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Snapshots from Home

Tonight UD interviews Fran Lebowitz in a large elegant auditorium at George Washington University.

As you know, UD has been studying Ms Lebowitz in preparation for this event (over-preparation – she’s only interviewing her for thirty minutes), and she has, scholar-squirrel-like, set out four categories of questions for her (plus, if there’s time, UD has a wild card question). The Four Categories:

The Human Animal
Income Inequality and Democracy
Writing and Reading
The Satirist and Happiness.

Here’s the wild card:

In Metropolitan Life, you predicted America’s current immense pain pill addiction problem. You wrote:

Presently it appears that people are mainly concerned with being well rested. Those capable of uninterrupted sleep are much admired. Unconsciousness is in great demand. This is the day of the milligram.

Could you update this remark?

*************

What strikes UD most about Fran Lebowitz is something seldom touched on by people who interview her. She’s a remarkably self-made woman. She was thrown out of high school and simply got her ass over to Manhattan and made her way. She never went to college; she’s all about being educated by solitary reading.

She drove cabs, had the guts to connect with all sorts of people and enterprises… She seems to have appeared in the big city with an achieved sensibility and writing style, along with an outrageous but amply vindicated confidence in her own way of being. No wonder she loves New York City. Cities are designed with people like Lebowitz in mind.

Also with UD‘s old friend Lisa Nesselson in mind. UD finds herself thinking of Lisa when thinking of Lebowitz, except with Lisa the city was Paris and Lisa finished college (the same college UD went to, Northwestern). Lisa seems to have landed in Paris and within seconds decided this was it – her city, forever. When I first stayed with her she lived in a seventh-floor closet-sized walkup on the Boulevard Saint Germain. Communal toilet down the hall. She got to know the woman who owns the building, and now lives in a roomy apartment on the second floor.

Money? Far as I can tell, neither Lebowitz nor Nesselson has ever had much. They are bohemians, and they make do. Honesty and wit have allowed them to push forward and make the world accept — even celebrate — their spiky uncompromised personalities.

Margaret Soltan, April 17, 2014 8:22AM
Posted in: snapshots from home

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7 Responses to “Snapshots from Home”

  1. Ellie Says:

    Is this open to the public?

  2. Van L. Hayhow Says:

    Loved her writing years ago, but seem to have lost sight of her. Glad to see you are interviewing her.

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Ellie: Yes. Open to all.

  4. Michael Tinkler Says:

    I agree with Van – my whole family went through a read-Fran-Lebowitz-loud phase, but I haven’t come across her in a long time. I’m glad to know she’s going to get a check for this – a big one, I hope.

  5. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Michael: After her two satirical best-sellers, she went silent. Calls herself not a blocked, but a “blockaded” writer. UD

  6. janet gool Says:

    What is the interview equivalent of “break a leg”? Good luck with your interview!
    Janet

  7. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Janet: I think the interview equivalent is “break a leg.” Thank you!

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