this past saturday, i was one of the lucky ones, seeing patti perform twice in the space of 8 hours....at st. mark's church as part of the memorial service for allen ginsberg, and later at brownies as part of the tom clark benefit. as others have written about her performance at brownies, i'll not get into that. but her performance at the ginsberg memorial was very moving. she came out (wearing an inside-out rimbaud t-shirt) and read a poem for allen, that was of course sad/beautiful. then picking up an acoustic guitar, saying "bear with me, i'm not much of a musician" played a very sweet, tender version of hank williams' "i'm so lonesome i could cry".....
the song was a perfect choice as an adieu to her friend and mentor allen.
the memorial service on whole was very moving...among the readers,
friends, performers were allen's brother eugene, amiri baraka, joyce
johnson, gregory corso, lee renaldo (from sonic youth), lou reed, lenny
kaye, patti, peter orlovsky, ron padgett, mark ribot, elliot sharp, hal
wilner and others.
Copyright © Todd McGovern 1997