<![CDATA[Patti Smith: 100 Cities]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/s/100-citieshttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CcWb!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4c81e93b-abc4-419d-8c19-b29b10ad7c9f_600x600.pngPatti Smith: 100 Citieshttps://pattismith.substack.com/s/100-citiesSubstackFri, 01 May 2026 18:11:43 GMT<![CDATA[Catching up and Paris photos]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/catching-up-and-paris-photoshttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/catching-up-and-paris-photosSat, 07 Mar 2026 02:32:08 GMTHere is part one of the pictures I took for you in Paris. More to come.

coffee at the Flore
The Paris Opera
The Chagall ceiling
Fondation Louis Vuitton. hostie Gerhard Richter
Winged Victory
Victory’s hand.
Dinner at the Louvre..

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]]><![CDATA[Hello from Seattle]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/hello-from-seattlehttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/hello-from-seattleSun, 09 Nov 2025 19:08:10 GMT

My acoustic guitar came along
My view of the wheel.

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]]><![CDATA[Hello from a Paris balcony]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/hello-from-a-paris-balconyhttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/hello-from-a-paris-balconyTue, 21 Oct 2025 10:20:48 GMTHello everyone,

We flew from Oslo to Paris. From light snow to light rain. We played the Olympia last night. One can sense the ghosts of Piaf and Jim Morrison there. I am resting today, a bit tired but our jobs have been great, or rather the people have been great.

I will be returning to New York soon. I will be signing all your pre-orders in the U.S. as promised. I’m supposed to receive my first copy couriered today. If I do I will make a little video. I’m very excited to see it.

I am appalled at the shifts in my country, the opulence and hypocrisy. It’s haunting. But I will do my jobs as best in my ability and do whatever I can to speak out. Our concerts have a dual responsibility: to excite and incite. To express joy and outrage.

Now I will prepare for the tasks at hand, sending a wave and a smile to all.

Before the Olympia

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]]><![CDATA[Hello from the road]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/hello-from-the-road-ae6https://pattismith.substack.com/p/hello-from-the-road-ae6Wed, 15 Oct 2025 13:42:49 GMTHello everyone,

I had a technical difficulty so I am resending. Here are a few pictures with many good wishes. I will see you soon….

Guernica at the Reina Sophia
My view
The Grand Square
Ann Demeulemeester who was there in 1976
With Tony Shanahan doing our job.

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]]><![CDATA[A hello from my Rome Hotel]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/a-hello-from-my-rome-hotelhttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/a-hello-from-my-rome-hotelTue, 16 Sep 2025 09:57:30 GMTThe girl was in the hallway……

The hallway outside my door
The beautiful bar
A Cesar in the corner

Above are a few shots of my hotel, dedicated to tHe Muse. A very special hotel indeed. And around another corner a plaque commemorating Gogol’s stay in Rome.

I will return tomorrow. Today I am going to see a painting of ST. Francis and two Caravaggios. I will take a picture for you. Til then…..

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]]><![CDATA[A good find]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/a-good-findhttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/a-good-findFri, 12 Sep 2025 21:32:18 GMTThe Drunken Boat

As I was going down impassive rivers,
I no longer felt myself guided by haulers!
Yelping redskins had taken them as targets,
And had nailed them naked to colored stakes.

I was indifferent to all crews,
The bearer of Flemish wheat or English cottons,
When with my haulers this uproar stopped,
The Rivers let me go where I wanted.

Into the furious lashing of the tides,
More heedless than children's brains, the other winter
I ran! And loosened peninsulas
Have not undergone a more triumphant hubbub.

The storm blessed my sea vigils.
Lighter than a cork I danced on the waves
That are called eternal rollers of victims,
Ten nights, without missing the stupid eye of the lighthouses!

Sweeter than the flesh of hard apples is to children,
The green water penetrated my hull of fir
And washed me of spots of blue wine
And vomit, scattering rudder and grappling-hook.

And from then on I bathed in the Poem
Of the Sea, infused with stars and lactescent,
Devouring the green azure where, like a pale elated
Piece of flotsam, a pensive drowned figure sometimes sinks;

Where, suddenly dyeing the blueness, delirium
And slow rhythms under the streaking of daylight,
Stronger than alcohol, vaster than our lyres,
The bitter redness of love ferments!

I know the skies bursting with lighting, and the waterspouts
And the surf and the currents; I know the evening,
And dawn as exhalted as a flock of doves,
And at times I have seen what man thought he saw!

