Writer’s Blockade

Location Info

Map

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St. (at Valencia)
San Francisco, CA 94103

Category: Performing Arts Venues

Region: Mission/ Bernal Heights

Photos

2 user reviews	Write A Review
Save to foursquare	0

Related Content

• Gender, Bent
  February 8, 2012
• Woody on Woodwinds
  December 21, 2011
• Year in Film: Filmmakers Who Transcended the 3D Gimmick
  December 28, 2011
• Watch Kapowski's 'Section 8' Video: Old Age, Robot Rebellion, and Some Strange Iced Tea
  November 28, 2011
• "Hugo": Scorsese Milks the 3-D Trend for His Timeless Cause
  November 23, 2011

More About

• Fran Lebowitz
• Martin Scorsese
• Woody Allen
• Movie Stars
• Celebrity News

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

The inestimable Fran Lebowitz is one of the 20th century’s greatest wits, fitting easily alongside names such as H.L. Mencken, Dorothy Parker, and Woody Allen. One of our favorite (seemingly) off-the-cuff remarks of hers goes, “From the number of children in evidence, it appears that people have them at the drop of a hat — for surely were they to give this matter its due attention, they would act with greater decorum.” But there is a good reason why many people younger than 40 don’t know her name: She’s published hardly a word for more than two decades. Inconceivable? Perhaps, but her beginning was equally unlikely. Lebowitz was expelled from high school, yet before long she was hired to write a column for Andy Warhol’s Interview, and after that, for Mademoiselle. Essay collections in 1978 and 1981 were bestsellers; she was for many years a regular guest on David Letterman’s talk shows. Yet her best-known accomplishment of late has been failing to finish a novel called External Signs of Wealth. The story of Lebowitz’s “writer’s blockade,” as she calls it, is part of what animates Martin Scorsese’s documentary, Public Speaking, on this non-writing writer. Through interviews and footage of Lebowitz’s many speaking engagements at colleges and elsewhere, the film paints a portrait of a genuinely vivacious yet deadpan comic personality whose trenchant wit is as sharp as ever. In a breezy 82 minutes, Scorsese reminds us that a dry, dignified, and eminently fashionable genius still lives among us.
Mon., Nov. 14; Tue., Nov. 15; Nov. 18-24, 2011