Heather Havrilesky

“A storm that most of us have long feared”

Katrina, the hurricane that woke us from our storm-watching stupor.

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For those who tune in regularly to the Weather Channel during hurricane season, the usual storm-tracking excitement turned to an exercise in dread when Hurricane Katrina gained momentum and appeared to be headed straight for New Orleans on Sunday. Suddenly, all of the worst-case scenarios we’ve heard over the years, in which Lake Pontchartrain is flooded by storm surges and the levees are breached, seemed to be an impending reality. A mandatory evacuation of New Orleans created traffic jams out of the city; 80 percent of residents were estimated to have evacuated and about 97,000 remained in the city. Tourists and those unwilling or unable to leave grimly lined up by the thousands to enter the Superdome, clutching sleeping bags and pillows, as viewers at home had to wonder just how safe a structure with a massive roof would be during a Category 5 hurricane. Mayor Ray Nagin said that the levee system that protected the city would “most likely” fail. Somberly, he told the camera, “We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared.”

The otherwise manic, gleeful storm trackers on the Weather Channel were faced with an unusual challenge: covering a storm that could lead to one of the most devastating natural disasters ever witnessed in America. If the city were filled with 25 feet of water, sewage, debris, and coffins, as scientists have predicted could happen under Category 5 conditions, that might lead to thousands of fatalities and the partial destruction of a major American city. How would the press handle the pressures of covering a potential catastrophe of epic proportions?

The fearful, stern looks were the first indication that the Weather Channel anchors were aware of what they were dealing with. Instead of talking about a storm that “packs a punch” or speculating cheerfully over how brutal the conditions might become, the anchors remained glum for most of Sunday night. Every few minutes, text with the title “The Bottom Line: Hurricane Katrina” kept flashing on the screen:

  • Katrina remains very large and extremely dangerous

  • Conditions will deteriorate overnight

  • Impacts will be very severe, widespread, and of long duration

    Unfortunately, the sort of people who remain in a city below sea level when a Category 5 hurricane is headed straight for them are unlikely to fear “severe, widespread impacts of long duration.” How about “You might drown in flood waters or get crushed by falling debris”?

    Of course, a bastion of intrepid reporters were risking just that on Monday morning once Hurricane Katrina came near the coastline. Maybe it was the fact that the storm had shifted to a Category 4 and then a Category 3, or the fact that it had moved slightly to the east of New Orleans, but many of those out in the rain and wind couldn’t help but let a little of their thrill-seeking enthusiasm leak into the picture. TWC’s most familiar star spoke breathlessly about the “adrenaline rush” of being out in a major storm, and after another reporter spotted 10 feet of water on the roads by the beach, with boats floating up the street, he tried to convince us that he wasn’t enjoying the suspense:

    “The bad news is, all right and don’t miss this, we haven’t even gotten into a fraction of this thing yet, and believe me it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. We still have a 150 mile-an-hour hurricane out there and the worst of it is yet to come! I’m Jim Cantore in Gulfport!”

    Soon after that, CNN reporter Gary Tuchman describes Gulfport as “hell on earth.”

    Meanwhile, in case we had any lingering doubts about the intelligence of the general public, the coverage cut over to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at a news conference, warning people not to use generators indoors. Apparently officials had received 33 reports of carbon monoxide poisoning. Luckily, instead of telling viewers that the impact could be “very severe,” Bush made his message crystal clear by comparing bringing a generator into your home to bringing your car inside and turning it on.

    But Floridians with generators in their living rooms weren’t the only dimwits on display: Soon, there were reports that trucks were trying to cross over a bridge on the I-10 in the middle of the hurricane, and there was a barge that broke loose and was ramming into a bridge on which CNN’s Anderson Cooper was standing. Reporters documented glass and debris flying through the streets in downtown New Orleans. Ominously, a CNN reporter inside the Superdome told us that the roof was falling away and rain was pouring in. “It looks like one section of the Superdome roof may soon peel away from the actual stadium,” he said. “This is supposedly the safest place in New Orleans?”

    A few minutes later, CNN anchors tried to downplay the situation at the Superdome, explaining that it was only a very thin roof covering that tore away, and the structure itself hadn’t been jeopardized.

