Steve paid me excessive amounts of money to answer his telephone. I can put my hand on any book in the whole house; I know where they are. CLEMENTE: Have you been following the presidential campaign? There is no such thing as inner peace. Gauloises, English Ovals, any cigarette that looked like it would annoy people. I cant imagine what I could have done with it. Meeting James Joyce would be more on the order of sightseeing, like seeing the Washington Monument or the Jefferson Memorial. Florinda Donner and Carlos Castenada were both accused of fabricating their encounters with Indigenous healers. But since that apartment was infested with roaches, I decided not to bring them to my nice, new apartment. I firmly believe that. I dont think I was still writing for Interview, but once you go outside your natural audience, there are tons of people that dont like you. I am alternately very gregariousvery sociableand then very solitary. 15.19. You published Metropolitan Life in installments in Interview. Because I had an ounce of marijuana. Why did your family send you to America? Then 50 questions, then 20 questions, then, finally, you said, Can you see Im trying to read?. - Booklet on 'New York's Underground' - Large . I like Richie Rich comic books. And the truth is that most families have no smart ones and no pretty ones. Fran Lebowitz has realised George Costanza is, in fact, an idiot. Fabulous. Its not an area of interest. Getty Images. I saw a group-therapy movieand the whole thing took place in redwood hot tubs with people screaming their problems at each other. High Times: Did A.I.P. General in Boston. When I was younger, I might have said six months, although I think the longest relationship I was ever in was three years. LEBOWITZ: No. They would give you $15 and a sandwich. CLEMENTE: But dont you love being in someone elses apartment, possibly someone you dont know well or know at all? High Times: What was it like being a cab driver? 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. When asked about the long delay in its delivery to her publisher, she explained that she only works on it on the side. To celebrate, we're republishing Glenn O'Brien's interview with the living legend from the August, 1978 print edition of High Times. And people sent in money. At the beginning, every day, you asked me a hundred questions about myself. A childrens book, Annie, Gwen, Lilly, Pam and Tulip, came out in 1986. Good Books Books To Read Acceptance Speech National Book Award Wordsmith Great Words Ex Libris Reading Material Women Humor More information . Glenn OBriens interview with the iconic Fran Lebowitz from the August, 1978 issue of High Times magazine. Thats what Id like to do. Im not afraid to be on TV. I didnt do anything interesting. I loved to smoke. We would think of them together, and then he would execute them. She was a hot little number in 1978 . I would say maybe 74, 75. Theres no reason why it has to be the way it is. And as soon as we finished, Marty goes, "Let's make another one." But . When I moved out nine years later, there was no ceiling in the bathroom. Were you expected to criticize what was going on? At the age of 27, Fran Lebowitz has been suddenly hailed as the funniest writer to come down the pike since Dorothy Parker or, by some accounts, Oscar Wilde. A sense of, Im all alone in the world, and I have integrity. The idea wasnt that I would establish myself and then have the rest of my family join me. Its not my preference, but it is my lot in life. And thats the reason why a person of a certain age wakes up early morning with a slight sense of anxiety. CLEMENTE: So everything that you write is written by hand? Well, I work on amachine. But in modern America - where, despite ostensible separation of church and state, the only thing that trumps the cross in terms of influence is the dollar sign - its possibly even worse. And as Fran took on polyester, landlords, press agents and pop psychology, her reputation grew. Metropolitan Life, published by E.P. China is not a great idea: capitalism and a dictator. CLEMENTE: There was a brilliant article by Rgis Debrayhe was a guerrilla guy with Che Guevarasaying that, since the election of the American president has an effect on the life of every citizen of the planet, all citizens of the planet should vote. She began a similar column (although PG rated) in Mademoiselle. LEBOWITZ: Here are my qualifications: I am a New Yorker. Full-time Im watching daytime TV., The following interview took place one afternoon in an apartment overlooking the East River. As boring as reading it. Over some twenty years, Kincaid has made what my partner, the poet James Fenton, calls a plantsmans garden, full of rare species. But you could live in New York. Lebowitz's rise to fame began around 1972, when Andy Warhol hired her for Interview magazine to write reviews of bad movies before she expanded into cultural criticism in her column, "I Cover the Waterfront." She released two well-received collections of essays, Metropolitan Life (1978), followed by Social Studies (1981). I said to my friends, 'He's going to make you long for de Blasio, [and] he was terrible,'" the author . 