Fisking Fran Lebowitz

I was reading an interview of Fran Lebowitz in The New Yorker (don't know quite why I started, probably was avoiding doing work). I stopped dead when I hit this from Fran:

Franklin Graham I’ve kept track of since I saw him swearing in George W. Bush to the Presidency. 

I actually took the time to check, as it didn't strike me as truthful - presidents are typically sworn in by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (some had other members of the Judiciary do that ceremony - Calvin Coolidge, due to Harding's sudden death, was sworn in by his father, a judge). I was correct - it was Chief Justice Rehnquist, both times).

The interviewer said,

Don’t they make volunteers agree to something that says marriage is between a male and female?

Referring to Franklin Graham, and his charity, Paid Staff are asked to sign the Statement of Faith, which does follow standard Baptist teaching. Volunteers don't have to (and those that said they had been rejected for not signing had no proof of those statements).

For those who've never heard of Fran, she's kind of this protypical New Yorker - sour, acerbic without being profound, and myopic about the mystical New York of her youth. She's a former writer - look, she hasn't written a book since 1981 - that's almost 40 years of living off her reputation as a writer (not as bad as Salinger, but...). Correction, she co-wrote a book. I do understand people hitting rough patches, but, decades of not writing is NOT a bad patch. It's giving up.

I don't know why she has the reputation she does - most of her work consists of collected essays she'd previously written. Apparently, they like the way she wears man-tailored suits, smokes non-stop, and is famously solitary and with absolutely NO housekeeping skills. She's like the female version of Woody Allen - Jewish-but-not-really, loads of quips and sarcastic put-downs, and a visage even a mother would have to work to love.

She makes a living by talking:

 I’m more concerned with how we will know this is over. I do speaking engagements—that’s how I make a living—and they’re all cancelled. I suppose places will reopen, but no one knows when.

She hates DeBlasio and Sanders, disdains Biden for his corruption, is lukewarm about Cuomo, and - what a surprise! Hates Trump. But, she LOVED Liz Warren, of whom she said:

It’s very unusual to have such a good candidate. I realized that she’s a woman and that was going to be a bad thing for her, as it is for all of us. Also, that she was the smartest, and that has always been something that Americans cannot stand. So a smart woman, I thought, doesn’t really have much of a chance.

Right. Americans can't stand 'smart' people. 

You keep telling yourself that, honey.