    As the morning wore on, it became clear that, although the levee had been breached, the disaster wasn’t going to reach those epic proportions that everyone had feared the day before. On CNN, this gave them a little leeway to drum up whatever drama they could find. We cut to shots, recorded earlier, of a petite CNN reporter trying desperately to shield herself from the wind. At one point, she blew completely out of the frame, and some crew members had to grab her and bring her back in front of the camera. Next, we went to CNN’s Rob Marciano in Biloxi, Miss., who showed us how parts of the roof of his hotel had blown away. He also mentioned that a door in the hotel blew shut on a woman’s hand, severing her finger.

    Next, CNN aired some footage from a local reporter in Alabama, Kimberly Curth of WKRG, who was shouting as she was blown all over the streets of downtown Mobile. A few loud beeps could be heard, and at first it seemed as if CNN was editing out the reporter’s swearing as the wind whipped her around. But it turned out the beeps came from a local tornado warning that began to run along the bottom of the local news screen. Not noticing the tickertape on the bottom of the screen, CNN’s midday anchor Daryn Kagan cut in with a sneer of disgust, “Well, glad we had the beep there, to get out some of the expletives.”

    By the afternoon the worst of the storm had passed over New Orleans, and the worst-case scenario hadn’t come to pass. Given the eyewitness accounts of reporters and the amateur footage recorded earlier showing debris flying down Canal Street at an alarming speed, casualties appeared imminent, but no one would know the full extent of the damage until Tuesday morning at the earliest. In the meantime, as the storm moves north, a new slate of reporters prepares to brave the wind and rain to bring us more expletives and those severe, widespread impacts of long duration we were warned about hours earlier.

  • Havrilesky says goodbye to Salon

    A thank you to Salon's readers

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    After seven years as Salon’s TV critic, I’m leaving. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing for Salon all these years: My very supportive editors let me cover everything and anything, from the seething boozehounds of Drunk Asshole Hotel to the seething boozehounds of “Mad Men.” And whether I was tackling dying undertakerswhoring sea donkeysambivalent mobsters or aging boomers, I was given an alarming amount of creative freedom — alarming to readers, most of all — and took full advantage of it. I indulged in caffeine-fueled digressions and rambling parodies, created TV-themed puppet shows, and crafted not one but two “Deadwood”-speak columns that made ample use of the word “cocksucker.”

    To all of Salon’s readers: You’re some of the most engaged and outspoken readers on the Web, and my writing has benefited from both your criticism and your encouragement. I genuinely appreciate your support over the years. Please feel free to drop me a line via Twitter, keep up with my latest work through my website, the rabbit blog, and look for my memoir, “Disaster Preparedness,” on Dec. 30 from Riverhead Books.

    Few writers ever get the chance to enjoy a job that’s as creatively fulfilling as this one, or to write for an audience as smart and as insightful as Salon’s. Although it’s time for me to move on to new challenges, I will look back fondly on my years at Salon and feel grateful for them.

     

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    The best TV shows of 2010

    Slide show: Killer zombies, glorious "Mad Men," Zach Galifianakis -- the shows that blew our minds this year

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    The best TV shows of 2010

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    If you think 2010 was a bad year for TV, well, you need to reacquaint yourself with that big appliance in your living room. Although very few new series became giant hits, the best established shows got even better this year. Yes, the world fell in love with “Mad Men” like never before (and with good reason), but it was the comedies that really surprised us this year. Remember when nothing on TV made you laugh out loud? These days you have 10 to 15 flavors of laughter to choose from, so many that it’s pretty challenging to narrow them down to just a handful.

    From disturbing zombie parables to madcap stoner nostalgia, from grumbling middle-aged men to grandstanding TV executives, the cream of the crop this year transcended their earlier peaks to bring us great entertainment in the comfort of our soft pants. Notable for their sharpness, originality and ability to make us feel uncomfortably human emotions, here are the 10 best TV shows of 2010.

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    Why you should be watching Jimmy Kimmel

    In the wake of the late-night wars, one host emerges victorious -- and his name isn't Jay or Conan or Dave

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    Why you should be watching Jimmy KimmelClockwise from lower left: Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel

