I'm reading "Taking Stock: Patti Smith Looks Back on Everything/From cradle to late life, the godmother of punk remembers it all — including, especially, her life with the late Fred 'Sonic' Smith" (NYT).
If memoir is your genre, you write memoirs. It doesn't matter how eventful or "richly lived" your life is. You rustle up your material — whatever material is still lying around raw — and you make it happen.
But I think Hajdu does seem to like the book: "Now we know that what Patti and Fred Smith did was set up housekeeping in a stone house on a mucky canal, where she wrote on a little card table... Working at her card table, assessing and adjusting her priorities, she came to see herself mainly as a writer.... A core theme of 'Bread of Angels,' then, is how its author became someone who would write something like 'Bread of Angels.'..."
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26 comments:
Suggested title for young person: "My Life So Far"
autobiographical prose and prose poetry
By that standard, I don't think there is a limit. How many books has David Sedaris written? They all at least purport to talk about his life experiences.
Whitman wrote/rewrote Leaves of Grass at least 8 times.
I really liked 'Just Kids', and thought it was her best book. So there was no need to read her anymore.
I am a big fan of much of Patti Smith's music.
I don't give a crap about her life.
I always figure their kids and especially their grand kids will be interested these kinds of reminiscences. And if the books make money as well, that’s gravy.
It’s hard to name another artist who’s done so much with so little.
"...what Patti and Fred Smith did was set up housekeeping in a stone house on a mucky canal..."
Was this before or after Fred Smith founded Federal Express?
Not a fan.
That is the downside of our "reality hunger." People like "true" stories told by the people the story happened to. This means less interest in novels and maybe fewer "literary" novels. The downside is it means more memoirs and "memoirists." As with novelists, some people want to write more than they have to write about. If your life was less interesting than Saint-Simon's in the court of Louis XIV, maybe consider another hobby.
I guess this is Patti Smith's post-Mapplethorpe book. Maybe Patty Smyth should write a memoir of her own. But please don't let it be like Naomi Klein's memoir about being confused with Naomi Wolf.
It was considerate of the Times to not include a recent photo of Patti.
she is such a talented writer. "Just Kids" has to be one of the finest books, fiction or non fiction in this century. Masterful. Man is just jealous.
I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy writing about it.
That’s a lot of memoirs for someone who did a cover version of a song from Van Morrison’s old band.
Back in the day.
I am Laslo.
A friend of mine left banking after the GFC with not a huge amount of money. He left the industry completely and tried to start a music festival business. His first step was to buy a family friendly low-key festival in scenic West Cork in Ireland, on the grounds of an old country house. Patti was headliner one night. After the gig she was speaking to my pal and she was telling him how much she loved performing there. She knew it was his first event and she asked if it made money. He said no, I'm out of pocket (I can't remember the amount, about 20k I think). She went away for a minute and came back and said "I've just spoken to my manager, I've waived my fee".
Laslo is referring to Patti’s cover of “Gloria” which is only second to the Jimi Hendrix cover.
👆Hendrix was light years ahead of everybody.
Patti Smith did a humble and engaging interview on Colbert last night.
"Yeah, don't take advice from me."
"Rabel said...
It was considerate of the Times to not include a recent photo of Patti."
Never a looker, no ugh.
FIrst time I heard of her was reviewing SNL Season 1 this year, and everyone raved about her song on SNL live. And I thought it was "energetic" - but couldn't make out the lyrics. IOW, punk rock.
Reading her Wikipedia, she was a lover of homosexual robert maplethorpe, and knew a lot of odd people in NYC. Just kids is about her life in 60s NYC.
As for Charles Lindbergh, he wrote 3 books about his transatlantic flight, 2 that were dashed out around the time of the flight in 1927 and "Spirit of St. Louis" which was a richer and expansive account 30 years later. He lived almost 50 years after the flight and his only true authobiography "an autobiography of values" published in the mid 70s covers his entire, very active, life.
I don't know how many "Autobiographies" Winston Churchill published, but I cant say they were too many. LOL.
The most recent memoir I have read is Tim Matheson's. It could've used a better editor. I don't like reading the same thing more than once in a book. Still, I learned things. I suspect I'd learn things from Patti Smith's book too.
Are we allowed to give the title to her song "Rock and Roll Nigg##"?
You know "Baby was a black sheep, Baby was a whore. Baby, Baby was a Rock and Roll (censored).
Just asking for friends.
Back at Commie Martyr High we had a mural depicting the struggle of the workers to finish the mural.
How many memoirs can a richly lived life fill?
Why haven't we seen another one published under the name Barack Obama? I'm sure lots of people are curious about what all he's been up to the last four years, and the four years before that.
Her and Amanda Plummer...twins separated at birth?
“Why haven't we seen another one published under the name Barack Obama? I'm sure lots of people are curious about what all he's been up to the last four years, and the four years before that.”
Barak Obama is still reliving his Presidency.
Promised Land (2020) covers the first years of his Presidency, ending with the death of Osama bin Laden. Promised Land part 2 is still being written and will probably be published in 2026.
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