The Fran Lebowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz Read Free Book Online

Unconsciousness is in great demand. This is the day of the milligram.
    Far be it from me to make noise while you’re asleep but I should like to notify you that you are under arrest for being boring. The Commissar of a Way with Words suspects you of one or more of the following:
    A. Rather Than Attempt the Art of Conversation You Prefer to Communicate with Your Fellow Man by Hugging Strangers Who Are Reliving the Bad Parts of Their Childhood While Immersed in a Swimming Pool Filled with Warm Water.
    B. You Think That the Women’s Liberation Movement
Does
Have a Sense of Humor.
    C. You Use in Conversation Phrases That Appear on T-Shirts.
    D. You Share David Susskind’s Apparently Inexhaustible Interest in the Private Lives of Deservedly Unknown Homosexuals.
    E. You Feel the Need to Discuss Your Innermost Thoughts on a Weekly Basis with Six Other People, One of Whom Is Being Paid to Listen.
    F. You No Longer Feel the Need to Discuss Your Innermost Thoughts on a Weekly Basis with Six Other People, One of Whom Is Being Paid to Listen, Because You Feel That Erica Jong Has Said It All for You.
    G. The Letters est Have Meaning for You Beyond Eastern Standard Time.
    H. You Are the Host of a Television Talk Show Who So Firmly Believes That Everyone in the Whole World Is Just About to Play Las Vegas for Two Weeks That You Introduce Your Next Guest as “Dr. Jonas Salk—a Beautiful Guy.”
    Should you be found guilty you shall be sentenced to a one-year subscription to
Psychology Today
or seventy-two months in Los Angeles—whichever comes first.
Does It Know Its Place?
    Under the jurisdiction of the Commissar of What Is Appropriate the adage “A place for everything and everything in its place” has been broadened to include “A place for everyone and everyone in their place.” You are not in your place or are responsible for something not being in
its
place if you are to blame in any of these instances:
    A. You Are a Man Who Attends Consciousness-raising Meetings.
    B. You Are a Woman Who Attends Consciousness-raising Meetings.
    C. You Are a Dog and You Live in New York, Probably in My Neighborhood.
    D. You Are an Army Camouflage Combat Uniform Being Worn by Someone Who Is Not a Soldier in Southeast Asia.
    E. You Are Wall-to-Wall Carpeting and You Are in the Bathroom.
    F. You Are on Your Way over to My Apartment and You Have Not Called First.
    G. You Write Poetry and You Are Not Dead.
    Those convicted of any of the above-mentioned crimes shall be subject to being either a dessert served in a brandy snifter or seventy-two months in Los Angeles—whichever comes first.

The Family Affair:
A Moral Tale
    The addition of the prefix
natural
to the word
childbirth
assumed that there was such a thing as unnatural childbirth. Advocates of this concept pointed out that for thousands of years people had babies in the privacy and quietude of their own homes or rice paddies simply by lying down and breathing deeply. This business of rushing to the hospital, being shot up with drugs, and attended by doctors was wrong. It was not meant to be. Some listened. Some did not. Some of those who did not, did not arrogantly, with a strong, pure belief in the righteousness of their unnaturalness. They liked rushing to the hospital. They loved being shot up with drugs. They adored being attended to by doctors. To them unnaturalness was the way of life. Secure in their commitment to artificiality, they greeted each other with knowing looks and bade each other good-bye with a whispered “à rebours.” They were content and they believed themselves to be as sophisticated as was possible under the circumstances, which were undeniably heterosexual and therefore limited.
    Then little by little there began to circulate amongthis group an unsettling rumor. Dark mutterings were heard. The fast crowd was seen less and less frequently in the better waiting rooms. After months of hushed speculation the truth was uncovered: a certain chichi element had found a way