The Blind Art Collector

Fran Lebowitz 

Photo from guestofaguest.com

I still have tears streaming down my face from watching  Public Speaking, a Scorsese documentary on Fran Lebowitz. If you are a fan of Fran's you can catch this on HBO, for more information click here.

There is something about Lebowitz that makes me want to be just like her when I grow up and it has to do with more than just smoking, there is an honesty about her that I think just makes most people shutter. Oh, and always being correct, yeah I like that.

Just to lighten up your day a little here are a few quotes from Fran and another great woman, Dorothy Parker. Sometimes life gets just too serious.

~ ~

"Special-interest publications should realize that if they are attracting enough advertising and readers to make a profit, the interest is not so special."

                                                                                     ~ Fran Lebowitz

Symptom Recital

I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men....
I'm due to fall in love again."
   

                                                    ~ Dorothy Parker 

"I must take issue with the term 'a mere child,' for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult."

                                                          ~ Fran Lebowitz

"Time doth flit, oh shit."

                                    ~ Dorothy Parker 

~~~ 

Partway through Public Speaking, Fran Lebowitz stops speaking and drives. Specifically, she drives her 1978 Checker Marathon, painted a “such a subtle shade of pearl gray, she observes, that straight men think it’s white.” As she drives, Ellen Kuras’ camera conjures Taxi Driver, watching her drive by as the car gleams and New York’s nighttime streets are bright with lights, then cutting to a shot of the rear-view mirror from the back seat. Bernard Hermann’s memorable theme music makes sure you don’t miss the allusion.