Now, Geoff Dyer is a 'famous' author but that doesn't make him a good host or a good interviewer. He'd obviously done some research but it seemed to be based on an old biography that Patti dismissed as full of inaccuracies and made up facts yet Mr Dyer seemed unable to move away from his script so, time after time, Patti was left in the position of saying, 'no, that's not what happened' and 'no, I didn't know about that'. When he tried to bring in his own anecdotes he ended up showing off rather than being the voice of the public on stage with his reminiscences about seeing Patti play in Charleston (I think) and Rome - um, have you never seen her in London where we all are? Mr Dire was not the best of hosts.
Patti was, of course, lovely. The theme for discussion was her book, 'Just Kids' that focuses on her early life in New York with Robert Mapplethorpe and it was nice to hear her talk about those days living in the Chelsea Hotel, working in a book store and meeting famous people. I saw Patti at a signing when the book first came out last year which was a bit of a scrum so it was nice to see her in more civilised surroundings. As ever, she was in her uniform of skinny jeans, baggy white shirt and black jacket (shopping must be so easy for her) with hair covering half her face.
She always comes across as a very nice person (which suggests that she probably is nice) and, even when dismissing books about her, exhorting us to make up our own minds about the books rather than just following her view. I liked her making excuses for Johnny Rotten calling her an old hippy, about meeting Paul Simonon and her love of The Clash, and how some lines of her poetry became the introduction to 'Gloria'. I liked her references to Virginia Woolf and her performance of 'The Waves', and how she chipped in with the fact that it was Virginia's birthday - only a fan would remember that and, of course, we were sitting only half a mile from where she was born. I liked the moment when she deflated Mr Dire who was comparing himself to Lenny Kaye by saying, 'No, Lenny's always over there' and gestured to her left since Mr Dire was on her right hand side. The questions from the audience were the usual non-event - why can't anyone come up with a question that might be interesting to someone other than themselves? And why do some people try to make the Q&A a dialogue? The audience isn't there to hear about *you* so please ask your dull question and then shut up.
There were, of course, references to Blake and, at the end of the talk, we were rewarded with a solo performance of 'My Blakean Year'. And then we headed out into the Kensington night ... or in our case to the pub.
And, just because it's *mine*, here's the photo I took of Patti last year at the book signing:
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