    Shots were fired, angry accusations flew, risky stands were taken, and gigantic egos were bruised — but did anyone really win the late night wars? Since waging a valiant crusade against NBC and Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien finally retreated to TBS, comforted by the rabid devotion of Team Coco members nationwide. But even as his ratings remain impressive, he’s faced with one recurring question: How many self-deprecating basic cable jokes does it take to mask the defeat inherent in trading in a lifelong dream of hosting “The Tonight Show” for a spot in television’s hinterlands? Meanwhile, Jay Leno continues to play the clueless country uncle who came home from the state fair with a shiny new Corvette he won at the ring toss, gamely telling his ultra-sophisticated fat jokes and terrorist jokes and ugly-sister jokes on a set about as stylish and edgy as the lobby of the Cheesecake Factory. Snickering on the sidelines, as always, is David Letterman, who delighted at playing the bemused onlooker in this bloody conflict, but still never emerged as the clear ratings winner of the lot. Although he must’ve taken some real satisfaction in demonstrating just how much pain and anguish NBC could’ve spared itself by awarding him “The Tonight Show” gig almost two decades ago, Letterman has been doing the same incredulous snark routine for so long now (without many variations or imaginative twists), that not even an awkward admission of infidelity could shake us out of our indifference.

    While the old familiar faces of late night don’t do much more than make us chuckle ourselves to sleep at night, one man has been calmly and quietly upping his game: Jimmy Kimmel. Despite his distance from the action, it was Kimmel who took some of the most direct shots at Leno during the late night wars. In addition to imitating Leno on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and then appearing on Leno’s show and insulting him to his face, Kimmel has been more outspoken than Conan himself about Leno’s sneaky strategy to take back “The Tonight Show” (although Bill Carter’s new book, “The War for Late Night,” seems to suggest that Leno wasn’t quite so calculating as Kimmel and others seem to assume). When asked in an interview with GQ this month what he learned from the late night dust-up, Kimmel replied: “The lesson is, it pays to be sneaky. I think that’s the main thing I learned. That, and don’t trust Jay Leno.”

    It’s this frank talk that sets Jimmy Kimmel apart from his peers. Throw in the sharpest and funniest opening monologue on late night, an incredible knack for improv, and liberal use of off-kilter gimmicks and skits, and it’s no wonder that Kimmel has risen to the rank of late night king. Whether he’s launching a multitiered attack on Facebook idiocy with his National Unfriend Day, finding creative new ways to insult Matt Damon, or shooting an entire episode during a power outage using only his webcam, Kimmel has always had that combination of swagger and imagination that separates the good talk show hosts from the great ones. Like Johnny Carson and Letterman in his heyday, Kimmel has the bluster and the quick wit to make every moment watching him on the air feel dynamic and exciting.

    That’s no small feat, of course, but it’s what real late night heroism demands. Kimmel tackles pop culture with more sharp wit and weirdo flair than any of the other late night hosts, whether he’s addressing the new Spider-Man musical (“I’ve been working on a superhero show myself, it’s called ‘Aquaman on Ice.’ Aquaman on skates, trying desperately to speak to his friends who are trapped under the layer of ice. That’s a musical!”), rumors that Snoop Dogg will play at Prince William’s bachelor party (“I’m excited for His Highness, and by His Highness, I mean both of them”), airline security pat-downs (“We freak out if a TSA agent touches us on the outside of our pants, but Black Friday, we will hump each other’s heads to get at Walmart to save 8 bucks on a PSP”), or even the plans to have Lindsay Lohan appear on “Dancing With the Stars” (“I would love to see her vomit on Len Goodman”).

    When he’s interviewing guests, Kimmel is arguably better on his feet and more ready with unexpected quips than any other host. On a recent episode when Ben Affleck waxed sympathetic about hard economic times in America, Kimmel soon hinted that no one wants to hear a megastar fake emotion for the little people.

    Affleck: I don’t think there’s anybody in the United States that hasn’t been affected (by the recession) in some way or another.

    Kimmel: Oprah hasn’t been affected at all.

    On another recent episode, Kimmel took an otherwise bland interview with Kate Bosworth and livened it up. (And let’s face it, the real test of good late-night hosting lies in finding some way to spice up interviews with dull, self-involved young actors and actresses. In addition to Kimmel, only Letterman and Craig Ferguson manage it with any regularity.)

    Bosworth: (on her Korean co-star) He literally is the Brad Pitt of Korea. It’s pretty wild.

    Kimmel: Really? ‘Cause I was told I was the Brad Pitt of Korea. That’s disappointing. I feel like I was lied to. (pause) He’s the Brad Pitt of Korea. And so does that mean he adopts a whole bunch of white kids, or how does that work?

    He even managed to save an interview with Paris Hilton from the bowels of hell:

    Hilton: (on her current boyfriend) Right now, I’m just so happy. He’s my best friend.

