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

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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. ”

The Fran Lebowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz: 9780679761808

The Fran Lebowitz Reader is a 1994 collection of comedic essays by writer Fran Lebowitz. [1] [2] [3] verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{

Lebowitz needs plenty of room. This will come as no surprise to anyone who is even vaguely familiar with her work, which, in the past four decades, has largely consisted of being Fran Lebowitz: a strong-willed, grumpy, verbose, brilliant woman, who is eager to give her invariably cutting take on anything and everything. The daughter of Jewish parents, Lebowitz grew up in New Jersey and was expelled from her high school for being a bad influence on her peers. (One example: “We had a Halloween party and I came as Fidel Castro,” she has said.) Around 1970, she moved to New York City, where she wrote a column for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, and published two acclaimed essay collections—“Metropolitan Life,” in 1978, and “Social Studies,” in 1981—which were full of spot-on observations about contemporary living. I’ve always loved her description of a phone call with a Hollywood agent, who, she noted, sounded “audibly tan.”

The Fran Lebowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz | Waterstones

That I am totally devoid of sympathy for, or interest in, the world of groups is directly attributable to the fact that my two greatest needs and desires — smoking cigarettes and plotting revenge — are basically solitary pursuits.” 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. Yet it is her own company that she treasures most of all. Having gone from being a cult hero to a bona fide celebrity, it is no wonder Lebowitz longs for peace and quiet. “When I step out of my apartment, I want there to be a city there. But I also like to stay in. Just me, alone with my thoughts.”Marty and me … Lebowitz with Scorsese in their Netflix collaboration Pretend It’s a City. Photograph: Netflix 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. ” 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.” 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.

Fran Lebowitz on life without the internet: ‘If I’m cancelled Fran Lebowitz on life without the internet: ‘If I’m cancelled

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.”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 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.” 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?”

The Fran Lebowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz | Waterstones The Fran Lebowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz | Waterstones

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 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 standingI 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. Is there anything more delightful than watching Martin Scorsese enjoy someone? One of the best things about his new documentary series, “Pretend It’s a City,” is getting to see the filmmaker react to his subject, the author and humorist Fran Lebowitz, who is also his good friend. Ten years ago, Scorsese made “Public Speaking,” his first documentary about Lebowitz, which was an ode to a vanishing breed of New York celebrity, as well as a portrait of the city itself. Sitting in a booth at the Waverly Inn, Lebowitz expounded on her various hobbyhorses, including her rejection of technology, her love of talking, and her addiction to smoking. (“The clerk said, ‘Oh, you know, Marlboro Lights, they’re on sale.’ And I thought, Really? Why? . . . They could be a million dollars, I don’t care.”) Now Scorsese and Lebowitz have made a kind of sequel, which comes, in the manner of the hour, as a streaming Netflix series rather than a feature-length film. 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.” 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.” 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.