YEAR OF THE WOOD DRA­GON: Patti Smith and Friends, Bow­ery Ball­room, Feb­ruary 10, 2024

53 years ago, Pat­ti Smith and Lenny Kaye stood to­geth­er on the dais at St. Mark’s On The Bow­ery. She announced that it was Bertolt Brecht’s birthday and stated, “This reading is dedicated to crime!” She read po­ems. He played some gui­tar that sound­ed like a car crash­ing. It is once again February 10th, and Patti has decided that it is once again time to gather to commemorate this moment. To quote a friend, none of this is guaranteed, not any more. So we show up.

Fri­day night I had din­ner with a friend in the East Vil­lage, and as we walked west after­wards in route to our in­di­vid­ual trains home, we paused to say goodbye at the cor­ner of Second Av­enue and 10th Street, that ir­reg­u­lar in­ter­sec­tion with Stuyvesant Street that’s a ves­tige of the time when this part of Man­hat­tan Is­land was still farm­land. I was walk­ing to the BMT at the cor­ner of 8th and Broad­way and I could have cut over just about anywhere, but I didn’t even con­scious­ly think about it, be­cause if I am walking west from this vicinity I will always walk past St. Mark’s Church.