Time Sensitive - Lucy Sante on on Transitioning Into Herself at Long Last

Lucy Sante on on Transitioning Into Herself at Long Last

04/03/24 • 58 min

Three years ago, at age 66, the Belgium-born writer and critic Lucy Sante—known for her award-winning essays, criticism, and books, including Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (1991)—announced to a few dozen close friends that she was transitioning to womanhood. This news came following nearly four decades of publishing her work under the byline Luc Sante. In her new memoir, I Heard Her Call My Name (Penguin Press), which she discusses at length on this episode of Time Sensitive, Sante writes about the first six months of her recent transition, the decades-long silence that preceded it, and various piercing moments from her life that led up to it. She is also the author of books such as Nineteen Reservoirs (2022), The Other Paris (2015), and Folk Photography (2009), and her writing has appeared in publications including The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Artforum, and Vanity Fair. Across all of her work, Sante brings a searing, no-nonsense clarity and a photographic eye for detail.

Also on this episode, Sante talks about why she thinks of the 1960s as “a kind of magic time,” her life-transforming literary journey, and her decision to open the floodgates of her womanhood.

Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

[3:49] Lucy Sante

[3:49] I Heard Her Call My Name

[3:49] The Factory of Facts

[6:27] Nineteen Reservoirs

[6:27] Low Life

[9:28] Histories of the Transgender Child

[9:28] Jules Gill-Peterson

[22:11] Tintin

[24:07] Terry Southern

[24:07] Writers in Revolt

[24:07] Alexander Trocchi’s Caine’s Book

[24:07] Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”

[24:07] Peter Orlovsky

[24:07] William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch

[24:07] Curzio Malapart’s Kaputt

[29:05] The New York Review of Books

[34:23] Folk Photography

[36:55] The Other Paris

[38:04] Walker Evans

[38:04] Robert Frank

[46:10] Maybe People Would Be the Times

[49:52] “The Invention of the Blues”

[51:41] The Velvet Underground

[51:41] Lou Reed

[51:41] Andrew Wylie

Also on this episode, Sante talks about why she thinks of the 1960s as “a kind of magic time,” her life-transforming literary journey, and her decision to open the floodgates of her womanhood.

Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

[3:49] Lucy Sante

[3:49] I Heard Her Call My Name

[3:49] The Factory of Facts

[6:27] Nineteen Reservoirs

[6:27] Low Life

[9:28] Histories of the Transgender Child

[9:28] Jules Gill-Peterson

[22:11] Tintin

[24:07] Terry Southern

[24:07] Writers in Revolt

[24:07] Alexander Trocchi’s Caine’s Book

[24:07] Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”

[24:07] Peter Orlovsky

[24:07] William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch

[24:07] Curzio Malapart’s Kaputt

[29:05] The New York Review of Books

[34:23] Folk Photography

[36:55] The Other Paris

[38:04] Walker Evans

[38:04] Robert Frank

[46:10] Maybe People Would Be the Times

[49:52] “The Invention of the Blues”

[51:41] The Velvet Underground

[51:41] Lou Reed

[51:41] Andrew Wylie

Previous Episode

Ilse Crawford on Creating Lasting, “Living” Spaces

To the cult British interior and furniture designer Ilse Crawford, interiors too often take a backseat to architecture. Through her humanistic, systems-thinking, “Frame for Life” approach, however, Crawford has shown how interiors and architecture should instead be viewed on the same plane and, as she puts it on this episode of Time Sensitive, “walk hand in hand.”

Widely known for creating indoor spaces that are notable in their tactility, warmth, and comfort—environments that incorporate, to use her phrase, “visceral materiality”—Crawford oversees her namesake London-based design studio, Studioilse, which she launched in 2003, and whose projects include the first Soho House members’ club in New York, the Ett Hem hotel in Stockholm, and the Cathay Pacific lounges in Hong Kong. Crawford is also the founder of the department of Man and Wellbeing at the Design Academy Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, which she headed for two decades. Prior to her career as a designer, she was the celebrated founding editor of Elle Decoration U.K.

On this episode, Crawford discusses her approach to crafting beautiful, highly original spaces that push against today’s speedy, copy-paste, Instagram-moment world; her early career in media; and her personal definition of the word “slow.”

Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.
Show notes:
[5:09] StudioIlse

[7:25] A Frame for Life

[58:32] Design Academy Eindhoven

[7:25] Svenkst Tenn

[7:25] Ett Hem

[16:36] Jeanette Mix

[1:02:51] Cathay Pacific

[47:42] Elle Decoration

[29:11] The Eyes of the Skin

[33:52] Alvar Aalto

[33:52] Paimio Sanatorium

[33:52] Christopher Alexander

[31:35] Sensual Home

[35:24] Leonard Koren

[35:46] Frida Escobedo

[47:42] Architect’s Journal

[47:42] The World of Interiors

[47:42] Min Hogg

[52:48] Donna Karan

[54:04] Soho House

[54:04] Babington House

[1:00:08] Home Is Where the Heart Is?

Next Episode

Paul Smith on Imbuing Clothing With Joy and Humor

The cheeky, happy-go-lucky spirit of the British fashion designer Paul Smith can be felt across everything he does, from his own clothing designs to his multifarious collaborations—Maharam textiles, Mini cars, Burton snowboards, and a suite at the Brown’s Hotel in London among them. Though Smith may run a business with expert tailoring and a mastery of color at its core, everything he creates seems to suggest, with a wink, “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” Beyond designing clothes, Smith also serves as a mentor to the next generation of designers. In 2020, he launched Paul Smith’s Foundation, through which he helps guide young creatives as they develop their careers. Fifty-four years into his business, which opened its first store in Nottingham, England, in 1970, Smith now operates shops in more than 70 countries around the world, from New York and Los Angeles to Paris and Hong Kong.

On this episode, he discusses his deep, 40-plus-year engagement with the country of Japan; his long-view approach to building a business that transcends time; his ever-growing collection of rabbit ephemera; and the metamorphic impact of music and humor on his life and work.

Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

[3:31] Paul Smith

[6:33] Rei Kawakubo

[12:55] Elle Decor Japan

[21:41] Deyan Sudjic

[21:41] John Hegarty

[23:48] Paul Smith’s Foundation

[24:00] Studio Smithfield Fashion Residency

[24:00] John Galliano

[24:00] Alexander McQueen

[24:22] Jony Ive