The Interview Roundup Is Looking for Kadak

• Harlan Ellison takes on "tough questions for tough Jews," then does it again and again. Find out why he's never going to get invited to Israel again, and why interviewers should say as few words to him as possible: "You want to ask the questions and answer them, too? You can hang up and you won’t need me and I can go back to work."

• Even before I'd settled down this weekend to finally read the SF Chronicle version of Dede Wilsey's possible lawsuit against Penguin over her stepson Sean's memoir, Oh the Glory of It All, Joyce Wadler hits the NYT Styles section with a cover story on the whole mess, which features my new favorite moment in responding to silly questions from reporters:

  Recalling a 1994 dinner at Lespinasse, [Sean Wilsey] said his stepmother told him he was an unplanned, unwanted child and referred to his job as "your homosexual job at Ladies' Home Journal." He said she also informed him that, "Your father thinks you're a faggot." How was he able to remember so precisely?

  "What, are you kidding me?" Mr. Wilsey said. "That is like tattooed on my brain. Have you ever had anyone say stuff like that to you? It enters your brain like a knife and it never leaves."

  Of course, there's also the curiosity raised by Dede's allegation that Sean has "much more money than he admits to," compounded by a mysterious TriBeCa loft that's off-limits to reporters--which Sean claims he bought with the proceeds generated by shrewdly investing a $60,000 trust. Mind you, a fellow who grew up in San Francisco might well have had some good stock leads in the mid-'90s...

• And the resuscitation of the "5 Questions With..." feature continues this week as Martha Burzynski interviews memoirist Edwin John Wintle.