With..." instead of "Answers From..."

Each of Solomon's columns bears the tag "Interview has been condensed and edited," a tag that was added after a dust up concerning the accuracy of her questions and answers. It is now well known that Solomon finesses what both she and her subject say in any given interview. That means that, rather than running a transcript and dealing with a taciturn subject, Solomon has chosen to give herself more column inches than who she was interviewing. Family Guy may be painfully unfunny, but that's a little harsh, even for the acid-tongued Solomon.

Clark Hoyt totally wins! The paper's ombudsman, addressing the controversy spurred two weeks ago by Solomon's technique of mixing and matching questions and answers post-interview, suggested Times editors "should publish with each column a brief description of the editing standards: the order of questions may be changed, information may be added for clarity, and the transcript has been boiled down without indicating where material has been removed. If such a disclaimer destroys the illusion, maybe 'Questions For' needs to be rethought."

Best reader disclaimer submission wins ten questions with Deborah Solomon. Worst wins twenty.

Remember: there's no protocol here; feel free to mix the pieces of this disclaimer around, which is what we do. Editing is an underrated art.

Disclaimer for New York Times 'Questions For' Column [Susan Campriello]
Earlier: Christopher Knight To Deborah Solomon: "Get Away From Me!"

Knight sent a fury-laced letter to the Press this week in which he tells us that the last time he saw Solomon, he actually yelled "Get away from me!" at her.

Why, you ask? Back in the day, Solomon interviewed Knight for a Times Magazine story on Los Angeles art schools. "Having been a journalist (at that time) for almost two decades, I also did my homework," Knight writes. "I prepared a couple of quotable quotes on the subject, which might encapsulate larger ideas." One of Knight's pearls of wisdom, "Modern art began as an assault on the academy, but post-modern art might be described as a return to the academy," excited Solomon so much that, according to Knight, she printed it as her own observation in her final piece, which bore no mention of the Knight interview.

In the final story, a seriously bitter Knight writes, "It was not a quote; my words had become her words. They were used to introduce her observations on the relevant history of the G.I. Bill. Our interview was not mentioned in the 3,500-word piece. (Frankly, the omission had its benefits since her story was awful)." Ouch.

Q&As, typically allotted about 14 words per piece, require tweaking here and there, in the interest of conserving space and coherence. (We once transcribed a three-hour recording of Kevin Costner mumbling on about how making 'Open Range' had touched his soul, like, his very soul, man. How it got crammed into a "10 Questions For Whatshisface" column that Monday was inexplicable and also the duty of some hapless editor.)

But there's some meat to these complaints. Making adjustments so your subject's point gets across is a bit different from pulling "How immodest of you! Isn't it bad manners to brag?" out of the air, as Solomon did in her Dickinson interview.

"Two million people read the New York Times magazine," said David Blum, the new editor of the New York Press, by phone this morning. (David Blum is the former editor of the Village Voice, also my most recent employer.) "Most of them think 'that's what they said, isn't it just incredible how everyone's so concise....' The real issue is the New York Times response, their handling of our inquiries, was pretty shocking. I was surprised and disappointed that the New York Times did not think enough of our inquiry to either respond to it or provide an editor to respond to the specifics of Matt's reporting. For them to be dismissive of that is a betrayal of the trust between the readers and the newspaper."

The worst part? Now we have no idea whether Ted Kooser was actually asked this question during his interview with Solomon, but we did so like his answer to: "As poet laureate, don't you think you should be better acquainted with European poetry?" Kooser replied: "Think of all the European poetry I could have read if we hadn't spent all this time on this interview."

D. SOLOMON: Are you dyslexic?
R. SIMMONS: Oprah renamed the book. It was like God calling. She gave me a better title.

Really? That's pretty generic.
I think it's all God. I say that all day long. The real process is doing you and having a truth that you live up to. Donald [Trump] is different than a lot of other very rich people. He has a good time. He is always laughing. He's into doing him.

You're known for dating models. What do they offer besides flawless skin?
I talk to John Edwards more than I talk to anyone. He has said more things about the conditions we need to think about. He went to yoga with me. He did the whole class, an hour and a half. He sweated like crazy. He's in good shape, but it was hard on him.

