Pretend It's a City (2021) s01e07 Episode Script

1
No matter who you are,
you have just your life.
But in books, you have a zillion lives.
You have a zillion things, so…
To me, it's--
it's just a way of being immensely rich.
This may be the reason
I never cared about money.
Because as soon as you can read,
you are incredibly rich.
You know? I mean, so rich that if you
read all the time, you wouldn't have time
to think about money, which is minute,
as opposed to reading, which is gigantic.
[woman] Do you think that there's
a suffocating political correctness?
[Fran] She wants to know if I think
that there's a suffocating
political correctness.
And my answer to you is
I'm breathing fine.
-Um…
-[audience laughs]
[laughs]
You can't judge sugar
By lookin' at the cane ♪
You can't judge a woman
By lookin' at her man ♪
You can't judge a sister
By lookin' at her brother ♪
You can't judge a book
By lookin' at the cover ♪
Oh, can't you see? ♪
Oh, you misjudge me ♪
Well, I look like a farmer
But I'm a lover ♪
Can't judge a book
By lookin' at the cover ♪
Where should I sit?
We're gonna go table by table now.
You're gonna choose a table.
See which one is best for you to sit.
-Move it around here. How's that?
-It's fine.
-The food is horrible, though.
-[scoffs]
[both laugh]
Come on in closer, baby ♪
Hear what else I gotta say ♪
Reading is a taste.
This is my belief about reading.
It's simply a taste.
You know, it's like… if you, uh…
grow up in an environment
where books are available,
because they're in your house,
or someone takes you to the library,
or there's a library at your school,
or whatever,
some people might love to read, just
take to it, and some people might not.
You know, it is--
I really believe it's just a taste.
You know, I…
The second I learned how to read,
it was, like, unbelievable to me.
Like, the world became…
And I was pretty happy before that.
I had quite a happy childhood.
But reading was like… My-- my world
became a billion times bigger, you know?
That used to be the point of reading,
in a way, you know. Now it's not.
Now people are always saying,
you know, um…
"I-- You know… There's no books
about people like me.
-I don't see myself in the book."
-[Martin laughs]
I always think, like…
"Did you see yourself in this book?"
And I always think, "No."
I mean, a book isn't supposed to be
a mirror. It's supposed to be a door!
[Martin] Uh-huh.
I feel. It never occurred to me
I would see myself in a book, frankly.
I never even thought about it. Um…
Uh… I mean, even as a child,
it never occurred to me.
So the second I learned to read,
I just loved to read.
There used to be some…
um, some imaginary figure
called the "common reader."
-I don't know what happened.
-It's been replaced by the common writer.
[laughs]
[chuckles] Don't you think?
But, I mean, I think people used to be
more open to books.
Do you think that's-- that's true?
I mean, in a real way.
Yeah, I think they didn't mind,
and maybe they looked
for a kind of alternate…
world or universe or set of imagination.
But you… you have said this before,
and I guess it's truer than I thought.
Uh, many readers really are looking…
[laughs]
I see you, raise you…
for some replica of their lives.
Yes, themselves.
I think the reader is, in a se--
-I am the reader of the books I write--
-You are, but the other readers aren't.
-That's what I try to impress upon you.
-[laughter]
Your other readers aren't you.
Yes, they are.
-[laughs] No--
-You say "we." You told me that once.
-[scattered applause]
-"Fran, when you write, you say 'you.'"
I gave you something I wrote.
You said, "One suggestion.
You say 'you' here,
but you shouldn't say 'you.'
You should say 'we.'"
And I said, "Why?"
-You said, "That invites the reader in."
-Mm-hm.
I said,
"But I don't wanna invite the reader in."
[both laugh]
I said… I said, "I mean 'you.'"
-[laughs]
-I said, "I'm not a hostess!"
[audience laughing]
I said, "I'm not a hostess.
I'm a prosecutor."
