The Fran Lebowitz Reader

by Fran Lebowitz

  From the time he was a very small child Garrett exhibited an almost precocious generosity of spirit, and was constantly volunteering to do “at least the eyes” of those females with whom he came in contact. At the age of eleven, clad only in rayon, he walked forty-seven miles in a terrible blizzard in order to place in the deepest forest an offering of food for the woodland creatures. The site of this blessed action is now often visited by pilgrims from all over the world, and is known as Cherries in the Snow. It was also around this time that Garrett performed his first miracle by correcting the appearance of a local matron’s broad and fleshy nose without the visible use of contouring powder.

  In the summer of his sixteenth year Garrett met a visiting New York stage actor in the Greyhound bus station, and it was through the kind offices of this man (whose own deep sense of humility has led him to request anonymity) that Garrett had his first great revlonation. Spent and trembling, he saw before him a large reflective surface surrounded by shining lights. He saw needful, begging eyes. He saw undefined cheekbones. He saw dry, parched lips. He saw an array of splendid colors. He saw his destiny.

  Much inspired by Garrett’s way, the actor assisted him in his journey to the city of New York. Here Garrett performed his second miracle by purchasing and furnishing a lavish co-op apartment despite the fact that he had no visible means of support.

  News quickly spread throughout the city that Garrett was capable of truly amazing transformations. Women who were the recipients of his attentions called him Blessed and he was soon Venerated by all those in the know.

  Despite his exalted position Garrett practiced humility and was often to be seen in rough districts of the city behaving in a most submissive manner while performing low and menial services for others. Garrett was found martyred in the bedroom of his East Side penthouse apartment late one Sunday morning.

  ST. AMANDA OF NEW YORK, SOUTHAMPTON AND PALM BEACH (died 1971; came out 1951): Patroness of the well-bred, is invoked against the “cut direct,” having to dip into capital and improper use of the word “home.”

  The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Morgan Hayes Birmingham IV of New York, Southampton and Palm Beach, Amanda was born at Doctors Hospital in New York on January 3, 1933. She made her debut at the Gotham Ball and was a graduate of The Convent of the Sacred Heart and Manhattanville College. Her paternal grandfather, Morgan Hayes Birmingham III, was a member of the New York Stock Exchange and the founder of the firm of Birmingham, Stevens and Ryan. She was a descendant of Colonel Thomas M. Hayes.

  Almost from birth it was apparent that Amanda was blessed with an almost sublime sense of tact. During her baptism at St. Ignatius Loyola she was the very picture of infant dignity and neither cried nor wriggled, despite the fact that the attending priest was generally thought to be something of an arriviste. Her childhood was characterized by a nearly fanatical attention to detail, and notice was first taken of her miraculous powers when at the age of three there appeared, appropriately placed about the nursery, Lalique vases filled with perfectly arranged, out-of-season flowers. The second indication of these powers occurred when Amanda, a mere nine years old, managed to correct, while dutifully attending her French class in New York, an extraordinarily indelicate seating plan committed by her maternal grandmother’s social secretary in Hobe Sound.

  Amanda’s martyrdom took place during a weekend house party when she knowingly allowed herself to be served, from the right, a salad containing wild mushrooms picked by her host, rather than strike an unpleasant note by refusing.

  ST. WAYNE (died circa 1975): Patron of middle children, invoked against whatever’s left over.

  Wayne was born two years after his brilliant and handsome brother Mike and three and a half years before his perfectly adorable sister Jane. Very little is remembered of his life and works, if any, and his canonization is the result of a unique mix-up in which Mike was made a saint twice and with typical generosity gave Wayne his extra sainthood.

  ST. INGMAR-FRANÇOIS-JEAN-JONAS-ANDREW: Patron of graduate film students, invoked against going to the movies for fun, detractors of Stan Brakhage and disbelievers in the genius of John Ford.

  St. Ingmar-François-Jean-Jonas-Andrew was born in a starkly lit delivery room in the kind of small American town that is all small American towns. From infancy he was astonishingly perceptive, and invariably saw layers of meaning not apparent to the average moviegoer. As early as his sixth birthday Ingmar-François-Jean-Jonas-Andrew displayed the remarkable dual tendency to overwrite and underexplain.

  Among the many miracles to his credit are getting adults to actually attend a Jerry Lewis Film Festival and introducing a course at an accredited university entitled “The Philosophy of Busby Berkeley and Its Influence on Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Robert Bresson.”

  Rather than martyr himself, St. Ingmar-François-Jean-Jonas-Andrew sent one of his students.

  The Servant Problem

  It was just a few years ago that, owing to some rather favorable publicity, I came into what is known as a little money. This unexpected but most welcome piece of good fortune enabled me for the very first time to secure living quarters that one could, if pressed, describe as commodious. I promptly set out to fix the place up, and soon acquired some dandy home furnishings carefully chosen to give a false impression of both my breeding and my background. Surrounded by these venerable objects, I cheerfully noted that I had at long last achieved all three of my material goals: new money, old furniture and a separate room to write in.

