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Friday 21 February 2014

The Typewriter is Holy AND Ho*ny: Patti Smith and Her Hot Hermes 3000

WARNING: This post contains adult themes and words which may offend. Please don't read on if you are likely to take offence.
Green with envy


From Patti Smith: An Unauthorised Biography
by Victor Bockris and Roberta Bayley (Simon & Shuster, 1999, ps75-92)
Legs crossed: Patti Smith typing on Sam Shepard's Hermes 3000 in the Chelsea Hotel on May 4, 1971.
Sorry, I didn't crop the photo this way.
The Hermes is framed by Patti's arm.
On the balcony at the Chelsea Hotel with Shepard.
From Inside the Dream Palace: The Life and Times of New York's
Legendary Chelsea Hotel,  by Sherill Tippins
From Patti Smith: An Unauthorised Biography
by Victor Bockris and Roberta Bayley (Simon & Shuster, 1999, p70)
From Just Kids, by Patti Smith (Bloomsbury, 2010, ps184-185
Happy memories: Shepard with a Hermes 3000.
 
 Patti's typewritten lyrics

4 comments:

Erik said...

I think this takes the prize as my favorite post. How can you miss with Patti Smith pushing herself to erotic hallucination on a Hermes 3000? Pure gold!

Don Lampert said...

Beautifully seductive, and erotic! It's real and right there........ A few years ago, I read her "Just Kids" about her passionate, and soulful friendship with Robert Maplethorpe. Again it was so right there, and no holes barred, and I was able to live the "life" with them. It was totally enthralling, and engaging! In the end when she gets the call that Robert has died of aids, I just broke down sobbing uncontrollably for a few minutes - as though it were my soulmate who had just died. She is good!!
It's no wonder that we're so taken with typewriters, they are so much more than metal and mechanics. Like a theatre is a "Temple to the Arts", so a typewriter is a vehicle for the creation of the written word. God created the word, and the word was spoken.
Thank you Robert for this!
Mark P.- if you haven't, read 'Just Kids" - transcendent writing.

Bill M said...

One of my favorites, Patti Smith.

Richard P said...

Scorching!

And look at this, she features a Burroughs on the "contact" page of her website.

http://www.pattismith.net/contact.html