Fran Lebowitz might choose Philly over New York if she were younger

Fran Lebowitz spends a lot of her time answering questions. The 72-year-old satirical writer, famously a Luddite, has seen a resurgence in popularity after her friend Martin Scorsese directed Pretend It’s a City, a docuseries of their conversations for Netflix in 2021 — and her iconic appearance on Ziwe.

She’ll open up the floor for an hour-long Q&A with her audience at the Keswick Theatre on Oct. 1, but before that, The Inquirer asked her a few, too.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Really? I haven’t been aware of this. It’s pretty far from Midtown. To me, close enough to New York means you can take a subway. Truthfully, I really like Philly a lot. I’ve gone numerous times. There are great museums. The architecture is great. I look at the prices of those houses, and I think, “Are you kidding me?” On the other hand, I think that it’s really far from the places I usually go, you know, which are like 10 blocks from my apartment. So I understand, maybe if I was young, I would do it, [consider moving to Philly, since] it’s definitely close to New York.

I saw the Barnes when it was still in the house [in Lower Merion]. I saw it twice. If the next question is, “Have you seen it since they moved it, literally against the will of Barnes?” The answer is no. Of course, more people will see it this way, you know, but that’s true of all privately owned art. So either you’re against people owning art privately, which there’s a case to be made for that, or own means own.

I borrowed them, but about a week ago, the director of the Met asked me if I had them, like I own them. I never owned them. Sandy [Rower, Calder’s grandson] wears them sometimes, and he’s a friend of mine. I don’t really know how many pairs there are, maybe six. Calder, all the jewelry he made, he made for either himself — just the cuff links — or for his wife. I asked [Rower] if I could borrow them [for the show].

There was a period where I knew we weren’t shooting for like a month and I called Sandy and said, “I’m going to bring these back to the Calder Foundation.” He said, “No, no, just keep them, you’re going to use them again in like three or four weeks.” I said “Oh no, I don’t want them in my house. I do not want something this valuable in my apartment. Especially if I don’t own them.” He insisted. I was so worried about having these, you know, zillion-dollar objects in my house. I hid them so well that when I needed them, it took me two days to find them. [Laughs] I hardly remember ever being so panicked.

I found them in the back of a drawer that is not a drawer that you would expect to find jewelry in. The only jewelry I really own are cuff links. But they’re all in a couple of boxes and I knew I didn’t put them in a cuff link box. This was in the back of a shirt drawer, which really mostly has shirts that I rarely wear, which is probably why I put it there. And also why I didn’t see it.

He was my childhood idol. I played in the school orchestra; I played the cello very poorly. Leonard Bernstein was on television every week on Young People’s concerts, where he conducted the New York Philharmonic for children and then would stop and then explain things. I was completely obsessed with this.

I’m looking forward to the movie. I haven’t seen any of it or really heard anything about it other than the controversy over Bradley Cooper’s nose. This strikes me as so silly. Bradley Cooper is an actor. Actors wear makeup. They wear costumes. People think that this is a sign of antisemitism. That would be wonderful if this was the biggest sign of antisemitism, but I can assure you from my own mail, that this is not.

Fran Lebowitz will speak Sunday, Oct. 1, at 7:30 p.m. at the Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave., Glenside, 215-572-7650 or keswicktheatre.com.