Fran lebowitz gay
The immensely quotable Fran Lebowitz is coming to Philadelphia to share her experience experiences and acute observations live on stage, Sept. 7 at Miller Theater.
The out author and social commentator started her career writing reviews for books and magazines before she caught the attention of iconic artist Andy Warhol, who hired her to be a columnist for “Interview,” his magazine. Soon she came to prominence publishing her own books collecting her comedic and sardonic essays, “Metropolitan Life” in 1978 and “Social Studies” in 1981. She was also a guest editor and columnist for Vanity Fair magazine.
If that was before your time, she gets it. Most of her younger fans are more conscious of her because of her appearances on “The Tonight Show” or the HBO and Netflix documentaries about her (2010’s “Public Speaking” and 2021’s “Pretend It’s a City”) both directed by friend and colleague, iconic filmmaker Martin Scorsese.
Lebowitz says that while she is sometimes flummoxed by the generation gap she sometimes faces between herself and certain segments of her fanbase, she understands it.
“I’ve been doing that particular thing since I was 27,” she said. “I’m 73, so that’s a
Fran Lebowitz: “Why do gay people want to get married and be in the military, which are the two worst things about being straight?”:
How did you get to the point of wanting to be engaged to Jörn Weisbrodt?
Well, it’s no longer a question of wanting to be engaged. Now it’s a interrogate of being engaged. I’ve been with Jörnn for about five years, and I’m not conclusion anything better, and I’ve certainly traveled the world and had opportunities to fall out of line, and it doesn’t ever seem to happen. Or, you know, I just keep wanting to go back to him. The other thing, too, is, I’m a famous person. I’ll always be sort of this notch up in the general eye. I think it’s essential to legalize our relationship, because, otherwise, he always feels a little “lesser-than,” you know? It’s hard when you’re a public figure and your significant other isn’t. So it’s nice, with the legal situation. It’s our same ground.
Image by Fu Man Jew via Flickr
Who proposed and how?
I proposed over an Indian meal. I was very nonchalant, prefer, “Maybe we should get married. Will you marry me?” The next day I played the Royal Albert Hall in London and announced it on stage. He was there with me. We went,Fran Lebowitz Is Coming to Town
When I speak to die-hard New Yorker Fran Lebowitz, she is in San Francisco, having previously been in Berkeley, supposed to go to Palm Springs for its Book Festival, canceled due to Covid, moving on to Salt Lake City, and beyond...tour dates are here.
Lebowitz is a common intellectual, a cultural commentator, a pop culture pundit, and a very loquacious lesbian. I represent, people pay to watch her discuss. What is that?
Well, what that is, is: A female whose delivery is dryer than a dry martini in the Atacama Desert; a woman who, in a digital world populated by an infinite number of influencers, talking heads, and scripted video idiots reads books and has thoughts and judgments on everything; a woman who will always choose the analog over the digital (that iPhone software download you're about to receive is capitalism and it is nefarious). I was told to call Lebowitz in her hotel room on her landline. In a harbinger interview (and who can tell she was wrong?), check out her early disgust for digital watches.
Here's our conversation.
You are a metropolitan sophisticate, and I watch you gigging at all these "smaller cities," you're headed to Scottsdale,
Fran Lebowitz
Still I don’t receive from your story what was better about Unused York when you were young.
It was freer; there was a lot of freedom. I could manage a life I liked which was very idle. Mostly I didn’t operate. Mostly I hung around with my friends. I worked just enough to pay my rent, my food, and I hung around. The thing that’s important to being juvenile and being an musician is to hang around. There wasn’t this huge work ethic there is now. Everybody was fancy hanging around. So it was freer and… I don’t know how much you’ve been here, but there are these cameras all around us, which I hate. There are more cops, more people looking at you all the time… and not just after September 11th, but even before that. It’s a suburban attitude; it’s not urban. To control your physical environment all the time is not an urban concept. The urban idea should be freer. It’s not as free.
For you liberty means doing whatever you want?
That’s right, freedom to do whatever you wish. I’m not saying murdering people or robbing people, but doing whatever you want without having people tell you,“You can execute this here; you can’t do this here; you can’t walk here.” Seize the parks, for instance. The pa