It’s been five long years since Vanessa Carlton owned pop music with her hit “A Thousand Miles.” Now the piano princess is down with hip-hop mogul Irv Gotti. No Seriously…
Vanessa Carlton walks hurriedly down Mulverry Street in New York City’s NoLita neighborhood wearing a loose-fitting sleeveless black dress that esposes her long, slender legs. Her long Brown hair skims her shoulders as she walks. Flat sandals, dark sunglasses, and an off-white Panama hat round out the look, which could be a star-posing-as normal-girl disguise or just a funky, hipster-inspired getup. She’s startled when I walk up to greet her but quickly regains her composure and says, “Great, you’re here already.” Her flat tone suggests politeness but nothing more. She makes no effusive remarks or friendly gestures-not even a smile-and I’m aware that Carlton couldn’t care less about my perception of her.
We walk into Ruby’s Café, a charming hole-in-the-wall with exposed-bricks walls and a half-dozen bench-like tables. The Australian-run restaurant has become one of Carlton’s favorite haunts since she bought an apartment in the neighborhood. Carlton plops down opposite me, takes her shades off and rests her elbows on the table. In a few hours she’ll be on a plane to Cairo, Egypt, with her 17-year-old brother to vist her cousin, who she says lives along the Nile River.
“It’s my first time going there,” Carlton begins, fiddling with her chipped fingernail polish. “It’s wierd because the culture is so oppressive toward women. My sister’s been there, and I’ve read all these books. Women have to be covered up completely. I don’t want to stand out at all. I was actually in the car taking my nail polish off because they look at you funny. And then I was reading about female genital mutilation-the cut girls’ clitorises off with, like, no anesthetic when they’re nine years old. It’s just disgusting.” The 26-year-old shakes her head to punctuate her repulsion, then adds, “I think in Eygpt I’ll learn a new perspective, and it will be an amazing thing to observe.”
