INTERVIEWS - an excerpt

Celine Dion Shares Her 'World' in New Documentary + Exclusive Video
By Jessica Robertson Posted Apr 15th 2010 11:02AM

Celine DionExclusive: It's an early Tuesday morning when Celine Dion picks up the phone at her Florida home. Her voice is instantly perky, bathed in her trademark pronounced French Canadian accent. It's a mere three weeks away from the release Dion's documentary 'Celine: Through the Eyes of the World,' which chronicles the mutliplatinum, Grammy-winning singer's 2008 'Taking Chances' world tour with three hours of backstage, onstage and offstage footage. It's a welcome insight into Dion's universe, which is as big and ever-possible as her voice. And, that's to say, seemingly infinite. Dion spoke with PopEater about the film, her biggest transformation and what almost turned out to be her own personal 'Titanic.'

You just turned 42. How did you celebrate your birthday?
Actually, [it was] pretty intimate. It was very relaxed, which is great. The last one, on tour when I turned 40, it was a big thing. You know, I was in Australia with a lot of people, on top of the world, so it was quite something. And 41, I'm not sure that I remember. [Laughs] But this time, 42 was just with the family -- we were, maybe, 10 people. My mom was here, my son [Rene-Charles, 9], my husband [Rene Angelil], some friends and a few members of my family who happened to be in Florida at the time. It was just a little brunch, very simple. Just perfect.

The simple ones are often the best ones.
It's true. Because you have time to talk and listen and share. When it's very very big, it's overwhelming sometimes. I'm not saying that it's not fun, but all the time, the same thing, it would be too much.

You're releasing your first tour documentary, titled 'Celine: Through the Eyes of the World,' in a couple of weeks, which chronicles your recent 'Taking Chances' tour. What can fans expect from this footage?
It was quite an amazing adventure -- traveling the world. It was very different this time for me to do this tour, for a few different reasons, actually, because there's places that I have never been before -- for example, South Africa, Dubai, Malaysia. That was very very exciting. And [to have] my son on tour with me, and also my mother -- it was a family adventure. As an artist, it was extraordinary to be able to visit and see my fans again. And at the same time, to make, on top of that, the best of it and see the world and see treasures and see beauty -- just see the different ways of living and cultures. It was just so nourishing, you learn so much. We grew. Everyone from this tour grew tremendously.


Was it difficult to embark on the tour given you had just wrapped a five-year stint in Las Vegas?
At first we went away with this idea of touring even though I just finished the five years in Vegas. It was a kind of crazy thing -- to go on tour. But I guess it was for the momentum, and I didn't want to postpone. I don't have a tendency to postpone things when they are presented to me, especially when it involves different people -- for example, my mom. No one's getting younger and I really wanted [my mom] to come. We wanted to bring a photographer and a crew, just for us to bring home memories -- to put a little music together and once in a while to have a night of giving ourselves a movie to watch. To say, "Oh, do you remember this?" and "Oh, look at this picture, look at us."

It was kind of ... not intimidating but, you know, a camera crew and photographer taking pictures constantly, you kind of hold back a little bit. But I also have to tell you that it didn't take us very long to feel very comfortable because we became friends and they became part of every move that we were making. I really think that that's why this thing worked because we forgot that they were there and we also knew that this thing was going to stay private. So everything was extremely natural. There's our arguments, there's tension, people get sick, cancel shows, we meet extravagant people, there's ups and downs. They decided that the footage was so good that maybe it was going to be a good idea, if we wanted to, to share it with the fans. To give the fans an opportunity to feel like they're traveling with us, not only for them to see the performance onstage but especially ... I'm sure the fans who are following an artist's career, they're curious about how it is to be on the plane with them, how it is to be at a restaurant with them. We decided to get them a VIP pass, in a way.

They decided to put the movie in theaters for two weeks. And I have to admit that even though we were all in the movie -- it was our movie, our life for a year, our experience with traveling -- when I went to the movie theater and you see yourself, and you see your adventure on a big screen, it's incredible. I laughed, I cried, I remembered things that honestly I had almost forgotten. It was such a treasure. You see my family, you see my hard work, you see the love that I have for the family, for the people that I appreciate in my life that really help me to achieve and to be who I am. You see the world.