[both laughing]
And you are a hostess.
You want to invite them in.
-Yes.
-Yes.
-Because you think they--
-I try very hard. "Come on!"
-You know? "Come on!"
-[cheering and applause]
[Fran] Recently,
I bought a shorthand dictionary.
If I see a certain kind of book,
I buy it, if I can.
And dictionaries…
I have dozens, dozens of dictionaries.
Um… So, I never saw
a dictionary of shorthand.
So I bought it not because I know
shorthand, but because I don't have one.
Sometimes you're in here,
and this is also true at the Strand,
where they buy old books,
and they're unpacking them, and you're…
I have been in both stores,
this store and the Strand,
where when I bring the book
to ask how much it is, the person goes,
"Where'd you find this? You're not…"
"I was crawling under that table."
"You're not supposed to go back there."
But when I found the shorthand dictionary
and I brought it to the front,
the woman said,
"I thought you would buy this."
It's very different to be in a bookstore
than it is to order a book.
You know? I don't have a computer,
but if I want a book,
I ask a friend,
"Can you order this on Amazon?"
But I have to know the book,
-which is not the same thing.
-[Martin] That's right.
Going around a bookstore, you think,
"What's this? What's that?"
You know, you find things.
I remember there were
those secondhand bookstores…
-[Martin] Right.
-…on 4th Avenue.
On 4th Avenue in 1925
And they lasted
probably as long as those guys lasted,
because they never sold you a book,
-they wouldn't sell you a book.
-I know.
-No.
-You know, those dusty guys,
-reading their dusty books.
-Right.
-You'd walk in, they'd look up, annoyed.
-[laughs]
You know? You would, like… [coughs]
You'd take… [blows] a book.
"How much is this?"
[Martin chuckles]
[Fran] Now there's just the Strand on
Fourth Avenue. There's nothing else left.
[horn blares]
This building, it's a holdout from
the point of view of… A building holdout.
I know that they offered
the owners of this building,
who are the owners of the bookstore,
a huge amount of money.
Millions and millions of dollars.
You do not make millions of dollars
selling books,
not even if you started selling them
in 1925.
And they refused to sell.
Owning a bookstore
was never the road to riches.
So people owned a bookstore
because they loved books, you know?
And so every bookstore
had a particular sensibility.
There were bookstores
where you had to, like, know.
Not because they were, uh, illegal,
but because they were, like,
on the fifth floor of the building.
Someone would say,
"You know, on the fifth floor
uh, in that building on 12th Street,
there's, like, a communist bookstore."
Okay? Now, I mean, this was never,
obviously, a very lucrative business,
and I was never a communist,
but I thought, "Really?
I want to go and look at these books."
I bought some,
because I didn't have any communist books.
I thought, "You know,
I have no communist books in my house."
Then I would read them.
This is one reason communism didn't work.
-No good writers.
-[laughs]
Brush up your Shakespeare ♪
Start quoting him now ♪
Brush up your Shakespeare ♪
And the women you will wow ♪
Just declaim a few lines from Othell-a ♪
And they think
You're a heck of a fella ♪
If your blonde won't respond
When you flatter 'er ♪
Tell her what Tony told Cleopat-erer ♪
And if still to be shocked
She pretends, well ♪
Just remind her that
All's Well That Ends Well ♪
Brush up your Shakespeare ♪
And they'll all kowtow ♪
I mean, people must still have books.
You can't…
One thing about books,
you cannot give them away anymore.
It used to be,
I would go through my books every year,
-the ones that I didn't want…
-Right, yeah.
Anyone would take them. Any school,
any, you know, like, library in a school.
Now, no one will take them,
because they take up room.
I am absolutely, a hundred percent,
-incapable of throwing a book away.
-I was gonna ask.
-I can't.
-I cannot throw a book away. To me…
-it's like throwing a human being away.
-Yeah.
