Memoirous

Lost and Found How many of you were captured by these headlines: Woman interruptsconcert to give the singer a bag of her possessions, taken from her tour truckin 1979 That’s right—someone gave Patti Smith her clothes back after 36 years. This blog is about memories. How many memories are stitched into the clothes we wear . . . or used to wear? The dress you wore to your son’s wedding, your favorite sweatshirt that always gets rotated to the front of the drawer, the mini-skirt that got you through your darkest days after the breakup, that sheer blouse that always makes you feel ravishing, that hopelessly out-of-date tie that you somehow cannot bring yourself to forsake. Who is it that said we are the clothes we wear? But, styles change. Yesterday’s punk is today’s conservative. Remember your goth phase when everything you wore was black. I wouldn’t be caught dead in an 80s dress with poof sleeves. The free bins are full of fuchsia jackets with padded shoulders....

Congratulations Patti! News of the winners of the National Book Award just came over the wires (a euphemism, since technology today rarely involves wires) and Just Kids , Patti Smith, won for non-fiction. I read Patti’s memoir this summer and was WOW-ed. I guess in her speech or an interview she said that she wrote it for Robert Mapplethorpe one of the first people she met after leaving home (a dreary small town in NJ) and arriving in New York City. They lived together, were lovers, but mostly they were dedicated friends. She promised him before he died that she would write a book about their relationship. Forty years later she writes it and wins the National Book Award. Aren’t you WOW-ed? Oh yeah and art. They were both totally dedicated to art. Patti and Robert were young and trying to figure out if they wanted college or a factory job (was there a difference?) or a third way, making art. Coming as outsiders without experience, connections, or even a university degree (let alone a...