I have seen the low sun spotted with mystic horrors,
Lighting up, with long violet clots,
Resembling actors of very ancient dramas,
The waves rolling far off their quivering of shutters!

I have dreamed of the green night with dazzled snows,
A kiss slowly rising to the eyes of the sea,
The circulation of unknown saps,
And the yellow and blue awakening of singing phosphorous!

I followed during pregnant months the swell,
Like hysterical cows, in its assault on the reefs,
Without dreaming that the luminous feet of the Marys
Could restrain the snout of the wheezing Oceans!

I struck against, you know, unbelievable Floridas
Mingling with flowers panthers' eyes and human
Skin! Rainbows stretched like bridal reins
Under the horizon of the seas to greenish herds!

I have seen enormous swamps ferment, fish-traps
Where a whole Leviathan rots in the rushes!
Avalanches of water in the midst of a calm,
And the distances cataracting toward the abyss!

Glaciers, suns of silver, nacreous waves, skies of embers!
Hideous strands at the end of brown gulfs
Where giant serpents devoured by bedbugs
Fall down from gnarled tress with black scent!

I should have liked to show children those sunfish
Of the blue wave, the fish of gold, the singing fish.
--Foam of flowers rocked my drifting
And ineffable winds winged me at times.

At times a martyr weary of poles and zones,
The sea, whose sob created my gentle roll,
Brought up to me her dark flowers with yellow suckers
And I remained like a woman on her knees...

Resembling an island tossing on my sides the quarrels
And droppings of noisy birds with yellow eyes.
And I sailed on, when through my fragile ropes
Drowned men sank backward to sleep!

Now I, a boat lost in the foliage of caves,
Thrown by the storm into the birdless air,
I whose water-drunk carcass would not have been rescued
By the Monitors and the Hanseatic sailboats;

Free, smoking, topped with violet fog,
I who pierced the reddening sky like a wall
Bearing--delicious jam for good poets--
Lichens of sunlight and mucus of azure;

Who ran, spotted with small electric moons,
A wild plank, escorted by black seahorses,
When Julys beat down with blows of cudgels
The ultramarine skies with burning funnels;

I, who trembled, hearing at fifty leagues off
The moaning of the Behemoths in heat and the thick Maelstroms,
I, eternal spinner of the blue immobility,
Miss Europe with its ancient parapets!

I have seen sidereal archipelagos! and islands
Whose delirious skies are open to the sea-wanderer:
--Is it in these bottomless nights that you sleep and exile yourself,
Million golden birds, O future Vigor?

But, in truth, I have wept too much! Dawns are heartbreaking.
Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter.
Acrid love has swollen me with intoxicating torpor.
O let my keel burst! O let me go into the sea!

If I want a water of Europe, it is the black
Cold puddle where in the sweet-smelling twilight
A squatting child full of sadness releases
A boat as fragile as a May butterfly.

No longer can I, bathed in your languor, O waves,
Follow in the wake of the cotton boats,
Nor cross through the pride of flags and flames,
Nor swim under the terrible eyes of prison ships.
Translation by Wallace Fowlie
Below is the book that includes a translation I like as well. The first translation I ever read, Louise Varese, but I can’t find it online. The book is worth having.

And here is a glimpse of the Delacroix:

I am quite tired so I will report again tomorrow. Have a good night. I have a few more photos and another translation for tomorrow…..

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]]><![CDATA[Magdalene in the desert]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/magdalene-in-the-deserthttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/magdalene-in-the-desertMon, 08 Sep 2025 16:31:10 GMTThree lemons

Who will I tell these things, I wondered? More out of curiosity than remorse. Lately I somewhat feel like Roy Batty, the slow dying replicant, dove in hand, overcome with a resigned nostalgia, acknowledging the end of time allotted. Yet I am also conscious that there remains hope, a small loophole, some kind of vague spiritual luck allowing …

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]]><![CDATA[Roaming in Rome]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/roaming-in-romehttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/roaming-in-romeFri, 01 Aug 2025 21:04:59 GMT Two views of John the Baptist.

Young John the Baptist by Caravaggio
John in the act of blessing
the Baptist by Jean-Antoine Houdon

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]]><![CDATA[Wagner in Bayreuth]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/wagner-in-bayreuthhttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/wagner-in-bayreuthFri, 25 Jul 2025 13:44:25 GMT

Within our German tour we had a stopover in Bayreuth, the home and resting place of Richard Wagner. Having a great love for his Parsifal and Tristram and Isolde Around 2005 I was sent to Bayreuth to review Parsifal, my favorite opera, for a German newspaper. It was an amazing experience but my schedule did not allow for me to further explore. I was quite moved to walk upon his grounds and pay respect to him at his resting place, a short walk from his home, and surrounded by trees.

