She is one of my idols. If you don't know her. you really should & you can start with the documentry- Public Speaking directed by Martin Scosese. Fran Lobowitz turns 61 years old today. Martin Scorsese’s 90-minute talkfest in which essayist & humorist Fran Lebowitz explains almost everything 2010 was quite the year for documentries about funny women, along with Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work.
The Scorsese flick is a sophisticated affair in which a series of interviews with Lebowitz at the Waverly Inn are seamlessly intercut. The film is the world view of a very witty & very cynical New Yorker who likes few of the changes she’s seen in her adopted home since she arrived 40 years ago.
The writer Lebowitz became famously paralyzed, she calls it “writer’s blockade” but she has few peers as a public pontificater. This gift has allowed the writer to be able to afford to stay in NYC & to hang out with famous friends.
I am mad jealous of the idea of having a Manhattan career out of a pair slim volumes of essays & then chatting away for the next 4 decades.
But conversation at Lebowitz’s level was once a much respected occupation, as Scorsese reminds us in brief clips that show us folks like James Baldwin, Gore Vidal, & William F. Buckley on talk shows back in the 1960s.
Lebowitz mentions at one point that she was thrilled & inspired as a young person by one of Baldwin’s many appearances on the David Susskind talk show, pointing up how today’s talk show in comparison,with guests that are pre-interviewed & plug thier product for 5 minutes.
“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”
I always loved & looked forward to Fran Lebowitz's pieces in Interview Magazine, hired by Andy Warhol himself. I will still re-read her books- Social Studies & Metropolitan Life, both published more than 30 years ago. Cranky, sardonic, witty, & dry; her essays make me think & make me laugh. She was named one most stylish women in Vanity Fair's International Best-Dressed List, & is known to sport tailored suits by the Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard. Lebowitz has a reoccuring role on Law & Order as a judge. She had the best Proust Questionaire, on the back page of Vanity Fair, ever. I think her quips are on a par with Dorothy Parker:
"All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable."
"Andy Warhol made fame more famous."
"As a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you."
"Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying."
"If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater suggest that he wear a tail."
"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."
"In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra."
"Polite conversation is rarely either."
"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."
"The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting."
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