And he would weigh them. You sit or stand in the subway, and you look aroundI do, because I dont have a phone so Im not playing a gameand you see people. FRANCESCO CLEMENTE: After a certain age, in the early hours of the morning, the pressure drops, which is the reason why. CLEMENTE: How do you keep ten thousand books in order, do you have a personal librarian? At that time colleges had these hotlines, and you could call up and say, My friend just ate 14 pounds of acid, and some graduate student would drive over in his little Chevy and rescue you. Required fields are marked *. The most interesting one I went to was for a company that wanted to make a vodka for women. In conversation with Interview pal Francesco Clemente, Lebowitz here lays out her tongue-in-cheek platform for a mayoral run, declares the Donalds run done, and explains why New York is the greatest place in the world. He wasnt a comedian, but he was the funniest talk-show guest. I like Woody Allen. Good Books Books To Read Acceptance Speech National Book Award Wordsmith Great Words Ex Libris Reading Material Women Humor More information . That never used to happen. Because someone once told me that horses legs are actually like fingers and that their hooves are actually fingernails. Especially really horrible ones. Immigrants are good, tourists are bad. They would give you $15 and a sandwich. The first people who died of AIDS were artists. Bloomberg was always bragging how many hotels were being builtI remember seeing him on the news, saying, And this is the nine millionth hotel in Queens. Queens! by . High Times: How far did you get in school? Then, in 1972, she began writing for Andy Warhols Interview. And Orson Welles agrees Behind him comes Fran Lebowitz, flustered from whatever is going on in the street. The whole time before I write I spend on the phone begging people for ideas and solace and sympathy. They had very good writers, but they were these old, stout white men. I would have liked to have met Nabokov. Also a TV show that was on Sunday morning for four hours: I cant remember the name of it, but Sonny Fox was the emcee. It actually works here. Those memories are a constant source of some strange pleasure for me. Lebowitz: I have to say I have only written back to important people, people in the publishing business. LEBOWITZ: Thats kind of backwards. The psychiatrist also had shoulder-length hair and Levis under his white coat, and I spent ten minutes arguing with him over whether Id taken acid or smoked pot. I like Family Circle, Ladies Home Journal, anything with recipes that use marshmallows and American cheese in the same dish. I had been spending all of my time with drug-addict college students. I read How to Be a Naked Bus Driver and My Brother Was an Only Child. Which is why I remember things. Lebowitz was born in 1950 in Morristown, New Jersey, the daughter of furniture store proprietors. Martin Scorsese and Fran Lebowitz are trying to remember how they met. You have an idea for an app? A childrens book, Annie, Gwen, Lilly, Pam and Tulip, came out in 1986. So I evolved the theory that horses are hands. She was a hot little number in 1978 . I mean, that is why we had that little war with England. I used to be able to do it without feeling it, but now Im in bed for three days afterward. 2011. He packs them, and then every time you move, they have to be put in different ways. Then I switched to Carlton in an attempt not to smoke too much, and now I smoke nine times more Carltons than I ever smoked anything else. To me, dictating a book seems impossible. If you can say 'I'll have that and a cup of coffee,' it's not art." 6. But what I cant be is monogamous. Ive never had a job I liked. Fran Lebowitz is 69 years old October 27. Black cigarettes, every horrible adolescent smoking gesture imaginable. Lebowitz: Ive had a number of interesting, colorful jobs. Once a girl was sitting on the window ledge smoking a cigarette and the matron walked in and the girl jumped out the window. So just think, if there were, say, only 10 percent of the hotels that exist now, there would be all these apartments for people who live in New York, as opposed to people visiting New York. People say, Well, what would you do with Times Square? And I always think, Gee, I dont know. Needless to say, I'm a big fan and I'm telling everyone I know to watch it right away. I hit my limit at 19, and I havent had any since. I wasnt glamorous and rebellious. I believe Im a great friend. It is boring and it is arithmetic. One is that deers are rats. . Fran Lebowitz was born on 27 October 1950 in Morristown, New Jersey, USA. But to this day I have never seen a worse movie. In an excerpt from The Art of Fiction no. Its not an area of interest. LEBOWITZ: I only know how many there are because for the last several years Ive moved every five minutes, so theyre counted. LEBOWITZ: Well, you know, so few Americans vote that we may not even notice it. Id rather have people shooting up in my apartment; at least I dont have to smell it. She has been a resident of Manhattan, New York since 1970. I think my most enormous smoking punishment was being grounded for a month. Fran was raised in Morristown, New Jersey. Lebowitz: My writing habits are basically