The Fran Lebowitz Reader
by
Fran Lebowitz
Published 8 Nov 1994
The Fran Lebowitz Reader Fran Lebowitz still lives in New York City, as she does not believe that she would be allowed to live anywhere else. Books by Fran Lebowitz Metropolitan Life Social Studies Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, NOVEMBER 1994 Copyright © 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1994 by Fran Lebowitz All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
…
Art Color: Drawing the Line The Sound of Music: Enough Already A Brush with Death LETTERS Letters Writing: A Life Sentence In Hot Pursuit Or Not CB: That Is the Answer The Word Lady: Most Often Used to Describe Someone You Wouldn’t Want to Talk to for Even Five Minutes Taking a Letter Writers on Strike: A Chilling Prophecy A Few Words on a Few Words No News Is Preferable SOCIAL STUDIES PEOPLE People How Not to Marry a Millionaire: A Guide for the Misfortune Hunter The Four Greediest Cases: A Limited Appeal Parental Guidance Tips for Teens At Home with Pope Ron The Modern-Day Lives of the Saints The Servant Problem THINGS Things Pointers for Pets The Frances Ann Lebowitz Collection The Pen of My Aunt Is on the Operating Table PLACES Places Lesson One Diary of a New York Apartment Hunter Fran Lebowitz’s Travel Hints IDEAS Ideas When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes … Shut Them The Last Laugh The Fran Lebowitz High Stress Diet and Exercise Program The Unnatural Order How to Be a Directory Assistance Operator: A Manual War Stories The Short Form An Alphabet of New Year’s Resolutions for Others To Have and Do Not Preface The first of the pieces in this volume were written in my early twenties—the last, in my early thirties.
…
If what is presently called art can be called art, and what is presently called history can be called history (indeed, if what is presently called the present can be called the present), then I urge the contemporary reader—that solitary figure—to accept these writings in the spirit in which they were originally intended and are once again offered: as art history. But art history with a difference; modern, pertinent, current, up-to-the-minute art history. Art history in the making. Fran Lebowitz September 1994 Metropolitan Life My Day: An Introduction of Sorts 12:35 P.M.—The phone rings. I am not amused. This is not my favorite way to wake up. My favorite way to wake up is to have a certain French movie star whisper to me softly at two-thirty in the afternoon that if I want to get to Sweden in time to pick up my Nobel Prize for Literature I had better ring for breakfast.
Vanishing New York
by
Jeremiah Moss
Published 19 May 2017
The loss to the rambunctious cultural life of the city is multiplied when you consider that many of the people who died from AIDS were artists and activists, upstarts and rebels, young people whose influence on the urban culture and the shaping of its future was abruptly terminated. Had they lived, these people likely would not only have created art and progressive politics in the decades to come; they also would have been its supporters. As Fran Lebowitz points out in the film Public Speaking, “An audience with a high level of connoisseurship is as important to the culture as artists. That audience died in five minutes.” It was yet another blow to the New York created a century before, when “fairies” flounced along the Bowery, mingling with working-class, radical, and immigrant cultures.
…
We were told we needed them after 9/11. With the Americanization of New York after the attacks, with Ground Zero turned into a morbid attraction, and with the mayor hyperfocused on increasing tourism, out-of-towners made themselves very comfortable. They began pouring in, slowing down the trains and clogging the sidewalks. Fran Lebowitz had earlier complained, “What a nightmare! No one who isn’t from New York knows how to be a pedestrian. Pedestrians don’t mosey. And they don’t walk five abreast. I’d like to make New York unsafe for tourists.” But it was too late. During the 2000s, the impact of mass tourism—bringing touristification and “tourism gentrification”—would do its part to change the psyche of the city’s streets.
…
Even in its once most edgy neighborhoods, the streets of New York have been tamed by the same chain restaurants and stores you find in Anywhere, USA: Applebee’s in Times Square, 7-Eleven in the East Village, Patagonia on the Bowery. This is where the tourists flock. Why would anyone come to New York to shop and eat in the same places they can find at their local mall back home? “Present-day New York has been made to attract people who didn’t like New York,” said Fran Lebowitz. “That’s how we get a zillion tourists here, especially American tourists, who never liked New York. Now they like New York. What does that mean? Does that mean they’ve suddenly become much more sophisticated? No. It means that New York has become more like the places they come from.” Travelers, on the other hand, are attracted to the true city.
