"How wonderful the worlds we enter through the words of others." - Patti Smith
In a complete 180° from what I've been reading the past 16 weeks, I finished A Book of Days by Patti Smith over the weekend.
New York Times writer Elisabeth Egan wrote "Think of it as a tear-off daily calendar, minus the stress of keeping up with page disposal; in fact, with her homages to bygone moments, Smith seems more concerned with reflection and preservation than she is with the rote ticking away of time."
Sounds about right.
At first glance, her newest book basically seems like a printed version of a year's worth of her Instagram feed. Somehow though it's much larger than that. I'd read someone talking about how it's intimate glimpse into her creative workflow. It's not like she's out to argue a point or teach you something, but more a meditation on the people and events that've shaped her life.
I'd become a Patti Smith fan through her 2010 memoir Just Kids and nerded out about it back in a 2019 blog post. I'm a fan of her music, but much more so of her writing. I'd not be upset if we somehow became friends and hung out every now and then. I'd freakin' lap up her stories of Robert Mapplethorpe, life in NYC during the '60s and '70s, and her time on the road.
I'd mentioned the book to St. Anne the Wife and she joked about how it's become my daily devotional. It may not carry quite that much weight, but it'll be something I go back to soon enough.