Okay? So, I mean…
There are many more human beings
-that I'd rather throw away, by the way.
-No, we-- [laughs]
To me, a book is really the closest thing
to a human being.
-Yeah.
-And so, I cannot throw them away.
I've sometimes seen, like…
-a book in the trash…
-No, it's awful.
And it, like-- it's horrible.
Even if it's a critic
who's written terrible things about you,
-I can't give it away.
-Even if it's a piece of junk
-that should never have been a book.
-[laughs]
Which I also get, you know,
and those, like, pile up.
And so anyone who comes over,
they always look, and I always say…
-There's certain piles of books… "Hey!"
-You can take.
-"Take 'em." Yeah.
-"Anything you want. Please."
"This looks interesting."
I'm thinking, "It's not, but take it."
Do you read a lot of new writers?
Do you read a lot of young writers?
-Do you read a lot?
-I do. I read a lot.
-Yeah.
-Yes. I-- It's mostly what I do, is read.
Basically, I'm a bookworm.
How do you get onto the books
that you read, knowing there's--
even if you just focused on the good ones,
there's more than you can possibly read?
I've always had,
although it becomes harder and harder,
many friends older than me who say,
"What? You haven't read this?"
Then they tell me, and I read it.
Also, I used to browse around bookstores,
but there are fewer and fewer of them.
Um… But it's just something
I think about all the time,
If someone recommends a book
and I think that would be a good
recommendation, I buy the book.
If someone recommends books to me
and they're-- I don't like them,
or I really don't like them,
I hold it against the person
who recommended them.
-[Martin chuckles]
-Like, I…
like, yelled at someone once,
called them and yelled at them,
for giving a quote to a book that I bought
because this guy gave a quote to it.
I was in a bookstore.
I never heard of this book.
I see a quote from this guy
who's a fantastic writer.
I bought the book.
I read the book. It was a horrible book.
I called the guy. I said, "What is wrong
with you? I just read that."
-He goes, "Well, I know the guy." He--
-Mm-hm.
I said, "The next time you do this,
before you do this, you call me.
You go, 'Fran, you'll be seeing my quote
on a book, but it's not a good book.'"
There are books, especially, you know,
extremely highly recommended books
that everyone says,
"No, the guy's a genius, you have to--"
And then I'll get the book.
I'll bow to this pressure.
People say, "What did you think?
Wasn't it great? Did you read it?"
Then I realize. I say, "Well, you know,
I read part of it."
"What? You hated it?"
I said, "No. Worse.
I forgot I was reading it."
-Oof.
-"I forgot I was reading it."
To me, that's the worst thing.
-[chuckles]
-"I forgot I was reading it" is much worse
to me than, "I closed it in a fury."
No, I didn't close it in a fury.
I put it aside.
The phone rang,
or it was time to eat, whatever,
and, in that period,
I forgot I was reading it.
-This is the genealogy department?
-[Martin] This is genealogy, yeah.
[Fran] When did your family come here?
Because there's several books.
Italians to America.
-[Martin] 1910. 1909.
-Now I've lost track of where they were.
They had numerous…
-There's Norwegians here. Who cares?
-Yeah. Bah. Who cares?
-People who are younger than 40, for sure…
-Yeah.
-They have-- they have no stuff.
-I see.
-They have no stuff. No books, no records.
-They have it on this machine.
-Yeah.
-Everything's on the machine.
Nope. Where did I just see this?
-[both] Mayflower Families.
-12 volumes.
-I always envisioned it as a small boat.
-It was very small.
-With a couple of WASPs on it, you know.
-Yeah, yeah! [laughs]
But this must be
why my family didn't hop on.
-Because they thought, "Too crowded!"
-[laughs]
"Let's wait a few hundred years
and go steerage to Ellis Island
so we go right to New York."
Here. I don't know how I…
-[Martin] Here.
-You found the Italians?
[Martin] Yeah. Italians to America.
-Where are you?