Is there one memory in particular, be it with your mother or son, that stands out from the rest of the tour?
Just one moment? Oh, my God ... they had, like, I think 1,000 hours of movies and they just skipped to three hours. You know when we do the safari and my son's eyes are bigger than any tiger you can see ... when my son's starting to lose his baby teeth and celebrating my mom's birthday all together. We don't even remember we're at the end of the world. I think we were in Australia at that time. It was very emotional meeting Mr. [Nelson] Mandela -- meeting with him and my mom, because my mom is my hero and Mr. Mandela is a hero as well. It was just intense. Everything was intense.

You mentioned your five-year residency in Las Vegas with performances every night, and you'll be returning to Sin City in 2011. What was the most rewarding part of that experience for you?
At first, to be given the opportunity as a singer to have an incredible show, to have a coliseum built specifically for the show, the biggest screen in the world, the best dancers. I mean, there were, like, 40-something dancers onstage performing every night -- an amazing visual, theatrical show directed by Franco Dragone, who's done such amazing work with Cirque du Soleil. It was amazing to believe that every single night you sing the same songs and 10 minutes before the show you don't believe that you're about to do the same thing again, and it's like, "Oh, my God," you know? But then the show starts and it's magic again. Obviously, I love what I do -- you have to love what you do. But the magic of show business itself -- knowing that you're surrounded with the best people and people still come night after night to see our show.

Did you have any hesitations taking on a production of such stature and duration?
When we started that show, it was, in a way, against all odds because I thought that, if I may phrase it this way, that the Titanic was going to sink again. I remember before the Titanic came on, the vibe was so negative and so like, "Oh, my God, it's going to be bad." I felt that in Vegas the feeling was not that positive -- I thought that I was going to break my neck, I was having a lot of stress, I was touring the world and now I'm going to be in Las Vegas, and they were like, "What is she doing?" It was a little bit nerve-wracking, but a few months prior to the show, we focused and we followed our instincts and believed in what we were working on. We felt like it was the greatest thing for us. It turned out to be an amazing experience onstage and, at the same time, stability for my family. I just had a baby and we moved to Vegas. He was a year-and-a-half old and I was going to perform every night, and for me to return home every night was a big deal. I never had that before. I had been on the road since I was very, very young. So for me to have a home for five years straight sounds pretty strange maybe, even though I'm performing every night, but I'm still sleeping on the same pillow. It was a big deal to return to my son, which he was really taken care of by my sister Linda, who's the godmother, and her husband, Alain, who's the godfather. I knew that I could go on and do my singing, knowing that the child could have stability, his home, his security -- feeling safe was very essential for me to go on. And it was a perfect experience because I could raise my family, play and have a normal life, if I may say, and feel like a normal mom.

How has being a mother changed you as a person?
Totally. It's not that it transforms you -- it gives you a meaning. I was just, all my life, very focused in serving my voice. When I had my son, it gave me a meaning of, like, this is the best reward that I can ever have. What a great feeling that I feel -- I felt big, I felt strong, rewarded ... I felt like I had such a responsibility. Singing is such a pleasure and it's so fun, but it's not important. Raising a child is extremely important, it's the biggest responsibility you can ever have. He needed me, and I was making a difference in his life, and it made me feel so wonderful. It was so amazing when I gave birth to my son that I didn't want to come back to show business. I loved being a mom so much that I did not want to sing again. I didn't feel the need to. And until I had the spirit that, when he was a year-and-a-half and I wanted to sing in Las Vegas and I could do both -- it was possible to do both -- then it was incredible. It was a balance, it was beautiful.

You mentioned you've been singing and touring since you were 12. Is there any part of you that feels you may have missed out on the adolescent experience?
Well, you talk about normal life -- I'm not quite sure what normal is anymore. The first thing that's not normal, I think, is that I did not go to school until I was, like, 18 years old, for example. I stopped going to school at a very young age, then I took some private school and then I stopped for my career. So that was different and unusual, but it worked for me. I didn't really have friends ... I was very, very focused on my singing and I took singing lessons, still today. I just totally focused on my career and detached myself of any activity or boyfriends or anything. I had my family obviously, thank God, and I had my career that I was focusing on. I went to school to learn English, to even be more busy, and start singing in English and be fortunate with this language, as well. Then I was always extremely busy and active in the music industry. So time flew and I'm 42 now, and it's just ... time just passed so quick. But if I look at a normal teenager -- not that I'm not normal -- but a different life of a teenager who goes to school and has to look for a job and hopefully realized their passion and do what they love, maybe they will start doing that by the age of 23 or 25 or who knows. To start a career at 12 years old is quite unusual, but I don't regret anything.

