By Meredith Blake Staff Writer. High Times: How far did you get in school? And in order to do that, you have to change it so they like it. It was unavoidable. Lebowitz: I only wrote one by myself. I did not connect eating with staying alive, so I didnt think anything of eating the food. So every time I move, they have to be moved around, and I always fight with this guy when we do this, because he is a private librarian, which means, generally, he works for very rich people who never read their books. LEBOWITZ: It may just be the offers Ive had, but generally, I think theres just more to say no to. . You have to say fuck, you have to have these kinds of sex. 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. February 10, 2022 Fran Lebowitz doesn't care what you think, unless you're carrying a gun. So I wrote The Secret Castle and was very disappointed to discover that no one published it. She is alive to the advantage in the irony that her literary heritage had not predicted her, exalted, brave, free. In between writing books Lebowitz is a guest editor and occasional columnist for Vanity Fair. Your email address will not be published. Unless they own a hotel chain, I dont think a single one of these eight million people are happy about this. I like New York. 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. Tolerance is really a better thing than understanding. - 48-page book (text in German) covering the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground in film and a discography, with many b&w and colour photos. They used the big Big Apple sign to lure these people who hate New Yorkbecause everyone hated New York thento New York. The two things I hate the most. In placing them in magazines she was merely pursuing her policy of selling a piece of writing as many times as possible. I knew about four or five people who wrote porn books at the time that I was a poet. There was a sink in the bathroom. I think Brigid Polk did that once. 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 . 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. They dont know what anything is, so they have to make it up. I like Richie Rich comic books. She takes one. What are they going to possibly say thats of interest? I was pulled out of school to take care of my youngest brother while my mother went to work, and when she realized I hadnt been looking after him properly, that I had been reading instead, she gathered all the books I had stolen from the library over the years and burned them. My inspiration for wanting to be a beatnik was not Allen Ginsberg or Jack Kerouac but Maynard G. Krebs from the Dobie Gillis show. Brooklyn was the borough of grandparents. I never had any skilled jobs because I never had any skills. So I didnt have a kitchen. 246, Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti discuss how writing her first novel helped Cusk discover her shape or identity or essence. Next, Allan Gurganuss reading of his story It Had Wings, about an arthritic woman who finds a fallen angel in her backyard, is interspersed with a version of the story rendered as a one-woman opera by the composer Bruce Saylor. I wrote an editorial about the matron and got kicked off the paper. I was quite happy to be out. I ended up smoking Lucky Strikes, just because I liked the way it looked, the gesture. I always was.FRAN LEBOWITZ. She began a similar column (although PG rated) in Mademoiselle. I used to sneak out of bed to watch it. In person and on the page, Kincaids is a literary voice. No, youre not. He was the only person who took me seriously enough to ban me. Then I switched to Vantage. The study where she writes is a sunroom surrounded on three sides by windows. Fran was raised in Morristown, New Jersey. So I have a state diploma. She was a hot little number in 1978 . And then I would go to the Factory and turn it in. And thats the reason why a person of a certain age wakes up early morning with a slight sense of anxiety. We think his version of the navy pinstripe would fit right in Fran's rotation. I styled myself to look like no one else. 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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. Their antidote to this was giving me about 22 Thorazines. 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. I think my most enormous smoking punishment was being grounded for a month. Her essays and topical interviews on subjects ranging from the difficulty of finding an acceptable apartment to the art of freeloading at weekend houses have come to be regarded as classics of literary humor and social observation. Directed by Martin Scorsese, it follows Lebowitz and Scorsese as they prowl New York City streets, museums and members clubs for conversations about the city. But because I was young, I had this long hair, and people used to try to tip me with joints. I remember what year that was. Im a great relative. I think there should be an oldies TV station like theres an oldies radio station, with Dobie Gillis and Life of Riley and all those great shows. LEBOWITZ: No. These were oral book reports. I think I first came across it in one of the Bronts. The title song was sung by a truck. Theres a huge gap in what people know, and theres no context for it anymore. LEBOWITZ: The first thing I would do is say, I dont care if New York avoided bankruptcy by substituting tourism for the garment business, which is what happened. Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images. I would rather have a typist. The 70-year-old . I played cello in the school orchestra, but I was so horrible that I soon got over the notion of being a cellist. I Married Joan, I Love Lucy, I loved all those situation comedies. I was never interested in having such interesting experiences. I said, "Toni, the restaurant's five blocks away.". And you didnt have to think about money every second. "Pretend it's a citywhere there are other people ," she pleads. One of the movies was The Thing with Two Heads, starring Ray Milland and Rosie Grier. For the movie review columns, I always knew exactly what I was going to write aboutthe movies. But you could live in New York. - Booklet on 'New York's Underground' - Large . FRANCESCO CLEMENTE: After a certain age, in the early hours of the morning, the pressure drops, which is the reason why. I dont remember who published it. ), occasional actor ("Law & Order . 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. But, I mean, no one talked about money. I drove a taxi. And I would always give it back. Because its everyones dream: Someday Im going to go to New York and go to Queens. Every place theres a hotel, theres one less apartment building. There was nothing televisiony or psychological about it. CLEMENTE: Is there any aspect of New Jersey that you miss? Knowledge of a culture. Everyone I know says, Fran is a Luddite, she doesnt have a computer. But I never had a typewriter. At twenty-one, she began a column called "I Cover the Waterfront," for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine. High Times: What was the first thing you wanted to be when you grew up? Lebowitz: I wrote a book when I was about eight called The Secret Castle that owed a lot to Carolyn Keene, who wrote the Nancy Drew books. To me, dictating a book seems impossible. I might have gone to the University of the West Indies. The last one took me 11 hours to type. Donald Trump is not my fault. Im sorry, were full up. Its placing too great a burden on the average intelligence. Glenn OBriens interview with the iconic Fran Lebowitz from the August, 1978 issue of High Times magazine. I have two animal theories. Lebowitz: I was a behavior problem as far as talking. She was an outsider in Antigua, and she looked different. Fran Lebowitz contains multitudes: author (with a decades-old writer's block), journalist (Vanity Fair and Interview, et al. The way the admissions director of Harvard decides who goes to Harvard, Id like to decide who comes here. It was a very terrifying experience because when I started to flip out having smoked this much pot I was in a room with people who had also smoked this much pot and no one would help me out. LEBOWITZ: I dont cook. I hit my limit at 19, and I havent had any since. CLEMENTE: Did you talk with the clients of your cab? I saw the super once, just when I moved in, and I pointed out to him there was no ceiling in the bathroom. At the foot of his driveway in California, Jack Douglas had a sign that said Have you called these people? I also thought Oscar Levant was hilarious. But for I Cover the Waterfront, ordinarily I would go out to dinner with Marc the night beforeand when I say dinner, I mean some hamburger place or somethingand I would think of ideas, and then I would go home. "Candy was a man who wanted to be a female movie star," says Fran in the opening of the under-three-minute teaser. Why is that? Then I moved here. The essays were published inMetropolitan Life(1978) andSocial Studies(1981). And then I would go out, get Marc coffee and a Danish, bring it to his apartment, and he would type it for me, because I never had a typewriter. The New York Times, especially at that time, was gigantic. They thought I made them up. I thought theyd probably just give me another joint. Lebowitz: Ill never make it as a typist. Lebowitz: No. So he wasnt a surprise to me. Now youd have to have a zillion dollars to live there. He was stuck, and he asked me to come help. No ones supposed to be the president. 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