-1893, 1895.
-[Fran] Do you know what years they came?
-1910, I'd say.
[Fran] 1903, 1904, '04. '05.
'05.
-I'm afraid you got here too recently.
-[laughs]
They haven't written it down yet.
[clicking]
Done. I love table games, sir.
May I ask, I thought you were looking for
illnesses and contagious diseases here.
Unfortunately, ma'am,
it has been scientifically proven
that lack of intelligence
is genetically inherited,
hence contagious, in a way.
We are trying to prevent below-average
people from mixing with our citizens.
What a modern vision.
[murmur of conversation]
-[Fran] You know that movie, Golden Door?
-Oh, yeah.
-[Fran] I thought it was really good.
-Me too.
[Fran] There were numerous things
about immigrants that I didn't know.
I didn't know how rigorous, um…
-was the kind of entrance at Ellis Island.
-Oh, yeah.
You know? Although I did know
that my great-grandfather,
uh, when he got here from Russia, um…
-was held because he had conjunctivitis.
-Oh.
-Okay? Which is, uh…
-Yeah, yeah.
Which he obviously caught
on the delightful boat.
-Not the Mayflower.
-Yes. [laughs]
There was no… It's cured with antibiotics,
but there were no antibiotics then.
-Yeah.
-So basically, they said to him,
"You have to stay quarantined."
They knew it was contagious. Um…
"And if it goes away in this many days,
fine. And if not, you're going back."
-Oh!
-Yeah.
Luckily, he was okay, and they let him in.
And people got turned back,
-and their whole lives changed.
-Right.
-For stuff like pink eye.
-Yeah.
[officers speaking Italian] Look down.
Look up.
Down. Up.
[Fran] There's various waves of immigrants
that went through the Lower East Side.
It wasn't just the Jews. It was,
as you know, the Italians and many others.
But now in the Lower East Side, there's
something called the Tenement Museum.
The Tenement Museum! What's in there?
You know… like, a tuberculosis epidemic?
-[Martin laughs]
-You know? What do you put in there?
You know what I mean? The Tenement Museum.
Are people longing for this?
I don't think so.
Well, yeah. You used to have
the bathtub in the kitchen.
-Yeah, come on.
-Right.
I mean, to me, this is like…
I don't know. It seems absurd, frankly.
I'm not trying to dissuade people
from going to the Tenement Museum.
Isn't it good that young people who don't
know about the tenements go and see this?
-It'd be better--
-The way immigrants,
my grandparents grew up, my parents.
There's so many good novels and books
about these eras…
-Yeah.
-…written by these people,
where you would get a much richer picture
of it, even though there's no pictures.
I suppose the Tenement Museum is good
because they look at it.
-[Martin] Yeah.
-So, looking at something is obviously…
people feel, easier, you know,
than reading something.
But, you know, a Tenement Museum's
not a tenement.
[man] Is there anyone you won't read?
[Fran] I mean, Henry Roth was discovered
to have, like, you know,
had sex with his sister,
and it was horrible.
But no,
it wouldn't keep me from reading him.
Of course,
you can't read someone in the same way.
But also Henry Roth, by the way,
was not some, you know, serene writer
of pastoral poetry before that.
-[Martin laughs]
-You know, I know when I read a writer,
you know, that…
uh, even, you know, writers of fiction,
that it doesn't come out of nowhere,
the things people think.
So it wasn't like, "Henry Roth,
I thought he was such a sweet guy."
I didn't think that before.
But I think he's a great writer.
Um, no, I would not stop reading him. Um…
If he was alive, you know,
I wouldn't maybe talk to him.
But… um, he's dead,
and you should still read him.
I mean, like, you know, James Levine.
A great artist.
A great, great artist. A great artist.
I'm not saying
I don't believe these accusations.
So say they're a hundred percent true…
Okay, so…
Because he's someone who had a job,
you know, I mean, conducting the…
you know, Metropolitan Opera.
