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BOOKS I READ: Just Kids by Patti Smith (2010). The serendipitous melding of two ambitious artists, Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, upon their arrival to New York City. Their bond is the legend of her memoir. The title comes from a comment made by a passing couple, the wife wants the husband to take a picture of the two artists walking around Washington Square Park. He responds, “They’re just kids,”—implying they’re not artists. If he only knew what an iconic shot he would have taken.
Smith recounts her days in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side, her poetry and music fusing into her rock band, Mapplethorpe’s nascent experiments with photography, sparked by his interest in S&M and men, while continuing to be each other’s muse. Both reach pinnacles of success neither of them could have imagined.
A personal note: I bought Patti Smith’s first album, Horses, when it first arrived on the scene. I stared at that famous cover, mesmerized, not realizing it was anything but a cover photo, not knowing who Mapplethorpe was. In the late 1970s, I too frequented St. Mark’s Place, CBGBs, Max’s Kansas City, and was dazzled by Tom Verlaine and Television like she was—even titling a piece I wrote after one of their songs. While reading Just Kids, I felt a few years behind her comet, and a galaxy away, almost as distant as standing in the crowd at Wollman Rink one night in August 1978 while her demonic energy swirled out from the stage above us. I was just a fan.
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