Monday, October 8, 2012
Music Patti Smith on Music, Poetry, and (maybe) Retiring to Coney Island
Posted by Kristin Iversen on Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 12:51 PM
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Here's Patti Smith:
On poetry: Poetry is the most terrible of the arts. It's the most exquisite, the most laborious, the most painful. It tortures you. It torments you. It's like golf.
On traveling: My packing is so pathetic. I have it up on my website. 2 pairs of dungarees...a Murakami book...and a hoodie.
On popularity: We're not really that popular in America. [Paul Muldoon: Not true. How do you know?] Ticket sales.
On rehearsal with her band: That's how I prepare, idiosyncratically. Today is the day St. Francis of Assisi died and we're gonna focus on that. And they're like, "Okay."
On Bob Dylan and her song with Blue Oyster Cult "The Revenge of Vera Gemini": Bob's a Gemini. I think he's Vera or Vera could be the secretary of Mickey Spillane.
On Mickey Spillane: I'm still writing a [detective story.] It was gonna be a little book, but now it's gonna be an epic.
On New York City: When I can't take anymore, I'm leaving. The city's changed but also the culture's changed. It's still a great city, and when I leave, I'm only going a subway ride away. Like to Coney Island.
On death: It's part of the package. When Robert Mapplethorpe died, I didn't put him away. I like having him around every day. My husband, I still look for shirts for him. It's memory.
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