Many would say your life, up to this point, has been very much a fairy tale. Could you possibly want for more? What is it that you want for the future?
Ooh -- I think I just want to be where I am today. I love my life. I am extremely fortunate. I hope to remain healthy, that would be the main thing. My health will bring me wherever I'm supposed to be. I keep dreaming. I'm positive, I take one thing at a time, I have my wonderful husband and my beautiful son and my entire family -- we're very close -- and honestly there's nothing else for me to wish for. I want to be, in 10 years, exactly where I am today: healthy and happy.



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Interviews : Talking Cyber-Security With Homeland Security Advisor (and Former Hacker) Jeff Moss

by Jon Chase — Apr 13th 2010 at 2:50PM

To get a look at the world of cyber-security from an insider, Switched turned to noted and notorious hacker Jeff Moss, a.k.a Dark Tangent. Moss got his start hacking the phone system before founding DefCon, the long-running annual hacker convention in Las Vegas, in 1992. He then took his l337 skillz to big industry by founding the network security consultancy firm Black Hat. Moss's descent into respectability was completed in 2009 when the Obama administration hired him as an advisor to the Department of Homeland Security.

What exactly does your government gig as an advisor entail?

I'm one of 24 members of the council. In the post-9/11 world an act was passed that imposed advisory councils on various aspects of Homeland Security to prevent groupthink and provide an outside opinion to the secretary or other people who want it. Apparently, the different Homeland Secretaries have used the councils in different ways. Tom Ridge used the advisory council a lot, the previous secretary used them less, the current secretary is using them more. But because cyber is on the mind of pretty much everybody now, everyone has a question or an interest.

If you were to ask a techie what the government's handle is on cyber-security they'd say we're way behind the ball. Have you found that to be true?

Actually I was surprised by how many more smart people I've run into that I didn't believe existed in government. Some of them are really amazing, like the chairman of our committee, Judge William Webster. He's a living legend. He's the only person to have been director of both the CIA and the FBI, and also worked at the NSA. His breadth and depth of experience is just... cool. Through inference I had assumed there must be this big bureaucratic layer somewhere that just slows everything down but I haven't found that yet. I know it exists but I haven't found it. What I've found instead is a lot of legal barriers that are out of the control of everyone's hands except different committees in Congress.

So what are the central security issues our country faces?

We're dealing with a structure that's not designed well to fight cyber-crime. And that's the same thing with a lot of other communications and privacy laws. You can see this fight going on right now on U.S. cyber command in the military. Is it a war-fighting thing, or is an intelligence thing? And people use that today to talk about bigger issues like who really is in charge of cyber-security.

When we go to war there's a very clear chain of command and processes that have to take place. So what is the US policy in terms of cyber-warfare or taking offensive action using the 'Net?

I'm not a policy maker, but as far as I can tell, cyber is just another component of the different military domains -- air, sea, land. You have this emerging domain but it's unclear if it will be its own, or if it'll be sprinkled on top of all the other branches of the military: the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines. If it's a war function, it's very clearly under the control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President. The thing that's different with a cyber act is that we haven't figured out what is considered an act of war and what isn't. I have a feeling that until there's a loss of life, it'll remain that way.

So what is the state of the union, as it were?

During the Cold War we weren't shooting at each other with the Russians; there was all this covert action and spy versus spy activity. So that's where we currently are as well, everybody is spying on everyone else and stealing and robbing from each other. It's like two big buckets: organized crime wants your money and nation-states want the secrets. They go about it differently though. Organized crime doesn't really care if they get noticed because good luck finding them, and the attack model doesn't need them to stay in place for months at a time -- they get in, get as much money as they can and get out.

