The Most Metropolitan Life
In praise of Fran Lebowitz
I was recently asked by the Jewish Book Council to write something in celebration of Jewish Book Month. I chose the essayist Fran Lebowitz… I’m sharing my Fran Lebowitz fan letter below. Thanks to the JBC for the opportunity to celebrate Fran in all her grouchy glory.
From @jewishbookcouncil: In celebration of #JewishBookMonth we're featuring authors and their favorite Jewish books. Today's highlighted Jewish Book Month author is: ✨ @buzzy_jackson✨
The Most Metropolitan Life
I moved to New York City in 1995 to work in the publishing industry (shoutout to Sobel Weber Associates!). I was a non-skiing Jewish kid from the ski town of Truckee, California, who grew up reading my parents' back issues of The New Yorker and my own subscription to Andy Warhol's Interview magazine, watching Martin Scorsese movies, and listening to the Talking Heads, so for me, moving to NYC was a major life goal accomplished already. A few months after arriving, things got even better when I saw that Fran Lebowitz was doing a reading... the ultimate NYC moment.
In my eyes, nobody was more of a New Yorker than Lebowitz. Her Jewishness was part of it, but so was her wit ("Life is something to do when you can't get to sleep."), her absurdly strong opinions ("Any child who cannot do long division by himself does not deserve to smoke"), and as a fellow "indoorsy" type, her aversion to all things athletic ("I look upon [sports] as dangerous and tiring activities performed by people with whom I share nothing except the right to trial by jury"). The other thing that made her a New Yorker was the fact that she, like most self-identifying New Yorkers, was actually born somewhere else (in her case, Morristown, NJ). As the generous human, author, and Vanity Fair editor George Hodgman once told me, “a lot of the ‘great’ New Yorkers weren’t born in New York City; they’re great because they had to work their ass off to get out of their hometown in the first place.” George was from Paris, Missouri. Like Fran and George, I was an outsider, too.
So I brought along my own well-read copy of her classic first book of essays, Metropolitan Life (Dutton: 1978), to the reading and she graciously signed it for me ("For Buzzy, Your Pal, Fran Lebowitz") complete with a cartoon of a frowning face smoking a cigarette (her self portrait, I assume).
I love the essays in this book so much that I own TWO early copies of it!? (see photo above). Unrepentant English major? Oh, definitely.
Now, 28 years later, I live in Colorado. I've moved dozens of times since I got that book signed and even though packing and transporting boxes of books is the absolute worst, I've never been able to divest myself of my extra copy of Metropolitan Life. I have both on my shelf next to my writing desk. Fran Lebowitz's bad attitude and scowling author photo still make me happy.
Thanks for reading Continuous Small Treats — with extra-special gratitude to the high rollers who are now paid CST subscribers… you know who you are (and you have great taste).
xo Buzzy