nonwriting habits. I never write anyone letters. Lebowitz earned a GED and worked several odd jobs before Andy Warhol hired her as a columnist for Interview Magazine in 1972. If you don't know Fran Lebowitz, you'll get to know her very well in Pretend It's a City, the new 7-episode docuseries directed by her longtime friend, Martin Scorsese.Lebowitz has been . She began a similar column (although PG rated) in Mademoiselle. A brief follow-up conversation took place over the phone to Lebowitz, who had decamped to Princeton, New Jersey, where she was renting the house of a noted architect and sometime furniture designer. People seem to think there is some connection between talking and writing, but I love to talk and if there were some connection between the two of them I would be the most prolific writer in the history of the world. Because I was stupid. So forcing people into a situation where theyre supposed to adore each other is probably bad. And its not my desire to make New York more suburban. Who hasnt typed for me in a long time? I could probably get a secretary for what I spend getting my friends to type for me. And I would always give it back. High Times: What was the style? They were terrible. ever react to your devotion to their product? LEBOWITZ: It really depended. Lebowitz discoursed without pause for two hours, chain-smoking all the while. He said theyd fix it. I never had any machines. CLEMENTE: One of my favorite quotes of yours is when you said that youve never been in a relationship for longer than six months, because you didnt want to switch from boredom to contempt. Once I wrote a column for Interview called Send This Girl to Camp where I set myself up as some sort of fresh-air-fund child and announced that I wanted to go to camp: I invented a camp called Camp Sensibility and asked people for contributions to send me there. Because it doesnt agitate against human nature. The idea of writing something without publishing it is too horrifying to me. But perhaps it makes senseI grew up in a place where I saw the sea every day and, near the end of my life, Im living in a place where the water has run out. Everyone I know says, Fran is a Luddite, she doesnt have a computer. But I never had a typewriter. The novel is reputedly about rich people who want to be artists, and artists who want to be rich people. It was like watching children at a birthday party. The episode closes with Dear Someone, a poem by Deborah Landau. Fran took on modern manners, aesthetics and culture the way William Buckley takes on liberalism. My first school punishment was sitting in the corner in kindergarten wearing a Band-Aid over my mouth and holding up a sign that said I am a chatterbox. That was my first run-in with authority. Its almost as good as being a mechanic. The last one took me 11 hours to type. I remember the darkness of being sent awaysheer misery of a kind that I didnt know existed. . The day my grounding was up and I was going to be allowed to go out on Saturday I got the flu and was sick for two weeks. Brooklyn was the borough of grandparents. He was the one that was supposed to be president. Not just in school; I count on my fingers still. We think his version of the navy pinstripe would fit right in Fran's rotation. Here's what started happening: A few years ago, kidsand by which I mean, my friends' kidsstarted coming up to me and saying, 'Fran, where'd you get those vintage glasses?' And I said, 'They . That tends to upset people. It was terribly disconcerting because I knew that they werent going to cure me. They used the big Big Apple sign to lure these people who hate New Yorkbecause everyone hated New York thento New York. All rights reserved, In an essay specially commissioned for the podcast, Aisha Sabatini Sloan describes rambling around Paris with her father, Lester Sloan, a longtime staff photographer for. Since we are on the pages of Interview magazine, should we go back to your beginnings at Interview? Fran Lebowitz: I cover the waterfront. In the vein of Lebowitz's acclaimed Netflix limited series, Pretend It's a CityThe Fran Lebowitz Reader brings together two of the famed author's bestsellers, Metropolitan Life and Social Studies.In "elegant, finely honed prose" (The Washington Post Book World), Lebowitz limns the vicissitudes of contemporary urban lifeits fads, trends, crazes, morals, and fashions. I reviewed lots of movies that never opened in New York, only in drive-ins. It was the most money Id ever made. I get tired, but fear keeps me awake. I write so slowly that I could write in my own blood without hurting myself. You can blame certain things on me, but not Donald Trump. If I lived in another country, like a country that was, say, an enemy of the United States, I would be more amused than I am. Im the worlds greatest daughter. When she started realizing cigarettes were missing it never occurred to her to accuse me, so she went to the supermarket where she bought her cigarettes and told the manager that the boys who worked there were stealing packs out of the cartons. Meet Fran Lebowitz and join her on her rambles as she muses about deadly distractions, Times Square terror, subway stoppers and total building fails. The one I wrote myself was called House of