The Fran Lebowitz Reader: The Sunday Times Bestseller (Virago Modern Classics)

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The rare example of a legend living up to her own mythology. She really is THAT funny’ HADLEY FREEMAN Lebowitz says that she hasn’t given up on the idea of returning to writing, though, given the success of her speaking tours, she is not feeling any pressure. She and her editor have this routine when they’re out together: she will introduce him by saying, “This is my editor” and he will quip: “Easiest job in town.” He once told her that she had an “excessive reverence for the printed word”, which she thinks hit the nail on the head. “I am a psychotic perfectionist when it comes to writing, which makes it very hard,” she says. “It’s a combination of that and the fact that if I’m not the laziest person that ever lived, then I’m certainly among them. Writing is really hard and I’m really lazy – and talking is easy for me.” The Fran Lebowitz Reader is a 1994 collection of comedic essays by writer Fran Lebowitz. [1] [2] [3]

Fran Lebowitz Quotes (Author of The Fran Lebowitz Reader) Fran Lebowitz Quotes (Author of The Fran Lebowitz Reader)

I say it feels as if today people see opinions as a statement of who they are, and therefore a disagreement of opinion feels seismic. “I think that’s true. It’s replaced morality. But I never cared what people think of what I think. I’m not saying I don’t care what people think about me, because I’m human. But if people disagree with me, so what? I’ve never understood why [my opinions] anger people. I have no power, I’m not the mayor of New York, I’m not making laws. These are just opinions!” I ask Lebowitz if she was hurt by the column. “You expect critics, and this was hardly the first time I got bad press. But I thought that specific thing that you’re referring to was very antisemitic, and that is the last thing you’re still allowed to do. My editor called me and he said: ‘Don’t you think this is antisemitic?’ and he’s not Jewish, so his sensitivity is not as high as mine. But I heard that a lot of people were talking about [the article] online and I’ll tell you what surprises me is how people, who are totally unrelated to whatever’s being written about, will take these huge sides over things,” she says. Children ask better questions than do adults. “May I have a cookie?” “Why is the sky blue?” and “What does a cow say?” are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than “Where’s your manuscript?” “Why haven’t you called?” and “Who’s your lawyer?”Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one. It's a drug. It distorts reality, and that's the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw. ” What is she like as a girlfriend? “Terrible. Terrible! I loathe domestic life and I’m not the monogamous type. I’m really great for, like, the first three months, and that’s how long it lasts for me.” So is three months her longest relationship? “Well, I’ve been with people for longer, but I wasn’t being a good girlfriend. I’m a terrible girlfriend, but I’m a great friend.” Marty and me … Lebowitz with Scorsese in their Netflix collaboration Pretend It’s a City. Photograph: Netflix

The Fran Lebowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz: 9780679761808

Right on the mark…. Among the things she hates this time…baggage-claim areas, high tech, after-shave lotion, adults who roller skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan.”— Newsweek The rigors of learning how to do long division have been a traditional part of childhood, just like learning to smoke. In fact, as far as I am concerned, the two go hand in hand. Any child who cannot do long division by himself does not deserve to smoke. ”Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass. Your life story would not make a good book. Do not even try.” Pretty much as soon as she arrived in New York, as a teenage high-school dropout determined to be a writer, she was making friends. She was hanging out in Studio 54 and Warhol’s The Factory, but she never felt intimidated. “Social situations don’t frighten me,” she says. Susan Graham Ungaro, the editor of the first magazine where she worked, happened to be going out with (and later married to) the jazz musician Charles Mingus. In Pretend It’s a City, Lebowitz describes taking Mingus to her parents’ house for Thanksgiving, and Mingus taking her out for breakfast with Duke Ellington. While working at Interview, she became friends with the notoriously unfriendly Lou Reed. “I mean, Lou was difficult, no one would ever say he wasn’t difficult. We had a real fight the first time we met. But, you know, we liked each other,” she says.

