I never listened to Patti Smith. Until after reading this book. I love her version of "Hey Joe" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (the extent of my post-book read you tube search for Patti Smith).
I loved this book. I loved her writing. What I really loved, was such a beautiful account of a deep and true friendship. This book is based on her long-standing friendship with Robert Maplethorpe; a friendship where each acted at once and alternately muse and artist.
"I was both scattered and stymied, surrounded by unfinished songs and abandoned poems. I would go as far as I could and hit a wall, my own imagined limitations. And then I met a fellow who gave me his secret, and it was pretty simple. When you hit a wall, just kick it in." Pg. 170
"Robert took areas of dark human consent and made them into art. He worked without apology, investing the homosexual with the grandeur, a presence that was wholly male without sacrificing feminine grace. He was not looking to make political statement or an announcement of his evolving sexual persuasion. He was presenting something new, something not seen or explored as he saw it and explored it. Robert sought to elevate aspects of male experience, to imbue homosexuality with mysticism. As Cocteau said of a Genet poem, 'His obscenity is never obscene.'" Pg. 199
"Why can't I write something that would awake the dead? That pursuit is what burns most deeply. I got over the loss of his desk and chair, but never the desire to produce a string of words more precious than the emeralds of Cortes. Yet I have a lock of his hair, a handful of his ashes, a box of his letters, a goatskin tambourine. And in the folds of faded violet tissue a necklace, two violet plaques etched in Arabic, strung with black and silver threads, given to me by the boy who loved Michelangelo." Pg 279
Book 38
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