Love all over Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids

"Robert always would tell me, "Nothing is finished until you see it""

"As the holidays approached, we agreed to work on books of drawings as a mutual gift. In some way, Robert was giving me an assignment to help me pull myself together, something creative on which to focus."

Este livro é maravilhoso e lembro-me dele muitas vezes. Adoro quando isto me acontece :)

The girl with the sturdier temperament

"Robert was increasingly despondent. The hours were long and the pay was less than his part-time job at Brentano's had been. When he came home he was exhausted and dispirited and for a time stopped creating. I implored him to quit. His job and scant paycheck were not worth the sacrifice. After nights of discussion, he reluctantly agreed. In return, he worked diligently, always anxious to show me what he had accomplished while I was at Scribner's. I had no regrets taking on the job as breadwinner. My temperament was sturdier. I could still create at night and I was proud to provide a situation allowing him to do his work without compromise."

1 - I get dispirited too

2 - Patti Smith, this is the nicest thing I've read in a while

All of my friends were there

"I was wearing a long rayon navy dress with white polka dots and a straw hat, my East of Eden outfit. At the table to my left, Janis Joplin was holding court with her band. To my far right were Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane, along with members of Country Joe and the Fish. At the last table facing the door was Jimi Hendrix, his head lowered, eating with his hat on, across from a blonde. There were musicians everywhere, sitting before tables laid with mounds of shrimp with green sauce, paella, pitchers of sangria, and bottles of tequila. I stood there amazed, yet I didn’t feel like an intruder. The Chelsea was my home and the El Quixote my bar. There were no security guards, no pervasive sense of privilege.

They were here for the Woodstock festival. Grace Slick got up and brushed past me. She was wearing a floor-length tie-dyed dress and had dark violet eyes like Liz Taylor.

“Hello,” I said, noticing I was taller.

“Hello yourself,” she said."

Eu também estava lá nesse dia, mas fui antes jantar ao Ritz. Burra.

That's lovely

"On other days, we would visit art museums. There was only enough money for one ticket, so one of us would go in, look at the exhibits, and report back to the other. 

  On one such occasion, we went to the relatively new Whitney Museum on the Upper East Side. It was my turn to go in, and I reluctantly entered without him. I no longer remember the exhibit, but I do recall peering through one of the museum’s unique trapezoidal windows, seeing Robert across the street, leaning against a parking meter, smoking a cigarette. He waited for me, and as we headed toward the subway he said, ‘One day we’ll go in together, and the work will be ours.’"

Gloria 

La grande dame du rock'n roll

 "One Indian summer day we dressed in our favorite things, me in my beatnik sandals and ragged scarves, and Robert with his love beads and sheepskin vest. We took the subway to West Fourth Street and spent the afternoon in Washington Square. We shared coffee from a thermos, watching the stream of tourists, stoners and folksingers. Agitated revolutionaries distributed antiwar leaftlets. Chess players drew a crowd of their own. Everyone coexisted within the continuous drone of verbal diatribes, bongos, and barking dogs.

 We were walking toward the fountain, the epicenter of activity, when an older couple stopped and openly observed us. Robert enjoyed being noticed, and he affectionately squeezed my hand.
 “Oh, take their picture,” said the women to her bemused husband, “I think they’re artists.”
 “Oh, go on,” he shrugged. “They’re just kids.”"