    Kimmel: Wait a minute, now. I saw a television show in which you picked a best friend and he wasn’t it. Are you telling me that was not your real BFF?

    Later, when Hilton called her new perfume “my tenth fragrance,” Kimmel countered, “That seems like too many fragrances to me.”

    This is where the fans of Jimmy Fallon, who have been rallying lately to crown their contagiously giddy leader the supreme ruler of late night, really must admit defeat. While Fallon’s antics try our patience in all the right ways (Zach Galifianakis’ recent appearance, followed by a skit the very finest flavor of stupid, marked a recent high point), Fallon is a pretty bland interviewer, sometimes resembling Chris Farley’s guffawing yes-man talk show host of “SNL” legend. Nonetheless, Fallon is undoubtedly in the groove lately, with such sure-footed oddball gimmicks and quirky enthusiasm that it makes you wonder if “The Chris Farley Show” itself wouldn’t have morphed into something deliciously strange, if given enough time. And let’s face it, anyone who makes Helen Mirren play beer pong deserves at least an honorable mention, if not an Emmy.

    While he might be the best Neil Young impersonator on late night (or anywhere else), Fallon has none of the subtle snideness that made Carson, Letterman and now Kimmel masters of the craft. Sure, the kind folks down at the local elementary school’s bake sale might find such a tone distasteful, but the rest of us, who’ve been marinating in a toxic mix of “The Love Boat,” People magazine and celebreality shows for years now, need a healthy dollop of scorn to make the celebrity promotional appearance go down a little more smoothly.

    Fans of Craig Ferguson will point out that he shares the requisite doubting tone in his interviews, and also scores very high for sheer courage of conviction. And it’s true that to watch half a second of Ferguson’s show is to love him, from his googly-eyed knowing looks to his perverse but genius rambling asides. His self-effacing charms make his perhaps the most unpredictable and unruly of the late night shows. However enchantingly strange Ferguson’s monologues and interviews may be, they just don’t stack up to Kimmel’s.

    And like Letterman, Kimmel carries the torch of bemoaning his network overlords, lamenting the dumb stuff ABC makes him promote. The imbedded advertising — Bud Light signs on the stage, Old Navy promotions at the start of the show, constant appearances by “Dancing With the Stars” contestants — isn’t all that easy to ignore, but Kimmel makes the best of it. He’s taken to calling himself “the three-headed dog the stars must pass on their way to no-dancing hell,” and after that show’s big finale, he told his audience, “I tell you something, I had a good morning. I woke up this morning, and for about three minutes, couldn’t remember who won “Dancing With the Stars” this year. It felt great, it really did.”

    But Kimmel should wake up feeling great every morning. After all, who would’ve thought that this guy would be the big winner of the late night debacle of 2010? When you flip from Conan to Leno to Letterman, or stay up for Carson Daly or Fallon or Ferguson, even though you might appreciate Ferguson’s bizarro self-deprecating digressions or Fallon’s raw enthusiasm, Kimmel is the only host who will make you laugh out loud more than a few times per episode. He’s got the sharpest monologue, the most interesting digressions and skits, and the best interviewing skills. Now that the dust has cleared, “The Tonight Show” doesn’t look like a prize worth squabbling over, because, with or without the Cheesecake Factory backdrop, Jimmy Kimmel is the new Johnny Carson.

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    “Men of a Certain Age”: Cool is overrated

    TNT's moving, understated drama focuses on the disappointments and the sweetness of growing old among old friends

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    Scott Bakula, Andre Braugher and Ray Romano in "Men of a Certain Age"

    The older you get, the less cool you are. The less cool you are, the nicer you are. This is why old people are so nice to each other.

    When we’re young, we think old people are nice to each other because they’re fake. I was walking the dogs with my 14-year-old stepson yesterday and we passed a couple on the sidewalk. “Hi, how are you?” the man said. “Great, how are you?” I replied.

    “That was weird,” my stepson said. “It’s like he says the same thing to everyone.”

    “OK, have a great weekend!” I replied.

    Old people are a little checked out, it’s true. But we’re amiably comatose. This friendly state of autopilot is the only way we’ve found to manage our dashed dreams, our growing contempt for the culture, our creeping disappointments, our fibromyalgia. We grind our teeth at night and have vivid dreams about screwing cheerleaders. We resent the unflattering shape of matchstick jeans and daydream about gigantic claw-foot bathtubs we can’t afford. Our elbows hurt and our hair always looks bad and we secretly think all electropop sounds like Kraftwerk.

