Showing posts with label Patti Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Patti Smith. Show all posts

30 January 2016

Horses Or Bikes, She Is A Real Freedom Rider

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, last month marked forty years since the release of Patti Smith’s album Horses

I was a senior in high school then.  It semed that my classmates fell into one of three categories:  the ones who loved it and didn’t want it to end, the ones who were looking forward to college or whatever else they were going to do after graduation, and those who just couldn’t wait to get out.

Those of us in the third category were, in one way or another, the class “geeks”.  Most of us were bookish; nearly all of us had some interest or talent that wasn’t fashionable in that high school where the unofficial motto seemed to be, “If you can’t f*ck it, smoke it or drive it and it ain’t Led Zep’, it ain’t worth it.”  More than a few of us read and/or wrote poetry or songs we would perform only for very close friends (who, naturally, were as introverted as we were); we loved poets like Patti who, we felt, told the truth—at least as we understood it at the time.

I had been writing stories, articles for the school newspaper and stuff I can’t categorize—most of which I lost or destroyed along the way from then to now.  Around that time, I started writing what some might call “free verse” poetry, or simply chopped-up sentences.  Whether or not it was “any good” (Let’s face it, how much of anything that we do at that age is?) is, I realize now, not the point, any more than whether or not I had the capability of becoming a world-class racer did or didn’t make the amount of cycling I was doing “worth it”.  Yes, I wrote and rode—as I do now—because I enjoyed those activities.  But more important, I could not envision life without them.

Actually, that’s not quite right.  I did those things, not only for pleasure, but also for survival.  And, in those days, the work of a poet like Patti Smith or Gregory Corso or Arthur Rimbaud was sustenance for “the journey”, whatever that might be.

I think what I really loved and admired about Patti Smith, though, was something I couldn’t articulate at the time, or for a long time afterward.  Now I’ll express it as best I can:  She did something interesting and unique, whatever its flaws (which I only vaguely understood at the time) and did it on her own terms.  At a time when I still did not have the terms or tools to articulate, let alone embody, the “differentness” I saw in myself—which others, especially the adults in my life, misunderstood as “rebelliousness”—Patti Smith gave us an image of how someone can become someone only he or she can become. 

When Horses came out, she was often described as “androgynous” because of the way she was dressed, and the way she carried herself, in the photo on the album’s cover.  The truth, I realized even then, was that she was actually showing that it was possible to be a woman in a way that didn’t fit into the boxes constructed by the governing institutions and individuals of our society.

She upset those authority figures in much the same way as the women who abandoned their corsets and hoopskirts for shorter skirts or “bloomers” so they could ride bicycles in the 1890’s. Most of those women weren’t consciously rebelling; they simply to wanted to live their lives as they saw fit.    

It might take a long time but, ultimately, independent spirits who realize their visions change the world and inspire us while those who try to suppress such spirits or the change they engender are forgotten or even vilified.  Most people, at least in the industrialized countries, think nothing of women wearing pants or skirts that don’t constrict their movement, and of working in what were once considered in “men’s” jobs.

Or of writing a line like, “Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine."


Knowing what I’ve just said, are you surprised to see this image of Patti Smith?:


16 May 2013

Creative Cycling

"The meaning of life came to me while I was washing the dishes.  I wrote it down on a napkin, but it got soaked and the ink ran."

I don't remember who told me that.  It was said in jest, but perhaps it's not such a joke after all.

After all, how many times have you had ideas come to you when you were occupied with something else?  Or, better yet, while you were on your bike, dodging and weaving through traffic or pumping your way up an 8 percent grade?

If you've had inspiration, or simply moments of clarity, while riding your bike, you shouldn't be surprised.  After all, more oxygen is being pumped to our brains, which are probably in a somewhat altered state of consciousness anyway.

I am thinking about that now because I came across this photo of Sir Edward Elgar:





While it says great things about how good cycling can be for our creative processes, it doesn't say much about his relationship with his wife.  Was she a "bike widow" or a "music widow"?

Elgar was an enthusiastic cyclist who often pedaled the 90-mile (150km) round-trip to see his favorite football team, the Wolverhampton Wanderers.  He said that some of his music came to him while he was in the saddle.

That is what this writer said about some of his work:


 I can just imagine Count Tolstoy stopping in the middle of the taiga and hurriedly scribbling War And Peace before re-mounting his wheels.

Speaking of writers, you've probably seen this image of Henry Miller:

 

But I'll bet you haven't seen this one of Thomas Hardy:


Around the same time, one of the very first tandems was ridden by none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife:


About a century later,  Patti Smith was helping to make the Meatpacking District--and city bikes--fashionable:


And, of course, no blog post about creative people and great thinkers on bicycles would be complete without this image:


Einstein said that the concept of the Theory of Relativity came to him while he was riding his bicycle.  That makes perfect sense, especially if you believe that the universe is a giant wheel.