IN
PUBLIC SPEAKING
, Martin Scorsese’s brilliant 2010 documentary about New York wit and intellect Fran Lebowitz, his subject makes a clever observation. At one point she is talking about how Aids wreaked havoc on her beloved city. It wasn’t, Fran says, just the deaths of the artists, famous fashion designers, dancers at the New York City Ballet or other celebrated public figures that shook the Five Boroughs to their core.
It was the great swathes of the audience that Aids depleted. Suddenly, there were fewer and fewer people to look at their creations, hear their words, wear their clothes.