David Hershkovits in Paper:
Fran Lebowitz loves to talk — so much so that when Martin Scorsese made a documentary about her he called it Public Speaking. But before she was one of the world's greatest talkers, she made her name as a writer; first at Andy Warhol's Interview and then with two collections of acerbic essays, Metropolitan Lifeand Social Studies. While a long-running writer's block limited her to an occasional magazine piece and two children's books, it liberated her voice to keep talking and developing into the type of personality that could only exist in NewYork City, specifically Manhattan, the only place she will consider living. An original gangster by any standard, she's completely self-invented and did it her way — sardonic, entertain- ing, insightful — inspiring a generation of humorists who followed. Even though Lebowitz is back to writing again (working on a novel she's been incubating), that doesn't mean she's stopped talking. On a recent summer day she sounded off on everything from Lena Dunham to gay marriage, and we did the only thing you really can do when Fran starts talking — we listened.
New York, Mike Bloomberg and Rich People In Politics
I would say that the changes in New York that I most object to came under Michael Bloomberg, and I would have objected to these if I was 20 or if I was 12. The second that Bloomberg appeared on the political scene, I objected to him. Most people didn't know who he was so they didn't object to him, but I did know who he was, and I did object to him. I object to people who are rich in politics. I don't think they should be allowed to be in politics. It is bad that rich people are in politics, it is bad for everybody but rich people, and rich people don't need any more help. Whenever people say, “Oh he earned his money himself,” I always say the same thing: “No one earns a billion dollars. People earn $10 an hour, people steal a billion dollars.”
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