The Surging News reporter Qian Lianshui
Patti Smith was active during the pandemic. Patty Smith, 75, has been performing at small venues in New York and New Jersey, opening a new Instagram that updates almost daily, recommending books, music and movies and rarely responding to comments. In August, she released Live at Electric Lady, a live album that returned to the Electric Lady studio four months ago. In 1971, her debut solo album Horses was born in that legendary place. In October she left New York to sing at the Royal Albert Hall in the UK.
On the evening of October 31, local time, Patti Smith led the performance at the opening concert of the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, "Pathway to Paris".
《Live at Electric Lady》
The Guardian interviewed Patti Smith via Zoom. In her bedroom in New York, her long silver hair was braided in two braids and without makeup. The guitar is placed in the corner of the room, and the cat walks into the camera from time to time.
Climate change is currently Patti Smith's most concerned topic, in an artist's way. "I'm not an (environmental) activist." Her daughter Jesse Paris Smith was on the side, "Mom, I hate you saying that the most. You're certainly an environmental activist. Jesse and musician Rebecca Foon formed Pathway to Paris, a group of artists, musicians and environmentalists, at the 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference, with the goal of making large cities 100 percent recyclable by 2040.
"Climate change is the most important thing on this planet because it runs through everything."
If many of Patti Smith's friends had survived to this day, would they have thought the same thing as she did? Among the male figures coming in and out of the Chelsea Hotel in the fifties and sixties (Jimmy Hendricks, Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac...). She and Janis Joplin are among the few women to leave their names. Her story with Robert Mapplethorpe translates into a ten-year-old little book, Just Kids, proving that innocence, creativity, and foresight can move through life and death and immortality in art.
Hours before Maplethorpe died of AIDS complications, Patti Smith promised him to write "our story." "We've always had a secret game between two people. Robert would often say, come, tell our story. I'll start from the moment we met. In their materially poor youth, they supported each other and determined their mission to come to earth: to paint, to write poetry, to photograph, to write, to fully feel the journey of life. Smith had a good memory and a habit of keeping a diary. Like Yasujiro Ozu, her diary is minimalist. "June 5, meet janis Joplin. On April 10, robert got a haircut and looked like a country rock star. ”
At the age of twenty, Patti Smith, who had traveled from New Jersey to New York, was often mistaken for a boy. She read a lot, worked in bookstores, wrote poems, observed, thought, and immersed herself in every moment. Smith later became known as the "Punk Poet Laureate", reading poems or singing on stage, touring with Bob Dylan, and writing with Bruce Springsteen, all of which were continuations of her creative youth.
Some people can be in this state for the rest of their lives, caring about the world, full of curiosity, and willing to share. The white-haired Patty Smith is still one of the coolest women on the planet.
Patty Smith's photo on Instagram
Western environmentalists are admirable on the one hand, and easy to become the object of ridicule on the other hand. They always preach in a serious manner, as if they have long since left the ignorant and unconscious, enthusiastic and exciting life. Patti Smith is a "punk." Is "punk" and environmental contradictions? She loves the sea and oysters, mussels, clams (she loves to eat them), and the saltiness of the sea. When there were fewer and fewer cute shellfish and oil stains appeared on the surface of the sea, punks began to care. "Just like when people opposed the Vietnam War, it wasn't out of political stance, but because there were literally thousands of boyfriends, husbands, sons, and brothers who died there, and they really touched people's sore spots."
The pandemic has made her rethink these questions. How do you cross positions and make good decisions? "Especially since Trump took office, many simple issues have become complicated. I have never experienced the moment we are going through now. Social media has allowed every decision, whether altruistic or self-serving, to be infinitely amplified into a culture war. "Everything is big or small, it's all about politics. Women and men, environmental and developmental, black and white, pestered until it was revolting. "I don't know the answers to these questions, I can only do what I can and fight for the right thing."
For example, protect the clean and fertile sea.
A question that cannot be avoided: How does Patti Smith succeed alongside them in a world dominated by men? Her mentors included William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. These men interact with each other, leaving each other's figures in their own works, and it is difficult for others to join. "First of all, you have to understand that in those days, the gender differences were very pronounced. But William and Allen were both gay, which at the time was seen as pathological and outrageous. The tolerance and respect we receive today comes from them. Patti Smith had his own tough points. When she started playing rock 'n' roll in the 1970s, the guitarists who came to recruit her usually walked away without saying a word.
When Patti Smith took the Nobel Prize in place of Bob Dylan in 2016, people remembered their long-standing friendship again. "Dylan is a mysterious introspective man", he rarely goes to see other people's performances. Dylan appeared on Patti Smith's scene in 1975 and was "a big deal." They had always been friends and for a while they used to walk together and "talk all the way". "I fully understand him, his arrogance, his humor, his poetry and desire to perform."
Patti Smith has rarely written poetry. She has a lot more work to do next year, and will work with soundwalk Collective on a series of soundscape, book and monologue projects. Her life must have been different from when she was younger.
"I've had so many different lives, every one of them is good, and it makes me understand what I've gained and where I've improved when I think back. Whether it is sadness or turmoil, it has created the person I am now. Favorite time? She repeated the question, replying, "It's now, the moment I'm alive." ”
Editor-in-Charge: Chen Shihuai
Proofreader: Ding Xiao