On the nation-state side, they're pretty much after secrets. It's a bit different because they don't want a political blow-out, unlike organized criminals who don't care if there's a front page story in the New York Times. There's no embassy to protest to. But if you're a nation-state that is spying, you don't want to cause a lot of drama. During the Cold War there were all sorts of handshake agreements where you'd trade spies if they got caught, a sort of gentleman's agreement about what you do and don't do. That doesn't seem to exist in the cyber version of spying. That stuff hasn't been sorted out. It's only been recently, when Google announced the spying in China, that we started this debate on a grander scale.

Because enterprise doesn't want customers to think that their business in trouble?

Or because they want to do business in China. Adobe admitted briefly that they had been attacked, but out of all the other 30-plus odd companies that were affected, none have come forward and identified themselves. There must be a reason why they're doing that. This started a much-needed debate.

You think it really was a watershed moment?

Yeah, until now it's been ten years of security guys standing around saying, "Yup, this is just what is happening, it's happening all the time, everybody knows it's happening and it's not a big deal." It wasn't something talked about in the newspaper or on the radar of politicians. It took an American icon, a powerhouse tech company, to stand up and do something and [now] it's on everybody's thoughts.

In terms of state of the union then you're saying the Internet is fundamentally flawed right now?

Well, I mean it's not flawed, it's doing exactly what it was designed to do, it's just people are now using it for different purposes. It wasn't designed as an e-commerce or entertainment platform -- it was an academic collaboration platform. You find out the Internet works very well for carrying information, but it's just not doing a fantastic job of moving credit card data in a secure fashion. It's basically impossible to get 100-percent attribution, 100-percent knowability of who is attacking you.

How difficult is it going to be to change that? Is that the Internet's legacy forever or do we need to create a start over and create a separate Internet?

I mean everybody in the industry is painfully aware of all the shortcomings and there's a million security vendors trying to sell you a million bells and whistles to fix whatever particular ailment there is that day. But fundamentally, out of the big architectural issues, a secure DNS (Domain Name System, or the 'code' that translates binary to text) is the most visible. We must fix the DNS to be more secure. That doesn't solve everything, but it's something that's important and moving forward rapidly. By rapidly, I mean it it'll be probably five to six years before it's widespread.

How hard is it to get the attention these problems deserve?

I don't know about other countries but the U.S. generally learns through pain. You know, you get bombed in WWII and you go "Oh, I guess we're at war." It's that same mentality that's hindering us in the electronic age.

So the public and the government and industry are still in a learning, childhood stage.

Everything is hooked up to the Internet. It's so complicated and has so many interdependencies nobody really knows how it works. For instance, what happens if a DNS stops working for a day? What does that affect? Maybe I can't go to my Web site. But would your voice telephone still works, and would you still be able to book an airline ticket if you called up a travel agent? Would you be able to process a credit card at the grocery? I mean everyone's built a million systems differently that plug into the Internet one way or another, so you have all these complex interactions. A lightning strike in Texas might make things stop in California.

Do you think the market will change things or is government regulation the future of the Internet?

Unfortunately, I think regulation is. I'm not a fan, but years ago people were suggesting that what's going to happen is that, at some point in the future when there's enough money, the insurance companies will get involved because some company will get broken into and they'll have all these losses and the insurance companies will say we're not going to insure you unless you do X, follow these best practices and follow this checklist. Now that doesn't mean they're secure, it just means processors follow guidelines. Well, people expected the same thing to happen with insurance, where through normal market forces if you want to do something risky, your insurance premiums would go up. But that never happened. I've never heard someone say, "I have to install a security upgrade or else my rates will go up." That was supposedly our last gasp, because if insurance doesn't work, that only leaves regulation. Insurance didn't work, so now we're in the regulation phase.

Is there an Achilles heel of the Internet we all should we worried about until things get fixed?