Yes, they have to fire him.
I understand that.
But they don't have to take his recordings
out of the… Why?
That's something I don't understand.
Was the idea that, "Well, he will get
some money from this?" or, you know…
I mean, they're still great.
He's a great artist.
You know, um…
firing people from their jobs where they…
That is something that should be done
if people do horrible things.
You know, especially the things
he was accused of doing. Um…
But not reading people's books
or listening to their music or…
It seems… pointless, really, to me.
-Sure.
-You know, now, people say,
"Oh, now, you can't listen to these
recordings without thinking of that."
-I think, "Well, you can't, but I can."
-Yeah. [chuckles]
[Fran] When I was very young,
like seven or eight years old,
my mother bought me this.
This book,
which is called Six Little Cooks,
I couldn't believe that
this was something I was gonna own.
I mean, I'm still
completely startled by it.
Because, as you can see, it's very pretty.
It's very beautiful.
But also, you know, it was published,
I think, in 1900.
I couldn't believe that I owned
something that looked so important.
You know, it's the same way
that it looked important to me
because it looked like something
that would be in a museum or a library.
So I love this book,
and if anything happened to this book,
I would be completely heartbroken.
This is a book in excellent condition
that was owned by a seven-year-old.
That's how careful
I have always been of books.
I mean, I remember once,
when I was probably around the same age,
I was reading a Nancy Drew book,
and I dropped it
and I picked it up, and I kissed it.
And my mother said, "What are you doing?"
And I said, "You have to…
If you drop a book, you have to kiss it."
She said, "Who told you that?"
"That's something they told us
in synagogue.
That if you dropped the… prayer book,
whatever it's called,
you have to kiss it."
My mother said, "Yes. Not every book."
One of the first things that you wrote
was a column for Interview magazine,
and then after doing that for a time…
What was… I Cover the Waterfront
was the name of the…
No, my first column I had for Interview
was called The Best of the Worst,
and it was a movie review column.
Uh, but I only reviewed…
well, not even B movies,
and-- mostly made by a company called
American International Pictures,
which specialized, AIP, in this certain
sort of movie, which I was in love with.
And they screened them in New York
for distributors.
I would watch these screenings.
I did this column for a couple of years.
And then I started doing
I Cover the Waterfront,
which, um… was more catholic.
I wrote about everything, not just movies.
-[Martin] But I told you I had that book.
-[Fran] Which book?
All the stuff that you wrote in Interview
for the '70s.
-My movie reviews are in there.
-That's right. Yeah, yeah.
-Yeah. The Best of the Worst.
-Yes, that's right. That's right.
-All those AIP movies then, remember?
-Oh, yes.
And they never showed them in New York.
-They maybe showed them on 42nd Street.
-42nd Street.
They screened them in New York
-for the people who owned drive-ins.
-[laughs]
So, you know… because that was mostly
where they played then.
So they would have screenings,
like at 1600 Broadway.
-Remember that screening room?
-Oh, yes. Wonderful screening room.
-So dirty.
-And I got myself onto this AIP list.
-Oh!
-So I could watch these movies.
And I just
started mostly writing about them.
[laughs]
Because they were more fun to write about.
Because I wasn't really interested
in being a critic.
I was interested
in finding something funny to write about.
Oh, these things were.
-They were unbelievable.
-Yeah.
-But you made one of these movies.
-I made one.
-Boxcar Bertha.
-Which I reviewed.
-Did you see?
-No, I didn't.
I-- I definitely remember,
because when I found out recently
-that you made Boxcar Bertha…
-Yes.
I said, "I'm sure I reviewed that.
I remember it."
But I never knew that you made it.
-[Fran] Yes?
-[man] Can you speak about your experience
writing for Interview magazine
and Andy Warhol?
I mean, I don't really know what to say
about this. It was really a long time ago.