    Recognizing the defeat in each other’s eyes, we smile warmly and say things like, “Of course! We’d love to,” and “Fantastic! I can’t wait!” because we recognize that everyone is flawed and just barely able to accept their own mediocrity or tolerate the frustrations of advancing age. The least we can do is be nice about it.

    Youngish (under 35) skeptics will tell you that the men of “Men of a Certain Age” (premieres Dec. 6 on TNT) don’t talk like men at all, they talk like post-menopausal book club members. This show isn’t made for those youngish people, though. It’s made for the oldish (over 35) among us, who recognize the self-doubting, second-guessing, pot-bellied guys on their TV screen as a painfully palpable embodiments of the humiliations and tiny little ego victories of middle age.

    The charms of “Men of a Certain Age,” like the charms of growing old, are lost on the common whippersnapper. While youngish people tend to reevaluate and reappraise their oldest friendships constantly, questioning whether this or that old friend is up to speed with just how advanced and mature and evolved the new “me” is, old people recognize that they haven’t actually advanced or matured or evolved much over the years. Thus do they humbly turn to each other, all rumpled feathers and matted fur, and sigh deeply. Less important than how far you’ve come, to old friends, is how far you haven’t come — and also, where you were before you got old. The fundamental importance of old friendships, plus that peculiar flavor of shared, comfy nastiness that bounces around between old friends — these make up the soft center of “Men of a Certain Age.” We grow old, we fail, we reproach the gods and grimace in pain, and then we meet to eat pie and complain at the same diner each week.

    “Everybody’s like, ‘Oh, don’t give up on your dream, Terry!’” Terry (Scott Bakula) tells lifelong friends Joe (Ray Romano) and Owen (Andre Braugher) of his acting career. “What would’ve been so bad if I had, huh? We’re at this place in our lives, we’ve come all this way, and I’ve got nothing to show for it. You’ve got something — families, careers …”

    “Families suck,” Joe replies. This harshness, which of course we don’t expect and don’t believe entirely (even from a divorced guy with an anxious teen son and a moody teen daughter), is what balances out the vulnerability of “Men of a Certain Age.” As hand-holdy as the talk can get, these guys are still just guys.

    And if you think their confessional, supportive tone with each other comes out of left field, tell that to the wood fence contractor who volunteered to me last week that he’d been “journaling a lot” about his dad’s death, or the plumber who, apropos of nothing, discussed the struggles of raising teenagers. Middle-aged strangers tell each other emotional stuff out of the blue, and middle-aged friends tell each other everything. (The only exception may be certain varieties of hipster intellectual, who could literally chat about Sufjan Stevens’ latest album on their deathbeds instead of confessing the hopes, fears and regrets of their final hours.)

    But the utter lack of hipness of “Men of a Certain Age,” the total lack of concern for what’s deemed cool and what isn’t, the complete disregard for matching the breakneck pace, the action, the swooning romances, the spitty outbursts, the shiny thrills of other TV shows, is exactly what makes this drama so lovable. Where other dramas would pack in more zaniness and intrigue in every available second of airtime, “Men of a Certain Age” rolls out the familiar, the ordinary, and locates poetic folds and sweet pockets of emotion therein: Joe’s employees are two pure-intentioned teenagers who are genuinely confused by his old-guy ways, and one slow-moving old Spanish-speaking guy, Carlos, who sleeps on the job but Joe still can’t stand to fire him (he lays him off then hires him back at the end of the first season). Owen works at a car dealership owned by his dad, a thoroughly mundane job that Owen dislikes most of the time, but also occasionally excels at. When he breaks away to work for another dealership at the start of the second season, his father is angry, but his respect and investment in his son finally start to emerge out of the fog of his constant hectoring. Even Terry, with his acting career, has encounters with the film industry that will strike anyone who’s actually worked production as hauntingly authentic, less focused as they are on stars and perks and glamour than on a steady flow of deeply humiliating interactions with the most unsavory sorts of egomaniacs imaginable. The big promises and untrustworthy allegiances Terry forms with one director (who refers to him, tellingly, as “T-bag”), only to have the rug pulled out from under him on a whim, echo some essential Hollywood experience that’s rarely portrayed with quite as much clarity and empathy.

