Fran Lebowitz weighs in on Cincinnati chili … and just about everything else

Humorist. Social satirist. Fashion icon. Author. TV star. Fran Lebowitz is all of that. But that doesn’t really explain why she is such a revered ... whatever it is that she is. She is something of a star, for instance, the central subject of Martin Scorsese’s Netflix series “Pretend It’s a City.” But she says she’s never viewed Netflix, except to catch a snippet or two at friends’ homes. She is a successful author, too, but it’s been 40 years since her last book of essays.

And as for fame, she doesn’t seem to pursue it as much as she does attract it. A 2020 profile in “The New Yorker” described her as “the patron saint of staying at home and doing nothing.” But for someone so determined to avoid the mainstream of modern life, Lebowitz has a curious way of constantly being in the thick of it.

On April 12, she’ll be here, in Cincinnati, performing “An Evening With Fran Lebowitz” at the Aronoff Center’s Procter & Gamble Hall.

She won’t sing. Or dance. Or read from her books.

But she will talk. And talk and talk and talk. Because that’s what she does these days. And she does it in the most extraordinarily entertaining fashion. She’s observant and smart and savagely witty – a delicious combination unless you’re on the receiving end of it.

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After a decade of writing commentaries about life in NYC and compiling those columns into a pair of best-selling books – “Metropolitan Life” (1978) and “Social Studies” (1981) – she developed an infamously profound case of writer’s block. Writer’s “blockade,” she’s called it, though not to me. When we spoke, this was the one subject I was forbidden to ask about.

But all of those incisive observations about the world continued bouncing around in her head and had to go somewhere. So she started talking. And people listened. In time, her talking grew to encompass all manner of appearances, including film work with Scorsese – “Marty,” she calls him – and presentations like the one she’ll do here. In some ways, these stage shows are even better than her written commentaries. They’re more personal, more spontaneous. And what could be better than being in the same room with her, even if it’s a room that seats 2,700 people.

Conversations with Leibowitz are droll but filled with laughter. She doesn’t tell jokes as she makes the same sort of clever observations about daily life that you might if your mind worked about 10 times faster than it already does. She may be a great writer. But she is a gifted talker.

Because her humor has plenty of bite to it, Lebowitz is often compared to Dorothy Parker, the early 20th Century satirist and a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table. But there is a little Oscar Wilde thrown in there. And Mark Twain, too, in his more acerbic moments.

She is suspect of much modern technology. She has no cell phone. No computer. No email.

“I’d have to have a Wi-Fi connection, which I don’t,” she said.

She does, however, have an answering machine. Not new-fangled voicemail. An old-fashioned answering machine. When you call her for an interview, you’re told to start leaving a message. If she recognizes you, she picks up. Otherwise, you’re out of luck.

But once you get past that answering machine, Fran Lebowitz is a dream interview. She has so much to say about everything under the sun that a conversation with her is like pushing the “play” button and then stepping back and letting her go.

Fran Lebowitz about tragedy:

“I remember every second of what happened the day of the Kennedy assassination. And what happened on 9/11. Unfortunately, in the same vein, I remember every minute of the night that Donald Trump was elected. Those are the three tragedies in my life.”

Fran Lebowitz about Bernie Sanders:

“The most hostility I’ve gotten onstage was during the Democratic primary. Every single time someone would ask me ‘Do you like Bernie?’ When I said ‘no,’ the entire audience would boo me. All of them. There wasn’t a single person in the audience who didn’t love Bernie Sanders. The only person that didn’t love him was me. I was shocked. They were shocked. People expect you to agree with them.”

So who did Fran Lebowitz support?:

“Hillary. Was she my preference of all people on the earth? No. But life is not a menu. So I couldn’t say can I have President Roosevelt, because he wasn’t on the ballot.”

Fran Lebowitz on coming to Ohio:

“I just got back from Athens. Greece. At least I speak the language in Ohio.”

(NOTE: She sounds slightly apologetic. But only slightly. Like so much of her humor, there is a certain amount of truth in what she says. But she has a knack for presenting it in a way that is more humorous than hurtful.)

“I was also in Scandinavia and Paris. Truthfully, Europe does seem more like New York than New York seems like Ohio. Or any other place. The main thing I remember about Cincinnati was a fantastic dish that was spaghetti and chili.

Fran Lebowitz liked Cincinnati chili?

“Oh, yes. Why isn’t that catching on around the country?”

Fran Lebowitz on being heckled:

“This is not a smart thing do to.”

Fran Lebowitz on political divisions:

“People used to believe things. People believed the New York Times. They believed the president. When the president turned out to be a liar – like Richard Nixon – he was gone. But I think the most dangerous thing in the culture, by far, is people not understanding the difference between believing and knowing.

“When that guy went to that pizza joint in Washington trying to ‘liberate’ the children that Hillary Clinton was trafficking in her sex trafficking ring? The first time I read about it, I thought ‘well, this guy is insane.’ But the problem is that I live in a country where half the people believed him. It just shows that these people are not thinking at all.”

There’s more, of course:

About smoking. (She is a longtime chain smoker.) And working with Scorsese. And the time she spent driving a cab in New York. And working for Andy Warhol. And eating in restaurants. She doesn’t cook. (“I can assure you the worst food in New York right now is in my apartment,” she told Forbes last year.) On why she always wears cowboy boots. And rolled-up jeans. And cufflinks.

Just know this. The show begins with a 30-minute Q&A between Lebowitz and Lucy May (host of WVXU's "Cincinnati Edition"). Then she takes questions from the audience. Don’t expect a microphone to be passed among audience members. Lebowitz prefers that people shout out their questions.

“The fact that people talk more about themselves is why I don’t allow microphones in the audience,” Lebowitz told a reporter from a website in Washington last month. “I’ve had numerous arguments in theatres with managers about no microphones in the audience. If there are mics in the audience, you don’t get questions from the audience, you get answers from the audience.”

'An Evening With Fran Lebowitz'

When: 7:30 p.m., April 12.

Where: Procter & Gamble Hall, Aronoff Center, 650 Walnut St., Downtown.

Tickets: $35-$75.

Information: 513-621-2787; www.cincinnatiarts.org.