Best Supporting Character: NYC
The beauty of this place is it has all the character — and characters — anyone could ever want or need.
I was driving around Manhattan with my family this weekend and we were talking about TV shows where New York City was used successfully as a central character. No matter what you thought about “Sex And The City” and “Gossip Girl” (I nursed shameless addictions to both), these shows were great at giving viewers a glimpse into what affluent, privileged life was like here at the time — where the “it” people ate, what they wore, what they listened to, how they socialized. They Gatsby’ed the shit out of this city and showed you how. They let you belly up to the bar without the $20-per-couture-cocktail tab.
Every single time I reference something in pop culture aloud, it appears. That night, I come across Sarah Jessica Parker’s Instagram announcement of yet another SATC limited series and this Glamour piece sharing all the deets about the GG reboot.
Will I watch these revivals? Hell, yeah! Social isolation breeds a yearning for escapism. It’s why F. Scott Fitzgerald was so successful — after the Spanish Flu, strivers ate up his lavish depictions of the rich while eating some amalgam of rice and potatoes for dinner. It’s why we’re due for a buck wild roaring 20s when this nightmare is over.
On the NYC tip, I’m currently dining out on “Pretend It’s A City,” the Fran Lebowitz love letter from Martin Scorsese, like it’s a burger and fries from Odeon. If you don’t know anything about Fran, she wrote for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine and published two seminal essay collections (“Metropolitan Life” and “Social Studies”) about…you guessed it…living in New York. She was also a well-connected bon vivant who frequented every club and restaurant, sharing thoughts that resonated with the people that mattered.
Thanks to this recent spotlight on her endowed by Netflix and Scorsese, young people are now freaking out over the way Fran tells stories. As a long time fan, I think it’s because Lebowitz reeks of the authentic creativity of yesteryear in an unabashedly non-binary 5' package. Nothing about her is performative in the traditional sense. This woman will never flaunt her wares on Instagram. She doesn’t play the game. She doesn’t even have an iPhone. And by the way, fuck you for asking.
When a New Yorker reporter mentioned how the pandemic led the affluent to flee for the Hamptons or another, greener, less-germy pasture (I respectfully called out Jerry Seinfeld for his hypocrisy in doing this while telling people to stay for the New York Daily News — his humane response in a “60 Minutes” interview was, “Sorry I did better than you!”), Fran flatly refused to abandon ship. “In fact, I feel that I am like the designated New Yorker. Everyone else can leave,” she said. She’s admirably authentic to the fucking core.
At 70, she’s relaxed into public speaking, living the life of someone who’s done her time, and reaping all the benefits that come with cashing in on being herself. Hell, it’s what I really want to do. While some (not all) young, striving New York Times reporters, desperate to sound witty and wise, spend half their billable hours spewing every random thought they have on Twitter, Lebowitz, a true master of voice and taker of cultural temperature, rambles about the intricacies of daily life thoughtfully and deliberately, with an unmistakable cadence that makes you taste what you smell. This is the New York I moved here for in the 80s and again in the late 90s. To meet people like her.
Why am I waxing nostalgic over my home of almost 25 years plus a college stint? Because I’m seriously considering leaving it—for now. I’m tired. I’m a regular person with a regular salary and can’t afford it anymore. Besides, I wonder what it might do for my blood pressure to live without alternate-side-of-the-street parking restrictions.
I think Fran would forgive me if I do. In the New Yorker piece, Fran says it’s OK if you decide to bail when you get old and tired, just as long as you put an 18-year-old on a bus back here. As it so happens, I’ve got one handy.
Until next time,
Stay gold! xo