Me Talk Pretty One Day
by
David Sedaris
Published 4 Jun 2001
.… Take Me Talk Pretty One Day somewhere where you can laugh unabashed, or better, where you can read your favorite parts out loud.” — Susan Warmbrunn, Colorado Springs Gazette “What a wonderful storyteller Sedaris is.… His writing embodies the softened bite of Dorothy Parker, the highbrow sarcasm of Fran Lebowitz, and the social commentary of Oscar Wilde.” — James Reed, Columbia Missourian “There is no contemporary writer as reliably funny as David Sedaris. His best humor seems to come from the same place as — dare I think it? — Mark Twain’s. It’s dark and suffering, extremely caustic, skillfully exaggerated, but recognizably true
…
It’s dark and suffering, extremely caustic, skillfully exaggerated, but recognizably true.” — Marilyn Bailey, Fort Worth Star-Telegram “Sedaris’s genius lies in transforming strangeness, obsessive voyeurism, and endearingly snotty observations into wildly entertaining art.” — Rob Stout, Providence Journal “David Sedaris is our generation’s James Thurber, Dorothy Parker, Fran Lebowitz, Woody Allen, and Mark Twain wrapped in a compact package with a pixie’s voice. He’s a treasure to behold.” — Seth Flicker, Genre “Sedaris is a master at turning his life experiences into witty vignettes that both entertain and comment on the human condition.” — Gloria Maxwell, Library Journal “Sedaris catalogs his foibles in a way that, while wildly funny, is also moving
The Misfit Economy: Lessons in Creativity From Pirates, Hackers, Gangsters and Other Informal Entrepreneurs
by
Alexa Clay
and
Kyra Maya Phillips
Published 23 Jun 2015
Other than better decision making as young kids, nothing.” Our last question to Ruiz? His thoughts on capitalism. “What’s good about capitalism?” he asked. “The hustle. I respect the hustle. I respect the liberty to find opportunity in anything and to act on it.” THE HUSTLE “Contrary to popular opinion,” the author and comedian Fran Lebowitz once quipped, “the hustle is not a new dance step—it is an old business procedure.” Old it may be, but today “hustle” is an oft-heard word in the business world. Employment ads, particularly for small businesses, sometimes cite hustle as a requirement for aspiring applicants. Historically, the word “hustle” was used to describe obtaining something illicitly or through forceful action, or undertaking a fraud, a con, or a swindle.
How to Predict the Unpredictable
by
William Poundstone
Ziemba and colleagues have made the deadpan argument that a wealthy and patient “dynasty” could use an unpopular number lotto system to amass great riches over the millennia. For mere mortals, a policy of buying lottery tickets is a certain financial drain that almost certainly never pays off while you’re drawing breath. Fran Lebowitz had the right idea: “I figure you have the same chance of winning the lottery whether you play or not.” Recap: How to Outguess the Lottery • These numbers are “lucky”—because relatively few players pick them, reducing the chance of a shared jackpot: 10, 20, 29, 30, 32, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 48, 49, 50.
Lurking: How a Person Became a User
by
Joanne McNeil
Published 25 Feb 2020
Cyberspace was collectives and communities, like Echo’s quirky pockets of activity and inside jokes. That might be why Echo, and the New York art and tech scene more broadly, isn’t more widely remembered or honored for its cultural contributions, apart from those who kept the candle burning. Silicon Alley had a thriving downtown subculture, but there was no Jean-Michel Basquiat or Fran Lebowitz or Lou Reed—no legends or legendary work emerged from it. The chat rooms and forums were constant after-parties to an after-party. Parties are merely the atmosphere of a culture, which lifts and fades away. To remember, a culture needs substance: something as a memento, something that can be contained.
Comedy Writing Secrets
by
Mel Helitzer
and
Mark Shatz
Published 14 Sep 2005
—Martin Mull And children are reciprocating, which means let's give it to our saintly, gray-haired mother and revered father! Mother's Day card: Mom, you're the greatest. At least that's what all the guys at the construction site say! Children are the most desirable opponents at Scrabble, as they are both easy to beat and fun to cheat. —Fran Lebowitz Angst: The Ecstasy and the Agony Angst is the intellectual observation that fairy tales aren't true—that there is an unhappy end to every happy beginning. Angst has pointed a devil's finger at anxieties so personal that, in the past, we carefully avoid¬ ed discussing them even in private: A long list of such topics includes fear of death; coping with deformity; deprivations; and neurotic symp¬ toms such as paranoia, insecurity, narcissism, and kinky sexual urges.
On Writing Well (30th Anniversary Edition)
by
William Zinsser
Published 1 Jan 1976
The brief excerpts in this chapter can convey only a glimmer of the vast output and artistry of these giants. But I wanted my students to know that they were working within a long tradition of serious intent and considerable nerve, one that is still alive in the work of such writers as Ian Frazier, Garrison Keillor, Fran Lebowitz, Nora Ephron, Calvin Trillin and Mark Singer. Singer is the current star in a long lineage of New Yorker writers—St. Clair McKelway, Robert Lewis Taylor, Lillian Ross, Wolcott Gibbs—who used deadpan humor to assassinate such public nuisances as Walter Winchell, leaving hardly a mark where their stiletto broke the skin.
Fortunes of Change: The Rise of the Liberal Rich and the Remaking of America
by
David Callahan
Published 9 Aug 2010
Many of his interviewees talked of their personal efficacy and ability to set their own agenda—as well as that of society. c04.indd 90 5/11/10 6:19:03 AM wealth and the culture war 91 The “wealthy, it turns out, ‘make history’ for themselves and others,” Schervish and Herman wrote. “While the non-wealthy generally reside within structure, the wealthy construct it.”2 Fran Lebowitz once made a similar point, without the jargon: “To us the world is a museum; to them it’s a store.” Both Jon Stryker and David Bohnett are living out a fantasy that surely every closeted gay or lesbian has at some point in his or her life: that they could part with their fear and shame, emerge as their real selves, and wave a magic wand to banish homophobia.
