Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Patti Smith Book Event at Bagdad PDX 1.26.09
If Patti Smith were a part of the Sesame Street universe, she would be brought to you by the letter R. R for Rimbaud, Rock 'n Roll, Romance, Revolution. And at her book event appearance one could add Remembrances of Robert.
Patti is on book tour supporting Just Kids, her well-received memoir of the late sixties and early seventies of the New York scene and her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. I have read a couple commentaries where folks have favorably compared it to Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1. From excerpts heard at her book event appearance at Portland's Bagdad Theatre, that seems appropriate. Both have an uncanny level of detail that make one feel that the events they are describing took place not decades ago, but very recently.
I appreciate and admire Patti Smith because of the unflinching and high principled way she lives and perceives the world. It is still kind of hard to forgive her for supporting Ralph Nader, but I appreciate and understand it. After the Bagdad appearance I watched James Crump's film Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe which focused on Mapplethrope's relationship with museum curator and photography collector. Many of the talking heads in this film focus on the darker side of this strange, symbiotic connection between these two. But Patti's contributions to the profile were filled with a kind of romanticism about how all three of them would go out to "grease the night," to quote a line of hers.
Patti Smith is a survivor and this has become a very important part of her art how she wears it as her public persona. The lines from Elegie: "And my skin emits a ray, but I think it's sad, it's much too bad That our friends can't be with us today." is a place she has had to revisit with the deaths of Mapplethorpe, two members of her original band, her husband, her brother, and giants like William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg who influenced and informed her art.
There is always a wonderful kind of playfulness to Patti Smith in public appearance. Before she began her presentation a loud and persistent discussion going on somewhere in the building. "Tell that broad to...like talk somewhere else." She began by saying there are no rule for the evening so folks don't have to be worried how to respond after she reads pieces. "Uh, like am I supposed to clap?" She began the evening by answering the three questions she has been answering routinely on the interview circuit:
What are you listening to?
The Decemberists, Glenn Gould and Sinead O' Connor
What are you reading?
"Everything by Roberto Bolano." She Talked about carrying around 2666, Bolano's 900 page tome and now finished with the book feels like something is missing in her life.
What movies do you like, Patti?
She said she liked Dr Parmassus Sherlock Holmes she liked Robert Downey Jr and is anticipating Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. "Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter...aaaah"
She also talked about spending the day signing 819 books. She added that it made her really happy to know that each one was going to be in someone's hands that evening. There is an old world dinginess about the Bagdad, which is now used as a McMenniman's brewpub theater and utilized by Powell's more often for larger scale events. She got the Powell's guy (who she commented on his appearance favorably) to help her out with the light on end table arrangement they had. When he adjusted it to the best that could be expected, , "Only the finest in Portland." she quipped She read two or three segments from Just Kids On this time out, there seemed to be more Jersey street-wise and vernacular than usual in her delivery. It seemed appropriate with her tales of poaching a copy of Rimbaud from a book stall, her getting Mapplethorpe to pose as her boyfriend to get her out of a date from hell with an unnamed science fiction writer, or her first encounter with Allen Ginsberg where he mistook her for a boy.
I've generally come to dread Q & A sessions from the public at book events and celebrity appearances. These can be especially dreadful with someone like Patti Smith where they feel more inclined to want to publicly testify how important the artist is to them than pose any kind of reasonable or justifiable question. The first questioner was a woman who rambled with a bunch of half digested stuff she apparently gleaned from Smith's recent Terry Gross interview. In the midst of this dribble Patti asked her if she was on pills. Yet Patti was able to turn this mess into an opportunity to update us on her kids. Pam and I did not realize her son Jackson was married to Meg White. How cool is that ? If they have kids, they might be third generation rock and rollers. As one responds to a wall on Facebook, I say "I like this."
The other cool moment that came out of the pill lady's question was Patti's anecdote about how at the body viewing of the funeral home internment of her brother Todd, the family broke into hysterics due to the appearance that his hands placed under a sheet at his waist could be interpreted as arousal. Patti, who has experienced grief (and high-profile grief) than most of us imparted this advice: "Never in your grief be afraid to laugh and smile. Why not when they go off to their next adventure?" As for being still among the living she later talked about how she always loved Jimi Hendrix's line, "Horray, I woke from yesterday"
Patti closed out the evening with some poems and additional readings from Just Kids, but also pulled out the acoustic guitar for four songs, Grateful, written in tribute to Jerry Garcia, my favorite post-1979 Smith song, Beneath the Southern Cross, My Blakean Year, which began with a spontaneous improvisation of why she loved Portland (HP Lovecraft film festival and Powell's, of course) and, for a finale, brought up Peter Buck, formerly of REM for a version of People Have the Power.
But, of course the final word of the evening was about Mapplethorpe. Just Kids was the result of a promise Smith made to him to tell their story. "Not Everything is in the book, but what's in there is true."
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:16 PM
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