  Due, however, to my unhappy penchant for whiling away the hours (not to mention years) reading other people’s books, I was soon in possession of what looked very much indeed like six small public libraries wherein smoking was not merely allowed but actually, and even brutally, enforced. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Were truer words ever spoken? I think not. There was no question about it, I needed a maid, and needed one badly. Unfortunately, I had not the slightest idea of how to go about getting one. This worried me enormously. I became flustered, then agitated, until finally I was compelled to take myself in hand and explain to myself calmly yet firmly that a maid was not, after all, the world’s most exotic prize, and could undoubtedly be procured in a perfectly ordinary fashion. A couple of perfectly ordinary fashions came to mind but were shortly discounted. A store? No, it had been years since you could buy a maid, and even then, not in stores. A bar? Don’t be ridiculous. I was looking for a maid, not an agent. Where then? I was, it seemed, stymied, stuck, stopped dead in my tracks, no place to go, nowhere to turn. Nowhere to turn, that is, until I fortuitously recalled a friend who had come into her money by accident of birth rather than by dint of hard work. Here was the very person to advise me, to smooth my path, to show me the way.

  I quickly telephoned her and evidently displayed my ignorance to such great advantage that she agreed not only to help out but to actually get up a small group of likely candidates. She regretted, however, that since I was looking for someone to come only one day a week, I could not expect the sort of high-quality service that was routinely available on her own premises. I took this news admirably and awaited further instructions. A few days later she called to announce that she was sending over some possibilities for me to interview—and by interview, she stressed, she did not mean asking them where they got their ideas or if they had always been funny, but rather, where else they were employed, how much they charged and exactly what duties they were willing to perform. I was then to decide if I liked them—as maids, not people. She emphasized this not only as if the two were mutually exclusive but also in a tone of voice that I felt to be unduly withering. When I expressed these sentiments, she replied that she was merely cautioning me against imposing personal standards inappropriate to the situation. By this she apparently meant that you decided you liked a maid because she ironed, and not because she recognized you from being on the Today show. It was at this juncture that I began to suspect that having a maid might not be the fun it looked. Nevertheless, I persevered and ag
reed to begin the interviewing process immediately.

  Later that same afternoon, the first applicant arrived in the form of an excessively well-groomed young man. Modern-day life, it seems, has given us not only girl ministers but also boy maids. I am in favor of neither, but seeing as how he was already standing there I let him in and politely offered to take his sweater. He declined, presumably because he didn’t want to go to all the trouble of untying it. I attempted to lead him down the hall, but as we passed the bedroom something caught his eye and he wandered in to take a closer look. His attention had been captured by a small painting that hung over the fireplace.

  “Decorative art,” he stated. “I suppose you find it amusing.”

  “No,” I replied, wondering how many times I had met this boy before, “I find it decorative.”

  “The bed?” he inquired with a lift of one eyebrow.

  “Renaissance Revival,” I parried—then thrust. “Attributed to Herter.”

  “Ah,” he said, “American.”

  The interview, as far as I was concerned, was over. If he didn’t dust American furniture there was little chance he did windows. Before, however, I could advise him of this, he had made his way into the living room, where I found him a moment later decoratively draped across my American sofa. He looked up as I entered, smiled graciously, and with an expressive little nod of his expressive little head, indicated that I might be seated. He then treated me to a lengthy monologue, the purpose of which was to acquaint me with his seriously rarefied sensibility. During the course of this, I tried several times to ask him how much he charged, having earlier hit upon the plan of hastening his leave-taking by offering him a highly minimum wage. But every time I raised the subject he deflected it. Obviously, he considered any discussion of money to be vulgar, tasteless and shockingly parvenu. Finally he stooped to breathe, and I inquired softly if perhaps rather than being paid he wouldn’t just prefer that I quietly make a contribution to his favorite charity. This, so to speak, did the trick, and he left with no further fanfare.

  Victory was mine to savor but briefly, for I had yet before me a seemingly endless procession of aspiring domestics. So unanimous were they in their two most untenable demands that with fair rapidity they became one big blur. Without exception, they insisted on coming to work during the day, and furthermore made it clear that they had every intention of coming to the house. I was loath, of course, to meet these stipulations, since during the day I am home not writing. During the night I am out not writing, and this, obviously, was the most convenient arrangement. I was, however, singularly unsuccessful in persuading any of them of this, and was eventually forced to choose the best of a bad and deplorably illogical lot. Ever mindful of my friend’s advice, I picked the one that I liked best as a maid, and while the fact that she ironed most assuredly contributed to my feelings of affection, the fact that she spoke not a single word of English is, I must confess, what clinched the deal. If I was going to have to spend the entire day in the company of another, I most certainly preferred another who had not even the vaguest notion of what I was saying on the telephone.

  The first few times she came we coexisted peacefully, if not lovingly, but by the fourth week I began to find the situation intolerable. Although I made every effort to stay out of her way, she was forever following me from room to room brandishing dangerous-looking household appliances and looking at me contemptuously in Portuguese. It was all too apparent that she had very little use for a person who, it seemed, spent all day long lying around the house using up towels and talking on the telephone in a foreign language. After one episode involving a particularly vigorous and disdainful emptying of ashtrays, I accepted the fact that henceforth I would be obliged to spend my day out of doors.

