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.

Metropolitan Life

Social Studies

Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas

The first of the pieces in this volume were written in my early twenties—the last, in my early thirties. I am now in what only the most partisan and utopian of observers would describe as my early forties. It is therefore unsurprising that the question of what used to be called relevance (exactly) has been raised. Allow me then, to lower it.

Although it is true that mood rings, CB radio, disco, high-tech interior decoration, and safe sex with strangers are either no longer novel or extant, it cannot be denied that many such things (although not, alas, the last) have been frequently revived, and that in this singularly dull and retroactive era to require timeliness of a writer, when it is no longer even required of timeliness, is not only grossly unfair, but also unseemly.

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
 

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. This occurs rather less often than one might wish.

Today is a perfect example, for my caller is an agent from Los Angeles who informs me that I don’t know him. True, and not without reason. He is audibly tan. He is interested in my work. His interest has led him to the conclusion that it would be a good idea for me to write a movie comedy. I would, of course, have total artistic freedom, for evidently comic writers have taken over the movie business. I look around my apartment (a feat readily accomplished by simply glancing up) and remark that Dino De Laurentiis would be surprised to hear that. He chuckles tanly and suggests that we talk. I suggest that we
are
talking. He, however, means
there
and at my own expense. I reply that the only way I could get to Los Angeles at my own expense is if I were to go
by postcard. He chuckles again and suggests that we talk. I agree to talk just as soon as I have won the Nobel Prize—for outstanding achievement in physics.

12:55
P.M.
—I try to get back to sleep. Although sleeping is an area in which I have manifested an almost Algeresque grit and persistence, I fail to attain my goal.

1:20
P.M.
—I go downstairs to get the mail. I get back into bed. Nine press releases, four screening notices, two bills, an invitation to a party in honor of a celebrated heroin addict, a final disconnect notice from New York Telephone, and three hate letters from
Mademoiselle
readers demanding to know just what it is that makes me think that I have the right to regard houseplants—
green, living
things—with such marked distaste. I call the phone company and try to make a deal, as actual payment is not a possibility. Would they like to go to a screening? Would they care to attend a party for a heroin addict? Are they interested in knowing just what it is that makes me think that I have the right to regard houseplants with such marked distaste? It seems they would not. They would like $148.10. I agree that this is, indeed, an understandable preference, but caution them against the bloodless quality of a life devoted to the blind pursuit of money. We are unable to reach a settlement. I pull up the covers and the phone rings. I spend the next few hours fending off editors, chatting amiably, and plotting revenge. I read. I smoke. The clock, unfortunately, catches my eye.

3:40
P.M.
—I consider getting out of bed. I reject the notion as being unduly vigorous. I read and smoke a bit more.

4:15
P.M.
—I get up feeling curiously unrefreshed. I open the refrigerator. I decide against the half a lemon and jar of Gulden’s mustard and on the spur of the moment choose instead to have breakfast out. I guess that’s just the kind of girl I am—whimsical.

5:10
P.M.
—I return to my apartment laden with magazines
and spend the remainder of the afternoon reading articles by writers who, regrettably, met their deadlines.

6:55
P.M.
—A romantic interlude. The object of my affections arrives bearing a houseplant.

9:30
P.M.
—I go to dinner with a group of people that includes two fashion models, a fashion photographer, a fashion photographer’s representative, and an art director. I occupy myself almost entirely with the art director—drawn to him largely because he knows the most words.

2:05
A.M.
—I enter my apartment and prepare to work. In deference to the slight chill I don two sweaters and an extra pair of socks. I pour myself a club soda and move the lamp next to the desk. I reread several old issues of
Rona Barrett’s Hollywood
and a fair piece of
The Letters of Oscar Wilde.
I pick up my pen and stare at the paper. I light a cigarette. I stare at the paper. I write, “My Day: An Introduction of Sorts.” Good. Lean yet cadenced. I consider my day. I become unaccountably depressed. I doodle in the margin. I jot down an idea I have for an all-black version of a Shakespearean comedy to be called
As You Likes It.
I look longingly at my sofa, not unmindful of the fact that it converts cleverly into a bed. I light a cigarette. I stare at the paper.

4:50
A.M.
—The sofa wins. Another victory for furniture.