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. He was probably grumpy. I clearly had one of those eating problems, but I didnt know what they were. "And then we did it the Saturday . CLEMENTE: Did you take drugs before you were 19? High Times: Didnt you write some pornographic books as a struggling artist? Because you could always get shifts in a restaurant. Her big, broad-frame glasses evoke the Italian movie stars of the sixties. There was a sink in the bathroom. And at that time he had every important movie, and that ended my movie-reviewing career. I had an ingrained hatred of Jeb before I ever saw him. CLEMENTE: And the illustrations were by Marc Balet? I never make the connection between someones writing and who they are. I styled myself to look like no one else. Fran Lebowitz, who is featured "Pretend It's a City" on Netflix. I said, How could I help you choreograph a ballet? . Interview still frame courtesy of Stephanie Black. Male writers like them because they have this sneaking suspicion that writing is not the most masculine profession. "If you can eat it, it's not art. Well, perhaps, but I never really felt I belonged even in Antigua, even when I was little. Then to Merits. The 70-year-old . Frans column was called The Best of the Worst; her job was reviewing the best of the current bad films, and she worked as hard as a Variety critic, taking in two or three screenings a day. Plus they are paid by the minute. [5] She is known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York City sensibilities and her association with many prominent figures of the . Im sorry, were full up. I have a real aversion to machines. I also have the Family Feud home game, but I cant figure out how to play it. Someone once told me they were sending me 14,000 roses and 12,000 Chinese concubines, but they never showed up. 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. Lebowitz: Ive had a number of interesting, colorful jobs. Here's one guarantee in 2021: author Fran Lebowitz won't read this. I could have written a trilogy in 11 hours. Those memories are a constant source of some strange pleasure for me. I always was.FRAN LEBOWITZ. When I got to the hospital they did not believe that I had smoked marijuana, I was so smashed. A pen. I met one who used to go to Kennedy Airport, to the terminals where people were coming from Florida, and there were a lot of Puerto Ricans who had never been to New York; he used to have a bathroom scale in the taxi, and he would tell these Puerto Ricans that in this country taxi rates were by weight and that it was a quarter a pound or something like that. Kincaid divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is a professor of African American studies at Harvard University, and Bennington, Vermont, where her large brown clapboard house with yellow window trim is shielded by trees. 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. This is why I have problems with books, because you cannot do that the night before. Fifty years later, she's still there, and the author, public speaker and humorist has a lifetime's . But there was a myth about her. High Times: If someone offered you an hour TV special that you could do anything with, what would you do? Her first published work, movie and book reviews, appeared in that magazine when she was twenty years old. The terrace that starts at the back door ends in a border of stones; the lawn, planted with thousands of daffodils, slopes down to a thickly shaded creek. They used the big Big Apple sign to lure these people who hate New Yorkbecause everyone hated New York thento New York. Youre so judgmental I would find it helpful. I didnt know how to type, Marc knew how to type. I sold belts on the street. LEBOWITZ: That was later, for my next column, I Cover the Waterfront. That was after I met Marc. Id like to be admissions director of New York. CLEMENTE: Did you talk with the clients of your cab? But I wanted to be a beatnik when there were already hippies. LEBOWITZ: I used to. Alison Roman Dishes on Resy, Air Fryers, and Erewhon, The Gatekeepers of New Yorks Most Coveted Tables Tell All, Kathryn Newton and Paul Rudd on the Joys of Being Extra, Alex Cooper Calls Her Daddy Mel Ottenberg at the Prada Show in Milan. High Times: Why did you smoke an ounce of marijuana in one day? Lebowitz: I like Marshall Brickman. Its like the two worst possible things you could imagine together. The Fran Lebowitz Reader. Lebowitz: I was unceremoniously expelled from prep school in my senior year for no apparent reason. They had very good writers, but they were these old, stout white men. I remember it because they gave me the topic: What was the effect of AIDS on the culture? Then, in 1972, she began writing for Andy Warhols Interview. Her early fiction, much of which also appeared in that magazine, was collected in At the Bottom of the River (1983), a book that, like her Talk stories, announced her themes, her style, the uncanny purity of her prose. In an excerpt from The Art of Fiction no. I always liked people who are older. Shes really not our type. I was home sick when I was expelled. I thought they owned the roads; I always used to tell my parents I wanted to be a toll taker, and they couldnt imagine why. In the mid-70s, she began to write for The Village Voice, but it was at The New Yorker, where she became a regular columnist for the Talk of the Town section, that everything changed for her. Every single one. Had COVID-19 not been the new reality, we probably would have met at some vintage New York landmark, like The Players Club or McSorley's Old Ale House. The other is that horses are hands. Lebowitz spent the pandemic alone, at her own insistence, having turned down offers to lock down with wealthy friends at their Hamptons homes . Photograph by Christopher Macsurak. In placing them in magazines she was merely pursuing her policy of selling a piece of writing as many times as possible. They had a very weird array of people who worked there. Theyre all right-wing nuts. I dressed in old clothes, thrift-shop clothes. I wait until the editor says, Unless its in tomorrow morning at ten oclock we cant run it. Then I stay up all night and do it. I suppose that my work is always mourning something, the loss of a paradisenot the thing that comes after you die, but the thing that you had before. I met Marc in . Just because its February doesnt mean were talking Roses! High Times: What was the first thing you wrote as a serious attempt to be a writer? She is widely recognized for her collection of essays, including Metropolitan Life, The Fran Lebowitz Reader, and Social Studies. This is another thing most people don't know about Toni: though she was incredibly hardworking, she was physically incredibly lazy. She cooks with flair. Copyright 2023 Interview Magazine. One of the movies was The Thing with Two Heads, starring Ray Milland and Rosie