  At first, going out during the day was kind of interesting. A lot of places were open, and it was undeniably well lit, though rather crowded and a tad noisy. I did my level best to if not enjoy, then at least to adapt myself. Soon, however, the novelty wore off, and I found it increasingly difficult to pursue my normal way of life in this alien and hostile environment. I was repeatedly harassed and ofttimes insulted by surly doormen who did not smile upon me fondly as I lolled about beneath their canopies, minding my own business and doing the TV Guide crossword puzzle. Crowds gathered and trouble brewed as I attempted to keep in touch with a wide circle of friends via public phone. And time after time I was the innocent recipient of pointed remarks as I caught up on my reading while attractively posed atop the hoods of other people’s parked cars.

  Clearly, this could not go on forever; something had to be done, and fast. There were, of course, no easy answers. The problem was a serious one and demanded a serious effort if it was ever to be solved. To this end I was fully prepared to use every possible method at my disposal. Unfortunately, however, the possible methods at my disposal are rarely those involving careful research and painstaking detail. They tend, it is true, more in the direction of harebrained schemes and crackpot theories. In view of this, it is understandable that I was, in the end, unable to come to any firm resolution and can offer only the tangible written proof that I tried.

  THE TANGIBLE WRITTEN PROOF THAT I TRIED

  It was apparent to me that an apartment, like a sweater, was impossible to clean if one was in it. Following this logic, it was then equally apparent that an apartment, like a sweater, should be sent out to be cleaned. I decided that this could be accomplished by the general establishment of stores for this purpose. So far, so good. The kinks in this thing didn’t show up until I came to the part where one went to pick up the apartment. It was at this point that I remembered the dirty-sweater analogy, and my heart sank. This sensation was simultaneously accompanied by a vision of myself standing at a counter screaming, “This is not my apartment! Don’t you think I know what my own apartment looks like? Mine was the one with the separate room to write in and the two wood-burning fireplaces. This apartment is not mine. This apartment has no separate room to write in, only one wood-burning fireplace and a loft bed. Believe me, I don’t have a loft bed. That I promise you. So don’t tell me that this is my apartment, it’s just that the rest of it didn’t come back yet. And do you mind telling me how you could lose a wood-burning fireplace? It was not hanging by a thread. It was attached to a very substantial plaster wall. This isn’t my apartment and I’m not taking it. No, I wouldn’t rather have this apartment than no apartment at all. I want my apartment, the one I brought you. All right, I will—I will sue you. Don’t think I won’t. You’ll hear from my lawyer. I’m going to call him right now.”

  And with that I saw myself turning on my heel and angrily stalking out. Lamentably, the next thing I saw was myself back outside, in a public phone booth with crowds gathering and trouble brewing. It was then that I decided that if I was going to have to make my phone calls outside anyway, I might as well keep both fireplaces.

  Things

  Things

  All of the things in the world can be divided into two basic categories: natural things and artificial things. Or, as they are more familiarly known, nature and art. Now, nature, as I am only too well aware, has her enthusiasts, but on the whole, I am not to be counted among them. To put it rather bluntly, I am not the type who wants to go back to the land—I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel. This state of affairs is at least partially due to the fact that nature and I have so little in common. We don’t go to the same restaurants, laugh at the same jokes or, most significant, see the same people.

  This was not, however, always the case. As a child I was frequently to be found in a natural setting: playing in the snow, walking in the woods, wading in the pond. All these things were standard events in my daily life. But little by little I grew up, and it was during this process of maturation that I began to notice some of nature’s more glaring deficiencies. First of all, nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs. Secondly, for fully half of t
he time it is day out there, a situation created by just the sort of harsh overhead lighting that is so unflattering to the heavy smoker. Lastly, and most pertinent to this discourse, is the fact that natural things are by their very definition wild, unkempt and more often than not crawling with bugs. Quite obviously, then, natural things are just the kind of things that one does not strive to acquire. Objets d’art are one thing; objets d’nature are not. Who, after all, could possibly want to own something that even the French don’t have a word for?

  In view of all this I have prepared a little chart designed to more graphically illustrate the vast superiority of that which is manufactured over that which is not.

  NATURE ART

  The sun The toaster oven

  Your own two feet Your own two Bentleys

  Windfall apples Windfall profits

  Roots and berries Linguini with clam sauce

  Time marching on The seven-second delay

  Milk Butter

  The good earth 25 percent of the gross

  Wheat Linguini with clam sauce

  A man for all seasons Marc Bohan for Dior

  Ice Ice cubes

  Facial hair Razor blades

  The smell of the countryside after a long, soaking rain Linguini with clam sauce

  TB TV

  The mills of God Roulette

  A tinkling mountain brook Paris

  Now that you have had an opportunity to gain an overview of the subject, it is time to explore things more thoroughly, time to ask yourselves what you have learned and how you can best apply your new-found knowledge. Well, obviously, the first and most important thing you have learned is that linguini with clam sauce is mankind’s crowning achievement. But as this is a concept readily grasped, it is unnecessary to linger over it or discuss it in greater detail.