Hmm. [Pauses] Poke around with anything enough and you can cause a problem, but I don't want to give a recipe for what to attack.
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'Top Chef Master' Marcus Samuelsson Talks Reality TV, Cooking at the White House and More

By Lauren Williams on Apr 13th 2010 5:16PM

Celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson's career is like a celebration of culinary diversity. Whether he's wowing New York food critics at his Swedish restaurant Aquavit, promoting African cuisine in his award-winning cookbook, 'The Soul of a New Cuisine' or acting as guest chef at the Obamas' first White House state dinner, the Ethopian-born, Swedish-raised chef shows his reverence for the tastes and flavors of the world's diverse food culture. He's bringing this worldly food philosophy to the latest season of Bravo's 'Top Chef Masters.' Samuelson took some time to chat with Black Voices about being on the show, what it was like cooking at the White House and stress-free entertaining.

As a young chef starting out, did you ever see yourself competing on television?

The reality is that when I started out as an intern in the late '80s, the cooking industry had different dimensions and internet and television weren't as strong as they are now. Internet didn't exist. So if you wanted to be a chef, you worked in a restaurant, and that's your way up. Today there are so many other platforms. So no, I didn't envision it, but i think it's important that you are flexible enough and curious enough to change with the times.

As "masters," you and your competitors are at the top of your field. But did being on 'Top Chef Masters' ever make you feel like a novice again?

Absolutely. It's very humbling, because every situation is different. You're cooking in front of judges, not in front of customers, and cooking in front of 25 different cameras. That's new for anybody. But I think that's great about the'Top Chef Masters' contest. You're putting yourself out there, and part of the experience is to learn. I learned a lot.

On 'Top Chef Masters,' you play for charity instead of cash prizes. What charity did you choose?

UNICEF's Tap Project. It's very personal to me. It's clean water. Clean and clear water. For me, coming from Ethiopia, we did not have clean or clear water in the village where I'm from. So it was easy for me to find a charity I wanted to work for.

What food philosophy did you bring to the show?

America is the most diverse cooking country in the world, and me being an immigrant and loving diversity, you know I brought that to the challenge. I think that its important to, when you're not cooking in a restaurant setting, to be flexible and have a wide repertoire to go to. The diversity has helped me.

What's next for you after the show?

This fall [after Labor Day], I'm opening the Red Rooster. It's an exciting time in my life to open a restaurant in Harlem. I live in Harlem, and it's something I've always wanted to do. Harlem is known for Sylvia's, but i think it's time for a new great restaurant in Harlem. It will be a speakeasy basement. A farm-to-table approach with the food It's going to be an affordable restaurant with a big bar. We'll focus on some food dishes you might think about when you're in Harlem and also some new dishes you might not think about. Some surprises.

Last fall, you were selected to be the guest chef at the first White House State dinner. What was that like?

It was fantastic, obviously, because it was their first state dinner, and there was a lot at stake. And it was also honoring the prime minister of India, which is a big food country, so that inspired me a lot. [I was inspired by] what the first lady had thought about in terms of her gardens and her vision of fresh food. She's out there every day talking about food and freshness and moving for kids, and so my menu reflected India, reflected the First Lady's thoughts, reflected America, and those were all of the things I put into that state dinner. And I was very proud to carry that torch that was important for them.

From cooking for the President and other dignitaries to pleasing guests at your restaurants, you must know a bit about the art of entertaining. What can you share?

First you have to think about how would you like to entertain yourself, whether it's for a state dinner or not. You walways want to think about who you're entertaining. Is it their 50th bday party? Is it their retirement party? You want to say, who is the guest of honor? And then what does he like? What does she like? Once you establish that, you want to think about yourself. Am I going to be bogged down in the kitchen all day or am I going to plan the dinner out so that I can participate in the party. As a host, it's important that you're also there talking to your guests, talking to your friends. Make yourself available.

Do you entertain a lot? What do you make for your guests?

Me and my wife [model Maya Haile] entertain a lot in Harlem. We have a big grill outdoors and a big patio, and we love cooking outside. Maybe we do fish burgers on the grill or maybe my wife does an Ethiopian chicken dish. I love just cooking outside and buying whatever in season, getting a nice rub or marinade and just putting something on the grill. Eating just really fresh. When you're cooking outside, you don't have to put that much labor into it, because it's all about getting together and eating fresh food.

Note :
Chef Marcus Samuelsson, owner of many restaurants, including Aquavit in New York, Tokyo, and Stockholm (he was born in Ethopia, orphaned as an infant, and adopted by a family in Sweden).