Leather. Because I could not possibly be in a relationship now for more than six days. Not so much to put anything in its place as to give an account of what had happened to me. What could they be thinking? Your email address will not be published. For the movie review columns, I always knew exactly what I was going to write aboutthe movies. I never make the connection between someones writing and who they are. And I also knew I didnt want to write like anyone else. High Times: Do you ever think you cant do it? Her father, Harold Lebowitz, owned a furniture store and upholstery workshop. But they didnt have any long-term plan in mind. Pretend It's a City. You dont have to pay me. She said, It is out of the question that this is going to come in without needing editing. And when I gave it in, she called to apologize. I didnt want to have my consciousness expanded, I wanted to have it restricted. I remember I got $500 for it. When I was younger, I might have said six months, although I think the longest relationship I was ever in was three years. Fran Lebowitz, ca. With one suitcase? I was the best-dressed nanny you ever saw. She has plants that move her because of how they look or how they behave, or because of their histories. But I just cant smile at people for money. I get rid of the ones that I can bear to give up or never wanted to begin with. This is America, what is the culture? Theres a connection. I also did some subcontract work for porn writers. Now, even if you have money, you can have a horrible apartment. This must be about 15 years ago. There are these prototypes all over the place, mixed in with my own crummy furniture. When I was young, I liked romance. Then she published two books of essays Metropolitan Life and Social Studies - both wonderful. The way the admissions director of Harvard decides who goes to Harvard, Id like to decide who comes here. Obviously, I was opposed to this, and I still am. FRAN LEBOWITZ. Ill take you to 21 if you type for me. Ive typed some of my columns. New Yorkers, weve seen Donald Trump for, like, 30 years; we know who he is. screening with three movies and lunch. No, youre not. She thought it might be broadening to be banned from fashion shows and book-launching parties as well, and came up with a new name for her new, improved column, I Cover the Waterfront ." Im such a slow writer I have no need for anything as fast as a word processor. People were pretty angry in general then. Lebowitz: I dont know if any inspire me. CLEMENTE: You failed to describe your qualifications to be mayor of the city. When she was sixteen, her family interrupted her education, sending her to work as a nanny in New York. I like New York. All-around cultural oracle Fran Lebowitz really began her ascent to that pulpit here at Interview, in 1972, writing a wonderful column about terrible movies, and then covering the waterfront, as she called it: opining on sundry topics, giving advice, ranting, reflecting, and hooking the reading world (such as it is) on that voicethat saucy, salty, intrepid, enchanting, and hilarious voice. Fran Lebowitz.the toast of the town; a brilliant writer who almost never writes. Im a great relative. They like machines because it makes them seem more masculine. Amazon. General with two other people who were also smashed out of their minds. After nearly half a century as a journalist, author, social critic and "talker," the quintessential. Because if people dont hold grudges, it means they just dont care what people do. Used Planes comes out every single month. The idea that New York is over makes some people angry, but it makes me laugh. China is not a great idea: capitalism and a dictator. Two rare items of Andy Warhol: 1) Pop goes art - Institut fr Popkultur - 1990 - Box - Contains several items: - Glossy folder of loose-leaf art-paper reproductions. High Times: When you were writing The Best of the Worst what was the best bad movie you ever saw? Meeting James Joyce would be more on the order of sightseeing, like seeing the Washington Monument or the Jefferson Memorial. I remember it because when I started publishing, I got offers to write for big magazines. They told you what kind of sex to put in it. Metropolitan Life, published by E.P. Anna Rahmanan. Im very vilified for this, I have to say. Full-time Im watching daytime TV., The following interview took place one afternoon in an apartment overlooking the East River. Instead of representing oil as self-evident, Sinclair imbues it with a kaleidoscopic range of associations that reimagine it on visionary new terms.. At that point one of the boys I was with realized I was feeling better and got really mad at me for insisting on going to the hospital, and he screamed at me, which made me perfectly crazy by the time I got to see the psychiatrist. Im always sorry when I see that someone has tried out 11 new comedians and I wasnt there. Just because its February doesnt mean were talking Roses! I guess it didnt go. At twenty-one, she began a column, I Cover the Waterfront, for Andy WarholsInterviewmagazine, before moving toMademoiselle. High Times: Have you gotten any marriage proposals? They had a very weird array of people who worked there. 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