    But the big impact of this drama comes in its quietest moments: Joe and his son, Albert (Braedon Lemasters), are driving home from the movie theater after Albert has had an anxiety attack and insists that they leave. Suddenly, Albert wants to know if Joe is embarrassed by him. “Embarrassed? No, man. Never,” Joe says, his eyes starting to well up a little. “You’re my hero. I mean that. You’re doing great, man. I’m proud of you.” It’s simple dialogue, nothing fancy, nothing too clever or provocative, but that’s what gets you in the throat sometimes.

    Like the oldish and crumpled and vaguely resentful among us, “Men of a Certain Age” casts aside sophistication and witty banter for the comfort of what’s real — even when what’s real is disappointments, missed connections and inadequate attempts to reassure. In accepting our frailty, we locate our souls.

    You’re doing great, “Men of a Certain Age.” We’re proud of you.

    Oh, and have a great weekend! 

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    “Public Speaking”: Scorsese’s Fran Lebowitz doc delights

    Fran Lebowitz famously hasn't written a book in 20 years, but HBO makes the case she's as relevant as ever

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    Fran Lebowitz in "Public Speaking"

    At the start of “Public Speaking,” Martin Scorsese’s documentary on Fran Lebowitz, you might find yourself wondering, “Just how much adoration does an author of exactly two books deserve?” After all, the woman hasn’t written a book for almost 20 years, yet she’s heralded as one of the singular wits of her generation.

    But then, if you take the time to flip through the pages of “Metropolitan Life” or “Social Studies” yet again, you’ll find two truly great books that stand the test of time. And how many truly great books do most authors have in them?

    The answer to that question, of course, is zero. Or as Lebowitz herself puts it when speaking to a roomful of young people, “There are too many books, the books are terrible, and it’s because you have been taught to have self-esteem.” This is Lebowitz’s distinct talent: making elitist contempt sound charming.

    Toni Morrison, a friend of Lebowitz’s, puts it a little differently. “You seem to me almost always right,” she tells Lebowitz. “But never fair.”

    “That’s why,” Lebowitz responds. “I’m always right because I’m never fair.”

    Most of us secretly wish that we could be as right and as unfair as she is. But the world has changed a lot since “Metropolitan Life” was first published in 1974. Being unfair isn’t nearly as acceptable as it used to be. Today, people demand prose that is polite, respectful, nonjudgmental, and that never employs terms, phrases, suggestions or hints that could offend any segment of the population. People demand prose that isn’t prose, in other words.

    Contrast that with almost any assertion made by Lebowitz in “Metropolitan Life” or “Social Studies”: Jews make good stand-up comedians. Sports are “dangerous and tiring activities performed by people with whom I share nothing except the right to trial by jury.” Communism is unpleasant because “I do not work well with others and I do not wish to learn to do so.” Children “tend to be sticky” and “respond inadequately to sardonic humor and veiled threats.”

    “Public Speaking” (premieres 10 p.m. Monday, Nov. 22, on HBO) is also packed with Lebowitz’s clever observations, the most gratifying of which may be her reflections on the ways our culture has changed since her books were first published. “An audience with a high level of connoisseurship is as important to the culture as artists. That audience died in five minutes,” she says, referring to the AIDS epidemic. These days, Lebowitz says, “everything has to be broader, more blatant, more on the nose.” The problem? “Too much democracy in the culture, not enough democracy in the society.”

    Lebowitz’s real strength, though, lies in explaining the different social classes to each other, either in her books or in Scorsese’s film. In “Social Studies” she includes a “Glossary of Words Used By Poorer People” including meatloaf (“A gloriously rough kind of pate”) and overworked (“an overwhelming feeling of fatigue, exhaustion, weariness. Similar to jet lag”), and outlines the trivializing effects of the international jet-setter (“What, after all, is London to a man who thinks of the whole Middle East as just another bad neighborhood and the coast of South Africa as simply the beach?”).

    In “Public Speaking,” it’s clear that, although Lebowitz might mingle with elites, her underlying affections lie with the common man — as unsuitable as she might find his pants or his penchant for installing wall-to-wall carpeting in bathrooms. When the topic of how New York City has changed over the past two decades arises, Lebowitz says, “When a place is too expensive, only people with lots of money can live there. That’s the problem. You can like people with money, hate people with money. But you cannot say that an entire city with people with lots of money is fascinating. It isn’t.”

    Even if her writers block continues for another three decades, Lebowitz herself remains undeniably fascinating. Scorsese’s documentary offers us a long overdue taste of her unique, queasily accurate perspectives on our culture — always right, never fair and never disappointing. 

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