I was very young when I started working
for Interview. I was, like, 20 years old.
And I wrote for Interview
for, like, 11 years, I think.
Quite a long time, you know.
And I never got along with Andy.
Um… Andy never got along with me.
Um…
He's done much better since he died.
[laughter]
How do I know this? Because I sold
all my Warhols two weeks before he died.
[laughter]
I sold them
to pay the maintenance on my apartment.
So I don't only make
bad real estate decisions.
[chuckles]
And frankly,
I believe that's why Andy died.
You know? I think he thought,
"Well!"
The second he died, of course,
the prices went up.
[Fran] To me, there is nothing
more emblematic of the change in New York
than the fact that what used to be
the all-night, 24-hour-a-day,
forever-open, big newsstand
at Columbus Circle…
-[Martin] It's gone.
-…is now a bike rental.
The look of New York
has completely changed.
You know, in other words,
New York used to be awash in newsprint.
-[Martin] Yeah. Yeah.
-It was in the gutters.
-In the trash cans.
-Remember the place in Times Square,
it had all the, uh… newspapers?
I mean the whole city was awash in
newsprint because people threw them away.
There were a billion newspapers.
-Every day, people threw them away.
-Yeah.
They were in the gutters. All the trash
baskets were filled up with newspapers.
All the subway seats had newspapers.
-They were on the floor.
-You're right.
And you very rarely see people
reading newspapers on the subway anymore.
-That used to be…
-Wow.
-That was everything.
-Everything.
And you do see people
reading actual books on the subway.
Not a million people,
but you see some people doing it,
and these people are mostly young.
They are mostly, I would say,
people in their twenties.
And I asked my editor,
who has children that age,
"Do your kids read, like, books
on a Kindle, or whatever you call it?"
-Yeah.
-And he goes, "No. My kids read books."
He said, "The people who read mostly…"
There's something other than a Kindle.
-Whatever it's called. Um…
-Right.
He said those people
are mostly in their 40s.
-Mm-hm.
-And 50s.
So, I mean, I can't always tell, you know…
I always try to see
what books people are reading.
-Yeah.
-This is extremely important to me.
Um… What are you reading? Um…
But any book… Even when I look at the book
and I think, "Who would read that book?"
-Well, good. It's a book.
-[laughs]
Go ahead, read it.
[horn blares]
Hi. Do you people buy books here?
At this kiosk? No. No.
No. I'm sure not. Do you think it's fair
to bring a book into Times Square?
It's not fair to the books.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
They don't really have
a say in it, I guess.
It's injurious.
If you don't sell any books here, which
I'm sure you don't, why are you here?
You sell the T-shirts?
We sell a lot of bags.
We do sell books.
Yeah.
This is a great book.
I buy it for kids all the time.
It's a really good book.
[David Letterman] Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome Fran Lebowitz!
[cheering and applause]
Metropolitan Life and Social Studies.
-Which came first?
-Metropolitan Life.
-Then Social Studies.
-Then…
A wildly entertaining collection
of humorous essays.
-That's right. Both of them.
-Both of them.
And they have been republished
in one form or another how many times?
Oh. In different formats,
-probably four or five times each.
-Four or five?
Now you have a kids' book.
-This is a first for you, isn't it?
-Correct.
Are you ever gonna write anything new?
-This is new.
-The panda book?
-Yes.
-Yes, but it's for kids.
-Yes, well, I'm writing a novel.
-You were writing a novel six years ago.
-When we talked to you six years--
-No, no.
-I was supposed to be writing a novel…
-Uh-huh.
-…but I took ten years off to sulk.
-[laughter]
-Ten years off to sulk?
-Yes.
And did you get everything accomplished
along those lines you wanted to?
Well, I'm almost finished sulking.
-Do you suffer-- do you suffer from--
-Yes.
-Okay.
-[laughter]
[cheering and applause]
[man] The New York Public Library
has a refrigerator magnet
with a quote from you.
