Patti Smith was in town last night for a Seattle Arts and Lectures program, and co-blogger Cory and I attended the event. She was promoting her new book, Just Kids, about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe in New York City during the seventies – their decade of discovering each other and their art.
Patti Smith at Benaroya Hall for Just Kids book reading, January 25, 2010
Patti read selections from the book to a packed house at Benaroya Hall. One section told of how proud she was at the age of fourteen to win third place in a painting contest sponsored by a local paint store and how she dreamed of entering the world of artists by being the mistress of an artist.
She read a few pages about how she convinced Robert Mapplethorpe, who she didn’t really know very well at the time, to pretend he was her boyfriend so she could get away from an “evil science fiction writer” who had bought her dinner and invited her up to his flat “for a cocktail.”
Another passage was about her first encounter with Allen Ginsberg. She was starving and had managed to scrape up the fifty-five cents she need to buy a cheese-and-lettuce sandwich at the local automat but, once there, she found they’d raised the price by ten cents. Allen Ginsberg was in line behind her and gave her the dime she needed to get the sandwich. He also bought her a cup of coffee and invited her to his table. They talked for a few minutes before Allen leaned towards her and said, “Are you a girl?” He had mistaken her for a very pretty young boy.
Local rock critic/historian/biographer and editor of Seattle’s The Rocket (1979 – 2000), Charles R. Cross sat down with Patti for a thirty-minute question and answer period. She answered some questions that audience members had jotted down for Charles Cross, including one about Oprah’s magazine naming her a fashion trendsetter, and one about writer’s block that led to a discussion about her work ethic. She said that what she does is a job, and she has to make herself work at it, pretty much like anyone with a job. You don’t just not show up, you get up and do it because you are committed to it.
She talked of the current album she’s working on that she says is about two-thirds completed. It will be influenced by her current studies: Russian Literature, St. Francis of Assisi , and a bit of the novel she finished just prior to arriving in Seattle, Roberto Bolano’s 2666.
And one of the funnier moments came when she answered a question about who she’d like to collaborate with. Rough transcript via the Seattle Weekly’s Reverb blog:
Cross (paraphrased): You’ve collaborated with many artists throughout your career. Who else would you like to collaborate with?
Smith: Russell Crowe
Cross: As a musician or as an actor?
Smith: As a girl.
Following the Q&A, Patti picked up her acoustic guitar and told us how she was inspired to write the song “Grateful.” Jerry Garcia had just died and she’d seen a vision of him: “You know, like people see images of Christ in a potato chip, only I saw Jerry Garcia appear in my room.” She played that song, and then introduced the next one as something she’d written in the middle of the night. The song was about visiting rainy Seattle and hanging out in Pioneer Square, and it sounded to me as though she made it up on the spot and used it as a segue into “My Blakean Year.” She also did a great performance of “Beneath the Southern Cross” and closed with an a capella version of “Because the Night,” during which she encouraged the audience to sing the chorus with her. At the end of the song, she cocked her head, spat on the floor, raised her arms, and absorbed the standing ovation.
There was a reception at the W Hotel following the performance. The friendly staff was serving some tasty appetizers, and the folks from McRea Cellars were there pouring complimentary glasses of their wines. The Cuvée Orleans Syrah was quite tasty.
Patti arrived at the reception and mingled with the crowd for about forty-five minutes signing autographs on newly purchased books and vinyl editions of her albums that were provided for sale by Easy Street Records.
Around 10:15 or so I started thinking one of those jobs that Patti was talking about that I happen to have, so I headed home so I could get up in the morning at get at it.
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