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Given her irascible reputation, it is touching to hear how much she loves the speaking part of her job. Her live appearances entail half an hour of formal chat, after which she will stand at a lectern taking questions from the floor. “Answering questions from the audience is, for me, my favourite recreational activity,” Lebowitz says, warmly. “I like it because it’s surprising. You never know what people are going to ask, and I’m very amused by it. I do think a lot of the pleasure I take in it comes from the fact that, when I was growing up, no one ever asked me a question. You know that feeling when you’re a child and your parents won’t let you have candy, and then when you’re an adult you find out you can eat candy every single day? It’s like that.”If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.” I am not a callous sort. I believe that all people should have warm clothing, sufficient food, and adequate shelter. I do feel, however, that unless they are willing to behave in an acceptable manner they should bundle up, chow down, and stay home.” I love sleep because it is both pleasant and safe to use. Pleasant because one is in the best possible company and safe because sleep is the consummate protection against the unseemliness that is the invariable consequence of being awake. What you don't know won't hurt you. Sleep is death without the responsibility.”

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The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one’s soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive – you are leaking.” People have been cooking and eating for thousands of years, so if you are the very first to have thought of adding lime juice to scalloped potatoes try to understand there must be a reason for this.” Presently it appears that people are mainly concerned with being well rested. Those capable of uninterrupted sleep are much admired. Unconsciousness is in great demand. This is the day of the milligram. It is one of the advantages of not having an internet connection that, were the masses to take umbrage at one of her pronouncements, Lebowitz would be none the wiser. “So I might even be cancelled, but I would never know it. If I’m cancelled, don’t tell me! But I am aware that there are people, especially those who have some sort of public standing, who deliberately provoke other people [online]. I would never do that. I don’t like that kind of situation. The fact that I know people get angry at me is, to me, just unfortunate; like, why are you angry at me? But I’m not thinking: ‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re angry so I can get into a gigantic global fight with you.’” The only people whose opinions really matter, she adds, are politicians, “because they have power over your life and in the world, and that can be incredibly dangerous. But if you’re just worrying about the opinions of musicians or entertainers … don’t watch them. Don’t listen to them. It’s simple.” Given that homosexuality was a crime then, was she ever scared of being arrested? “It was never scary for me because the police were mostly arresting gay men, because that infuriated them more [than lesbians]. Truthfully, I was more afraid of my parents [finding out].”I love sleep because it is both pleasant and safe to use. Pleasant because one is in the best possible company and safe because sleep is the consummate protection against the unseemliness that is the invariable consequence of being awake. What you don’t know won’t hurt you. Sleep is death without the responsibility.” Its seven episodes, each of which is centered on a different theme (money, wellness, books), are refreshingly loose, the conversations between Scorsese and Lebowitz often meandering. The show’s only through line is Lebowitz herself, whose slapdash history of New York City is mostly just an occasion to riff. Scorsese’s role is largely limited to explosions of laughter, often heard off camera, and fretful interjections. (His reflexive “Oh, Fran, no!,” as she tells a story about thinking that the falling chandelier at a performance of “The Phantom of the Opera” was real, is a study in empathetic responsiveness.) Though the director is often recognized for his bravura, his modesty—his ability to foreground his interlocutor—is perhaps one of his greatest skills as a filmmaker. Lebowitz took a series of jobs, from cleaning apartments and selling belts on a market stall to bartending and driving a taxi. Whenever she had had enough of a bad job, she would look at the job listings in the Village Voice and get another one. She drew the line at typing and waitressing. “All the job listings were divided by gender, which would obviously be illegal now. All the girls I knew, they all waited tables. They said, ‘Come and work at my restaurant.’ And I said, ‘You know what? I’m not going to smile at men for money’, because that’s what that job is.” The 1970s in New York is like the 1920s in Paris. I’m getting close to being the last person standing What about her detractors, such as New York Times writer Ginia Bellafante who last year bemoaned her “misanthropic, cranky, besotted view of Manhattan life”? “I don’t care! I never did!” she says. “It’s not that I don’t care what people think of me as a person. But I don’t care how they feel about what I think. So you don’t agree with me – so what? It really surprises me, in general, how angry people get because they don’t agree with someone. What difference does it make?”