Are there any presidential candidates who inspire you?
Why? You think I'm crazy?

Your book basically advocates for old-fashioned American values — i.e., work hard, don't give up.
No. I can read. But I can't understand anything. I just read "The Autobiography of a Yogi," by Paramahansa Yogananda, over and over again.

What do you make of Barack Obama, who recently said that rap musicians should reform their lyrics?
We're separated. She works upstairs. People do think it's inspiring the way we handle our partnership.

In the years since you sold your stake in Def Jam, you've gone into the fashion business and developed clothing lines like Phat Farm and Baby Phat. Do you still run them with your wife, Kimora Lee?
Unfortunately, I do. My nickname is Rush, but I practice yoga every day so I can rush less.

You write extensively about your devotion to yoga in your new self-help book, "Do You!" Is the title your own coinage?
What we need to reform is the conditions that create these lyrics. Obama needs to reform the conditions of poverty. I wish he really did raise his money on the Internet, like he said. I wish he really did raise his money independently.

Why did you, a self-proclaimed seeker of spiritual truths, ask Donald Trump, of all people, to write the foreword to the book?
A professor? I can barely read.

No, but you seem to have a heightened need for stimulation.
No. It's an old hip-hop expression: "Do you!" It's just something we say all the time. It means do what you want to do. Do what inspires you. Don't be a sheep. Keep it real. The book was originally called "Russell Simmons' Laws of Success."

Do you see a therapist?
They're better than actresses. Actresses are kind of a little crazy.

There are other women besides models and actresses. Why don't you try dating, say, a professor the next time around?
No it's not. It's noise. It's the opposite. To be awake is to be fully present, no noise, just you and God. Most of us only have seconds of full consciousness. To live in a state of samadhi — that's what we're here for. —Jon

Hip-Hop Guru: Questions for Russell Simmons [NYTM]

Everyone at the company works 10 to 6. Matt Williams, who directs both Hogtied and the hard-hitting girl-on-girl wrestling site Ultimate Surrender, told me: "I like this because when eight hours are done, I'm done. I go home [to the suburbs and a kid], and my job doesn't follow me." ...[Marketing VP Reena] Patel acknowledged the image of pornographers as "a bunch of sleazy guys that are drunk all day." "I probably had some of the same misconceptions," she said. "But we have 401(k) plans."

A young woman who calls herself Cat Rich told me that she volunteered as a civilian nurse in Iraq after graduation but wound up back in Indiana selling cars; she is now Kink's events coordinator.

A Harvard alum in Kink's marketing department worked in restaurants after moving to San Francisco and got his first adult-industry job after searching for the word "fun" on Craigslist.

By early February, a fraction of the basement had been readied for a first official shoot. They were filming an update for the site Men In Pain. It would feature two players billed as Wild Bill and Claire Adams. Adams, who is 25, gave up on a philosophy degree to become a bondage rigger. (Last year, she tied up the actor Peter Sarsgaard for a bondage-themed spread in Vanity Fair.) She wore a fishnet top and a miniature barbell through each nipple.

Arts & Leisure: There is an absolutely colossal Michiko Kakutani review of books by presidential candidates. This is the kind of story that runs every four years (like Dennis Kucinich) and Kakutani brings nothing new to the table, although she does limn the shit out sixteen different titles. We're left wondering why this is in A&L at all? Was it too long for Week In Review? Is the famous wall that keeps Kakutani out of the NYTBR really that impenetrable? Is this the new face of Scott Veale's A&L regime? Elsewhere: Ben Ratliff argues that rock reunions are actually good things, Terrence Rafferty appreciates Barbara Stanwyck, and noted homosexual Frank DeCaro considers "Maude." Also there is something about married architects.

The Magazine: Front of the book is typical. Michael Pollan is talking about food again. Terry Eagleton tolerates the Deborah Solomon treatment. Rob Walker consumes tattoos. There's another "How I fucked up, by a doctor" Diagnosis. Rob Corddry takes you through the apartment he rents in L.A. (Good call, Rob: We've seen "The Winner." You're gonna be back in New York real soon.) The Funny Pages surprises by actually being funny (Kevin Guilfoile, more please) but what is the deal with "Watergate Sue," the new cartoon fronting the section? Are they trying to make us nostalgic for the awful "La Maggie La Loca"? Because it's working. Michael Chabon goes on and on.

