After I finished Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids, I put my hand over my heart and wept. After that, I ordered a dress-form and a swath of gold leather online, dumped all my paints, pencils, brushes and duck cloth onto the floor, called my grandma, and downed a glass of chocolate milk. My reaction looks erratic, but it resembles Smith’s life in New York City in the 60s, process of creation and collaboration with artists passing in and out of the Chelsea Hotel, and travel-induced writing style. Smith’s Romantic, almost serious phrasing, reminiscent of the French poetry she obsessed over, (”Robert Micheal Mapplethorpe…was a mischievous little boy whose carefree youth was delicately tinged with a fascination with beauty,” p.13) would seem contrary to her rock-and-roll vibe if she weren’t so saline-sweet; instead, it comes off strong and declarative, a fat anchor in a world of excess.
As Patti Smith is a voice on behalf of our environment, for liberalism and for truth, her warm words peal apart the most sensitive passages of her life so we can observe the moist-letters and slimy rocks of our own. My desire to create since reading Just kids is springier and takes greater form, because my fascination with beauty is shared.
Smith’s friendship with Mapplethorpe was smeared in sad comforts and brilliant drip-dye colors. Smith promised Mapplethorpe she would write their story, and so she has. No less colorful, however, are the friendships and spirit garnered in the East Village and Central Manhattan that produced art and joy where dirt and disease once was. Smith is an incredibly believable character–she travels and grows and sours and butterflies in a categorically common way. She quickly harps on regular frustrations like her day-job, then graciously extends her hand when we can’t believe her luck. Mapplethorpe was on her arm throughout it all.
While reading, I kept a list of names, ideas or works-of-art I wanted to remember–cultural activists or actions in their own right, friends to Patti Smith:
Robert Mapplethorpe
Godard
Brian Jones
Midnight Cowboy
Williams Burroughs (Lee Burroughs)
Anthology of American Folk Music
Crazy Horse
Anna Kavan
Virgil Thomas
Arthur C. Clark
Oscar Wilde
Dylan Thomas
Thomas Wolfe–”You Can’t Go Home Again…”
The Golden Bough
Tim Bukley
Ossie Clark, designer
Wages of Fear (film)
Banny Fields
Water and eucalyptus leave for floors
Of Human Bondage
Jackie Curtis
Ray Roussel, Locus Solus
Gautier Michaux
Thomas de Quincey
Gregory Corso
Bobby Neuwirth–Don’t Look Back, “Bring It All Back Home,” Dylan
Patty Waters
Clifton Chenier
Albert Ayler
Blonde on Blonde
Genet
Arthur Rimbaud
There are many more. Forgive me if I missed or misspelled any, and if it all seems a little spastic. It’s just something Patti Smith can draw up from our creative, round bellies, like a child’s burp. “Magical!” we gurgle.