-Half a quote.
-Half a quote.
The half a quote is, uh…
"Think before you speak.
Read before you think." What's the rest?
[Fran] The rest of the quote, as I recall,
because it's really old…
This is something I wrote for Newsweek
in, like, 1978.
Okay, so Newsweek in 1978, by the way,
was a very important publication.
And they had a feature on the back page
called My Turn,
which they would invite
a different person to write, you know.
So after my first book came out in 1978,
I was invited to do this.
My parents could not believe it.
This was like, "They asked you?"
[laughter]
My parents got Newsweek,
because many Jews did not get Time
because Time was owned
by Henry Luce.
-I see.
-A noted anti-Semite.
They got Life,
because for some reason this escaped them.
-[laughter]
-But they got Newsweek.
So Newsweek had this feature,
and I said, "I'm gonna do it."
"What do you mean? You?"
It's like this was inconceivable to them.
Um…
So I wrote this thing about teenagers,
and it was, like, different,
like, directions for teenagers, you know?
Um, you know,
different things that they should do.
Uh… and I think the original quote
was, um… uh…
"Think before you speak.
Read before you think.
This will give you something to think
about that you didn't make up yourself.
A wise move at any age,
but most especially at 17,
when you are in the greatest danger
of coming to annoying conclusions."
[Fran] Well, this place that we're in,
The Players Club,
was purchased by Edwin Booth,
who was an actor,
and, at some point,
started the Players Club.
And when he died,
he left the building to the Players Club.
[Martin] Mm-hm.
But his brother…
um, was John Wilkes Booth.
So his brother killed Abraham Lincoln.
And there is a letter upstairs…
I mean, not the actual letter,
but a copy of the letter
that he wrote, uh… to a newspaper.
It's addressed to "My fellow citizens"
or something,
-like, apologizing for the brother.
-[Martin] Mm-hm.
[Fran] And I was reading this letter,
and I was thinking to myself,
"I know a lot of people
who complain about their siblings."
In fact, almost everyone who has siblings
complains about them.
But I thought,
when I read that letter, you know…
"No matter what kind of sibling you have…"
Like, you can say to yourself,
"Yes, my brother never pays me back,"
or, "My sister gossips," or, you know…
But you could always say to yourself,
"At least my brother
didn't kill Abraham Lincoln."
I'm sure that Edwin Booth,
in his life, also listened
to his friends complain about siblings,
until his brother killed Lincoln.
Then, I'm sure, after that,
if people would start to say,
"My brother, he borrowed--"
people would say, "Shush.
His brother killed Abraham Lincoln."
-[laughter]
-Like, "Let's not bring this up."
Like, so, um… there are always people
who have worse problems than you do.
[Martin chuckles]
-[man] Right.
-[Fran] We're done?
-Right, I see.
-[Martin] Right, so… -Oh… Go ahead.
-Keep rolling, rolling, rolling…
-[man] Yeah.
[Martin] There you go. Keep goin'.
Off to her left.
Yeah. That's another bridge.
[laughter echoing]
Okay. Made it.
And what about whatshisname who
was gonna put a highway through Manhattan?
-[Fran] Robert Moses. Who built this.
-Moses.
-[Fran] This was Robert Moses' idea.
-This whole thing?
[Fran] Yes.
Robert Moses should have stuck to models.
-[laughter]
-[Fran] You know?
Unbeknownst to Robert Moses,
he was best as a miniaturist.
-[Martin] Yeah.
-[laughter]
[Fran] I went to the World's Fair,
but I didn't see this.
-[Martin] Oh.
-[Fran] The World's Fair was so full
of unbelievable attractions,
that who would have time for this?
-Um, or even know about it?
-[laughter]
But, I mean,
I can't believe this is still here.
I mean, this is fantastic.
[orchestra strikes up]
[Martin] Okay. Yeah.
[orchestra playing]