Just Kids Wins National Book Award

This is my favorite book of the year, and the book that probably affected me the most, though in mysterious ways. Reading it was like holding a magnet that pulled a bunch of synchronicities my way. The book entered my "real life," and my life imprinted on the book. And it made me feel New York differently. And it made us put a big pad of paper back on the wall. And it brought me to the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel with friends one night (the doorman pretended we had to pay $100 each, then laughed and let us all in).

Some of the award ceremony follow-up that I've read treats Smith as if she's "just" a musician. Even The New Yorker seems surprised that Patti Smith is so literary, but of course she has books of poems, too! (I prefer the songs and the memoir -- sort of like Dylan and his Chronicles, which also gives an amazing look at NYC bohemias past, though a decade earlier.) The Patti Smith in Just Kids is a writer and a visual artist and a rad outfit-compiler; then she meets the right people and suddenly becomes a musician. The way she tells it, it's almost by accident, or some sort of fate-pull. That story is barely told, actually -- though I hope she'll write another book and tell it fully.

Also Patti Smith looks different in every photo I see of her, which further proves her shapeshiftiness!

Hear Smith read from Just Kids (the part where Allen Ginsberg thinks she's a boy; the part where she writes a final letter to Robert Mapplethorpe) at the NBA finalists reading.

Listen to the story about Smith's win from today's Morning Edition. From Rachel Syme's report of the evening:

Smith also made every guest swoon when she gave a teary defense of the book as a physical object. "There is nothing more beautiful than the book," she said. "Please don't abandon the book." The applause in the room after her speech was close to thunderous (the sound of 1,300 hands clapping to save the book business is a loud one) and Smith seemed to win two awards at once: an NBA medal, and the room's heart.

Go see Smith tonight at B&N Union Square.