The magazine proper starts off with a Charles McGrath article on Martin and Kingsley Amis. Presumably it's tied to the domestic publication of Zachary Leader's (excellent, BTW) Life of Kingsley, but, like the Kakutani piece in Arts, do we really need another "Martin and Kingsley: The Parallels" piece? We get it. They were both writers. There are many similarities. But also? There are many differences! There's a big article on remittances: their effect on the economy and their effect on the families of those who must migrate to find work. Looks kind of serious. This is the broccoli that the magazine runs to justify the ice cream of the fashion spread. There are some pictures of birds in Rome. There's the fashion stuff, the food stuff, your real estate ad porn, and finally, Lives. A friend of ours has a joke that Lives is either about someone who has been molested or someone who is forced to deal with a traumatically ill relative (preferably a child), but that neglects the third option—clash of cultures—which the Magazine goes with this week. Here's the description: "A visit to Shanghai leads to an encounter, which establishes a connection, which reveals a divide," which causes us to close the issue.

Book Review: The most interesting section of the three, possibly because the Kakutani and Amis pieces were placed elsewhere. Liesl Schillinger—the hardest working woman in the review business, and one of the most disturbing!—takes a look at the journals of Leo Lerman, the writer and cultural tastemaker who has been forgotten by all but the "sun-seeking stems craning out of the thicket of magazine-world Manhattan." (Maybe a week's vacation is in order, Liesl.) Better, the Atul Gawande collection of medical essays, gets a rave. There's a review of a new biography of Dorothy Schiff, who owned the Post prior to Rupert Murdoch's first tenure. D.T. Max does not like Dana Vachon's Mergers & Acquisitions, noting that, "Socially the '00s may be the '80s all over again, but even so, no book purporting to bring us cultural news should be set in an M&A division in 2007." Which is true, finance is so not a part of the picture in contemporary New York. The back page essay is something about Russia and archives. Apparently, Russian President Putin does not much believe in openness. Rare book dealer David Bauman has a first American edition of Moby-Dick. And we're out.

So, all in all, not a lot there. We never thought we'd say this, but: Help us, Styles, you're our only hope! Enjoy your weekends, everyone. —balk

Like that other Solomon, Deborah has stood in our culture as a reassuring force of something like integrity—with her, you know she's in the tank for no man. She's been a beacon of decisioning and conviction while the rest of her colleagues indulge in the journalism of mild-mannered docility. Lately, we've been noticing a little slack in her rope, some resignation creeping into her once unforgiving demeanor.

Consider today's column, in which Solomon gets Suze Orman to admit she is a gay. The two of them even get into something of an argument about their personal finances when Orman accuses Solomon of having a girly relationship with money. "You put yourself on sale," Orman says. "You have shame, and you have blame." Solomon shoots back, "Is this what feminism has bestowed upon women? The right to berate other women?"

It's a compelling exchange, and at first the interview seems to be a testament to that famous Solomon fury. But read closely: Solomon didn't start this fight—Orman did. In fact, Solomon stays on the defensive the whole time, practically pouting as Orman unceremoniously lays into her for not having a living revocable trust.

Sure enough, a look back at Solomon's other recent interviews suggests that to a great extent, the beast has lost her claws. What did she do, for instance, when she had presidential hopeful Bill Richardson in the hot-seat? She playfully "confronted" him about his speeding ticket problem. And what was the meanest thing she could think to say to Chuck Schumer? That she thought the fictional couple he invented for his new book lacked "the artistry of fiction." The rest of the time, it was all "regardless of how your book is received, you made history in November..." and "Do you think [Cheney] will remain as large an influence inside the White House in the wake of the Republican drubbing?" Softballs all the way around, in other words—questions so gentle that a baby could take them with a smile.

What is happening to Deborah Solomon? Is she falling victim to that famous rapper problem, where the debut is gritty and the second one's not because life got nice? Or is it something else—perhaps a catastrophe in the home, an editor's intervention, or a deliberate change in her journalistic philosophy? We're concerned.

Also, do the NYT.com copy editors get weekends off? Mmm, two typos in one browser title bar!