6 posts tagged “patti smith”

Show us who you idolized as a teenager.

Rolling Stone, July 27, 1978, cover photo by Annie Leibovitz

Land 250 is published by the Fondation Cartier Pour L'Art Contemporain in Paris to accompany a big exhibit earlier this year.  It's a nice hefty volume with a sturdy, grippy cover and medium weight paper.  So, yes, it does feel good to hold. Between my public school French and Ms. Smith's crazy handwriting I managed to turn it into a learning experience.

But the photographs... the PHOTOGRAPHS are the thing.  They are two hundred fifty delicate black and white ones created with Polaroids by Patti Smith.  She started out with a Land 100 in the 70s but later got a Land 250, of which there is a photo in the book. She went back to shooting Polaroid after the death of her husband Fred Sonic Smith.

In her introduction she writes that, "The experience of taking Polaroids connects me with the moment.  They are souvenirs of a joyful solitude."

I felt it.  Time doesn't exist in these pictures. Fred waves back as he pauses before a door. 

Bye, Fred.

Most of these images come from Paris, where used to live in 1969.  French culture was always an influence in Patti: Rimbaud, Genet, Artaud and Baudelaire.  Brancussi,  Houdin, and Maupassant. Man Ray.  Man Ray.

In 69 Patti was sitting on the curb in Montparnasse writing in her notebook about Picasso.  She looked and saw a plaque.  The photograph is of a studio where Picasso worked.

There are the obligatory Robert Mapplethorpe photos: his hands and the tambourine he made for her, seen of the front of "Twelve."  I understand that Patti and he had a bizarre chemistry.  He just gives me the willies.  It's not his work.  I'm good with that.  But the guy starved a monkey to death in his apartment.

Several are shot in Montparnasse cemetery where one is surrounded by poets, philospher, writers, and artists.   They're all dead.  But they're all there.

There is one photo of Susan Sontag's grave on the morning after her funeral.  Patti went back to the graveside to take photos because Annie was too stricken to return.  She said the flowers looked fresh.

There's nothing stiller than a tombstone, but Jackson Pollock's monolith is still-- palpably, creepily still.

Her son, Jackson, has a tattoo of his father on his shoulder. 

For animal lovers I have included a passage and a photograph about a goat she encountered on a beach in Senegal.  The donkey, of asse, is from Namibia.  That's for me.  So is the monkey painting.

You'll recognize that painting of Leonardo's of those guys at that table.

But I bet that you didn't know that Virginia Woolf watched her mother die in a mirror, because she couldn't bear to watch her straight-on.  That pitted mirror is in there.

The Lenny Kaye portrait gave me a lump in my throat.  It wasn't anything special, just a guy in a chair.  But it is so warm.  And strangely spiritual.

In conclusion:  You should go to your library (type in your zipcode & Worldcat finds it) or independent bookstore and pick up a copy of Land 250.  Literally pick it up.  Remember, I said it feels good.  I also recommend the slide show at Lens Culture.  They also have text from the book.  It is a nice site.

 

april is the cruelest month etc. what remains?
brian jones bones, jim morrisons friend jimi hendrix
bandana. sweatband angel...

from Patti's poem "picasso laughing"

Asse, Namibia

Statues is one of three slim volumes (Statues, Charlesville, Cahier) published by the Fondation Cartier pour l'arte contemporain to accompany the release of Land 250 and her exhibition in Paris, 2008.  All the photographs in Statues were taken between 2002 and 2008. 

Well, we've already covered my favorite songs from the Broadway soundtrack to Hair.  We've discussed the Easy Rider OST.  I absolutely cannot find my copy of Metal Machine Music. (HEY, now!  I heard that massive sigh of relief!)  Hell, I can't even find my copy of Easter right now.  We will have to suffice with a live version of "Rock 'n' Roll Nigger" from the last show at CBCB's.

Baby was a black sheep. Baby was a whore.
You know she got big. Well, she's gonna get bigger.
Baby got a hand; got a finger on the trigger.
Baby, baby, baby is a rock-and-roll nigger.

OK, damnit.  Today my life is but a vale o' tears.

What does it mean when your quick launch bar disappears and all Outlook is sending your incoming email to an obscure folder AND all but one of your print drivers disappears?  And your monitor resolution goes to 6000 x 6000 (or somesuch) making all things unreadable?  And then your original quick launch bar comes back in addition to the one you just added???  WHAT DOES IT MEAN????  (Besides that the library needs to move to Macs.)

Then I open my email and there is a message from YepRoc 'splaining how the release date for I Wanna Go Backwards has been pushed BACKWARDS.  From October 30 to November 10.   Did anybody ask me if *I* wanted to go backwards?  I think not.

I wanted to get some soup and a hunka pie from Hunka Pie for lunch.  The soup selections were inferior and they had NO PIE!  Whatthehell with naming your eatery after something you run out of?  So I went to Scarpetto's Deli and got the chicken salad.  Worst. Chicken salad. EVAR.

With disapointment after disappointment piling up I decided to give myself a present.  I had purchased myself a lovely Donkey (from Skrek) Pez dispenser and I whipped it out to allay my suffering.  Is it me, or do 21st century Pez dispensers suck ass?  I seem to remember Pez flying out at eye-piercing speeds.  Back in the day there was some serious spring action in those little heads.  I had to practically pull the Pez out of Donkey's neck.  What a huge disappointment. 

I got screwed on pie for lunch, but today was birthday cake day at  work.  Dare I even hope?  No.  The cake was NOT chocolate.  I mean, why bother?

And NOTHING arrived from my many excellent eBay purchases. 

And, to add poo-frosting to the shit-cake of my day, Vox won't upload the image on one of my sound files.  Which in itself is a small thing.  But, damn!  I sure could use just one small thing today...

Anyway, in an attempt to snatch back some part of my peace of mind, here is a little spurt of cover songs:
Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" as well as covers by Patti Smith, Robyn Hitchcock, and Devo.

While I'm in this surly mood, I think I'm gonna go open a dispute with that bitch who won't send me my CD.

At 60 Patti's STILL on fire!

Annie Leibovitz photo cover of Rolling Stone July 27, 1978
 
I can't even remember how many years I kept this picture pinned to my wall.  Quite a few, to be sure.