16
INSUFFERABLE
KNOW-IT-ALL
Author and satirist Fran Lebowitz is
society's favorite malcontent
Proud owner of 10,000 books,
Lebowitz is e New Yorker incarnate
and Vanity Fair in the flesh. She has
earned a reputation for being the Big
Apple's keenest observer and society's
harshest critic. Indeed, Lebowitz's
famous essays from the late 1970s
and early '80s—Metropolitan Life and
Social Studies—have been collected
into the Fran Lebowitz Reader, a
book whose very name suggests
it serves some type of instruction
beyond stating the blanket opinions
of an individual who easily floats to
the extreme statement. Only Martin
Scorsese, the director famous for
Goodfellas and chronicling a gritty,
authentic vision of New York City in
Taxi Driver, has been able to capture
Lebowitz's acerbic charm with the
flair of a gangster film in HBO's
Public Speaking. It helps that she
once drove a taxi cab, too.
Lebowitz argues that nothing in
popular culture is original anymore,
an understandable statement from
an individual who got her start
in life writing short columns for
Andy Warhol's Interview magazine.
Her trademark tortoiseshell glasses
and proclivities for men's fashion
have themselves been appropriated
by the younger generation as
"vintage"—don't think she hasn't
noticed. But Lebowitz remains
steadfast in her sardonic criticism
of culture. She believes that in this
age of homogenous entertainment
and derivative fashion, our ideas are
what make us individuals, however
peculiar. ere's a certain practicality
in Lebowitz's statements, challenging
the rest of the world to own their
ideas and personal opinions because
that's what makes us interesting.
Lebowitz appears on late night
talk shows mostly for sport, but
there's something to be said for
someone who continues to say what
everyone else is thinking, who has
resisted the tides of technology, and
who in 2017 still delivers acute,
satirical statements about society
with a cigarette in her mouth.
at's Lebowitz.
S E E F R A N L E B OW I T Z O N M A R C H 8 I N D E L L H A L L.
TALKING
HEADS