Grier. She was part Carib Indian, and they used to call her the Red Woman. I wanted to see Robert Young. He was the most inventive cabbie I ever met. By Susan Devaney. Her voice is as musical as ever, high-pitched, the Anglo-Caribbean lilt beguiling. You can blame certain things on me, but not Donald Trump. Go back. I think that would solve both problems. Fran Lebowitz: I Cover the Waterfront. While working in the local Carvel ice-cream store, she attended an Episcopalian day school until she was thrown out for non-specific surliness. Certain that she would starve to death following this banishment, Lebowitz skipped college and moved to Manhattan, where she pursued such jobs as taxi driving, belt peddling, apartment cleaning (with a small specialty in Venetian blinds), and selling advertising space forChangesmagazine. Don Rickles. Lebowitz was born in 1950 in Morristown, New Jersey, the daughter of furniture store proprietors. I remember I got $500 for it. I also have several writing habits necessitated by living in this apartment. By Meredith Blake Staff Writer. Fran is a renowned humorist and essayist. I was not surprised to see this. CLEMENTE: One of my favorite things that you ever published was something that came out at the height of the AIDS epidemic, when the amount of nonsensical, prejudiced, ridiculous things being said was really extraordinary, and you came up with a few paragraphs that really nailed the situation. I didnt lead a riot or set fire to the gym or do anything James Deanish. Lebowitz maintains that she wrote the columns with the intention of building a distinct collection of essays. I did every single one like that. High Times: I remember telling you youd never make it as a writer until you learned how to type. 2011. I write with a pen. Theyre acting as if the other people are Abraham Lincoln. Tolerance is really a better thing than understanding. But her crankiness betrayed a heart of gold. LEBOWITZ: I never remember saying that, but I would have to abridge that. But after a while Fran outgrew the bad-flick format. Their consciousness is so different from ours that they constitute a different species. 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. My whole movie consciousness was based on movies no one else had ever seen. Its too expensive. CLEMENTE: You failed to describe your qualifications to be mayor of the city. So forcing people into a situation where theyre supposed to adore each other is probably bad. Not at all, because I was going as a servant. Then I moved to New York and switched to exotic foreign brands. That was on the second floor. So he wasnt a surprise to me. Rare Vintage Andy Warhol's INTERVIEW Magazine, September 1981, featuringCover: FRAN LEBOWITZ w/ feature interview by JOHN WATERS (HYSTERICAL! AS NEW.' Known for her white shirts and blue Levis jeans, Fran Lebowitz was named one of the most stylish women by 'Vanity Fair's 68th Annual International Best Dressed List in 2007. I like Woody Allen. "It would have been . If you were going to have dinner with some of those older people you mentioned, say writers, which ones would you pick? But they didnt have any long-term plan in mind. I used to start at midnight, but thats gotten pushed up, so now its common for me to start at three in the morning. She has two children from her marriage to the composer Allen Shawn, the son of the former New Yorker editor William Shawn, and in the living room she displays on a tableproudly, apologeticallyproductions from the arts-and-crafts camps and classes that her son and daughter attended over the years. I didnt want to have my consciousness expanded, I wanted to have it restricted. And if you asked them, Do you like that Jew? She would say, No, I hate him. Do you like that girl in the head scarf? No, I hate her. But heres the great thing about New York: They leave each other alone. You cant do it. So I remember I said, Look, if you dont like it, give it back to me. Especially because I was the only girl. 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 ." The first sentence of one of those books was, It was autumn in New York; you could tell it was autumn because chorus boys all over town were losing their leaves. I thought that was the most hilarious thing Id ever read. I Cover The Waterfront. Lebowitz: I dont really remember it. And thats why Frans first book, Metropolitan Life, has become a smash hit. Lebowitz: Daddy. My mother taught me to say that so I would wake my father up instead of her. LEBOWITZ: I drank my lifetime supply of alcohol and I took my lifetime supply of drugs between the ages of 15 and 19. It is boring and it is arithmetic. I loved getting the measles and colds so I could sit on the couch and watch all those morning situation comedies. Famously known to have sidestepped buying into browsing the Internet or even owning a computer, the iconic humorist doesn't - nor will she ever . 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, Lebowitz: Not from the people who made the movies. Lucy is about the making of a person. One was called Catherine the Great, and it had a picture of her on the label. It was unavoidable. I got a lot of tips. Then one day Polka Dotty was found dead. Lebowitz earned a GED and worked several odd jobs before Andy Warhol hired her as a columnist for Interview Magazine in 1972. Unless they own a hotel chain, I dont think a single one of these eight million people are happy about this. And at the end of the book report you were supposed to tell people where they could get the book, and I would always say. LEBOWITZ: I only know how many there are because for the last several years Ive moved every five minutes, so theyre counted. I went to bed earlier than anyone in the world. Lebowitz: I dont think I was a poet for even an entire year. But you need more room to do that. The only shows I remember when I was a little kid are Miss Francess Ding Dong School, which I watched because everyone made fun of me because my name was Frances. 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