![I’ve finally written up my feelings on Patti Smith’s autobiography, Just Kids!
This book is a biography of a friendship, though, and the most interesting thing to me about Just Kids as a period piece is how the mechanics of friendship have and haven’t changed. Patti and Robert [Mapplethorpe] are always making each other little gifts; they express themselves to each other with a lot of tactile effort and physical creations. They take long train rides or spend hours at diners together; they write letters and make collages or poppets or jewelry. Today, for those ordinary adorations, we send links or texts or posts on a Facebook wall. I found Patti Smith because of a podcast, on iTunes, on an iPod.
Includes Beirut, nostalgia, starving artists and punk rock. Read on at M&W!
I left this out, but another thing that gets me about Just Kids is that I am the biggest sucker for people who show their love for each other by making art with, of or for their person. Which is something the internet does so, so well, and which I love to see happen.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m72poxoK8G1r3antmo1_500.jpg)
I’ve finally written up my feelings on Patti Smith’s autobiography, Just Kids!
This book is a biography of a friendship, though, and the most interesting thing to me about Just Kids as a period piece is how the mechanics of friendship have and haven’t changed. Patti and Robert [Mapplethorpe] are always making each other little gifts; they express themselves to each other with a lot of tactile effort and physical creations. They take long train rides or spend hours at diners together; they write letters and make collages or poppets or jewelry. Today, for those ordinary adorations, we send links or texts or posts on a Facebook wall. I found Patti Smith because of a podcast, on iTunes, on an iPod.
Includes Beirut, nostalgia, starving artists and punk rock. Read on at M&W!
I left this out, but another thing that gets me about Just Kids is that I am the biggest sucker for people who show their love for each other by making art with, of or for their person. Which is something the internet does so, so well, and which I love to see happen.
dreamstobecome said: Tell me your rage. I am intrigued. I know nothing of this book.
So, The Book of Flying. I bought it at some point during college and never got around to reading it before it went into a box when my parents packed up our house and moved. I found it again this past weekend and thought I’d give it a shot.
The premise is that there are people with wings and people without, and being born to one group doesn’t necessarily guarantee inclusion. Pico, the protagonist, is the wingless son of winged parents, so he’d been deposited in a library on a high hill in the city by the sea. He grows up alone in the library, and is as spindly and pale and poetic as could be. And he falls in love with Sisi, a winged girl who, once their love is discovered, is barred from being with him. (She falls in love with him because he has stories! And only him! She is beautiful and free and can fly. So there’s the first hint of trouble.)
I guarantee there are about five other people who will be interested in this, but guys, this review had me enthralled. It talks about translations of Homer into other languages, and redaction Library of Alexandra-style, and why we can rely on the Iliad as a historical source, and why the text is so freaking revolutionary, and just. The Iliad isn’t even the text of my heart (that’d be the Odyssey), but this makes me want to run back home and crack it open.
Somehow HORN reviews make everything seem magically mysterious and intriguing…
I’m intrigued! I also love seeing people use comics in non-fiction contexts. (Kate Beaton has just started making these gorgeous autobiographical comics, which I can’t wait to see more of.) Given this whole grad school plan I’ve got going, I’m becoming more and more interested in formats of content, and how it can serve the audience and the work in ways we don’t expect.