The Confidence Game: The Psychology of the Con and Why We Fall for It Every Time
by
Maria Konnikova
Published 28 Jan 2016
By the time Norfleet died, in October 1967, he was no longer the Boomerang Sucker. He was the “Little Tiger of Hale County,” the one who single-handedly took down one of the largest organized crime rings in the nation. CHAPTER 8 THE SEND AND THE TOUCH Contrary to popular opinion, the hustle is not a new dance step—it is an old business procedure. —FRAN LEBOWITZ For close to twenty years, the modern art world witnessed an influx of never-before-seen masterpieces from some of the most acclaimed Abstract Expressionist—AbEx—artists of the twentieth century. Jackson Pollock. Mark Rothko. Robert Motherwell. Clyfford Still. Willem de Kooning. Barnett Newman.
The Village Effect: How Face-To-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier, Happier, and Smarter
by
Susan Pinker
Published 30 Sep 2013
But what if that screen is also a camera, party line, gossip column, television, encyclopedia, megaphone, cheat-sheet, video arcade, and, of course, telephone, all rolled into one hard, shiny package that rides along with you everywhere, stashed away in your pocket? During the clannish teen years, being constantly connected to your pals shouldn’t be a problem. As Fran Lebowitz has remarked, “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.” Let’s now turn to adolescents to see if that’s still true. 7 Teens and Screens How Digital Technology Has Transformed Teens’ Lives When Allison Miller was an eighth-grade student attending Woodside High School in northern California, she sent and received twenty-seven thousand texts a month.
When Einstein Walked With Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought
by
Jim Holt
Published 14 May 2018
In the run-up to New Year’s Eve, for instance, time positively flies. Then, in January and February, it slows to a miserable crawl. Moreover, time moves faster for some of us than for others. Old people are being rushed forward into the future at a cruelly rapid clip. When you’re an adult, as Fran Lebowitz once observed, Christmas seems to come every five minutes. For little children, however, time goes quite slowly. Owing to the endless novelty of a child’s experience, a single summer can stretch out into an eternity. It has been estimated that by the age of eight, one has subjectively lived two-thirds of one’s life.
Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
by
Steven Pinker
Published 14 Oct 2021
When we look beyond the headlines to the trend lines, we find that humanity overall is healthier, richer, longer-lived, better fed, better educated, and safer from war, murder, and accidents than in decades and centuries past.9 Having documented these changes in two books, I’m often asked whether I “believe in progress.” The answer is no. Like the humorist Fran Lebowitz, I don’t believe in anything you have to believe in. Though many measures of human well-being, when plotted over time, show a gratifying increase (though not always or everywhere), it’s not because of some force or dialectic or evolutionary law that lifts us ever upward. On the contrary, nature has no regard for our well-being, and often, as with pandemics and natural disasters, it looks as if it’s trying to grind us down.
New York 2140
by
Kim Stanley Robinson
Published 14 Mar 2017
But the shows that get the biggest ratings definitely feature the biggest mammals.” “And they’re in the worst trouble, right?” “Right. Definitely. Sort of. Although, really—” She sighed. “Everything’s in trouble.” The outdoors is what you must pass through in order to get from your apartment into a taxicab. said Fran Lebowitz g) Charlotte Charlotte Armstrong’s alarm went off and she jabbed her wristpad. Time to go home. Unbelievable how fast time went when you needed more of it. She had spent the afternoon trying to sort out the case of a family that claimed to have walked from Pennsylvania into New York by way of New Jersey; they told their story ignoring the various impossibilities in it, insisting they had done it without actually being able to explain how they had finessed the checkpoints and marshes, bandits and wolves—no, they had not seen any of those, they had walked by night, walked on water maybe, until lo and behold they were on Staten Island and getting picked up by a beat cop who asked for their papers.
How the Mind Works
by
Steven Pinker
Published 1 Jan 1997
Women with large salaries, postgraduate degrees, prestigious professions, and high self-esteem place a greater value on wealth and status in a husband than other women do. So do the leaders of feminist organizations. Poor men place no higher value on wealth or earning power in a wife than other men do. Among the Bakweri in Cameroon, the women are wealthier and more powerful than the men, and they still insist on men with money. The humorist Fran Lebowitz once said in an interview, “People who get married because they’re in love make a ridiculous mistake. It makes much more sense to marry your best friend. You like your best friend more than anyone you’re ever going to be in love with. You don’t choose your best friend because they have a cute nose, but that’s all you’re doing when you get married; you’re saying, I will spend the rest of my life with you because of your lower lip.’ ” It is a puzzle, and the obvious place to look for an answer is the fact that you don’t make children with your best friend but you do with your spouse.