Before Wagner’s Museum in Bayreuth.

There are several artifacts from the original performance of Parsifal, including his robe and chainmail. The below libretto in Wagner’s hand is exquisite. Each page a small work of art. I could not help but hearing his beautiful overture replay in my mind. I include it above;

the music of death and resurrection.

Parsifal’s chalice for the debut

Just steps away from the museum is the grave of the great composer. There is no name or dates on the huge flat gravestone nestles in an ivy covered mound. A beautiful concept, as if no chisiled name could contain him.

Wagner’s grave with his home in background
A marker for his dog Russ

\ Very close to Wagner is a small marker for his beloved dog, a black Newfoundland. It is nice to imagine Russ happily underfoot in some paraelle musical universe. Russ barking and music streaming. A Wagnerian summers day.

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]]><![CDATA[Greetings from Prague]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/greetings-from-praguehttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/greetings-from-pragueSun, 20 Jul 2025 08:04:55 GMTBelow are a few sights in the beautiful city of Prague. More to come from our German tour. I have many pictures to send as well as all good wishes…..As promised here is the new entrance to my international website: pattismith-fugalfox.de/

Franz Kafka’s grave
Kafka Monument
The Monastic Hallway

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]]><![CDATA[A little respite]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/a-little-respitehttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/a-little-respiteSat, 12 Jul 2025 16:06:37 GMTA few pictures and a smile….

Jackson at our venue in Berlin
At the Spandauer Zitadelle
The wall of the Pasterak

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]]><![CDATA[Mitaka]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/mitakahttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/mitakaMon, 05 May 2025 04:11:46 GMTWhile in Tokyo preparing for the exhibit at MOT with Soundwalk Collective I went twice to the Mitaka district. The first was two weeks ago with Ace and Dice, who some of you met in my book M Train. We went to the shrines I wished revisit from our first encounters in 2015. We drove to the Zenrin-ji Temple Cemetery in Mitaka, and paid out respects to the writer Osamu Dazai. There was a waterlogged copy of his masterpiece No Longer Human and a pack of Hope cigarettes. We cleaned up the grave area, washed his stone, left white flowers and burned incense. Dice asked why white flowers. I said Dazai often had bad behavior and wrote of being a disqualified human, so perhaps he would welcome a few pure cleansing blossoms. Later I returned to the Museum MOT and did a no longer human drawing for our Correspondence exhibition.

Tomb of Dazai
My drawing for Dazai

I returned to Mitaka with Stephan from Soundwalk Collective. I wanted to go to the Tamagawa Canal that Dazai loved and also drowned with Tomie Yamazaki in a joint suicide (Shinju) with shortly before his 39th birthday. The water level was quite low and the canal much overgrown but Stephan threw a small microphone in the water and recorded for a future project. The water made a strange crackling sound rushing over stones and I’m certain we will make good use of it.

Stephan recording at the Tamagawa Canal

We were extremely happy to have this small adventure together in Mitaka. We stopped in the Dazai Osamu Literary Salon and looked at the plethora of Dazai books in every language. Of course ending with coffee to go with the writer’s image stamped on the to-go cup. A good productive pilgrimage. Soon I will be packing to say my farewells to all my old and new pals.

Thank you everyone. You can find Dazai’s books printed by New Directions. If you are in Tokyo our exhibition can be seen at MOT. Sending good wishes to all.

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]]><![CDATA[Kyoto morning walk with crows]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/kyoto-morning-walk-with-crowshttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/kyoto-morning-walk-with-crowsWed, 30 Apr 2025 08:35:47 GMTEarly this morning I took a walk down (or up) a path parallel to the river, Mostly because I knew the crows that guard the cemetery would be up calling through the trees lough enough to wake Edgar Alan Poe. The crows are much larger than our crows and completely fearless, crafty and not unfriendly.

I took some urban snapshots in Kyoto. There are many beautiful shrines to say nothing of the restored temple of the golden pavilion. But I also like some of the older architecture and random streets. I am about to catch the train back to Tokyo so I will send a few pictures and write more later. Also I am including the coffee place I fell in love with but it was always closed. My crazy luck….

Back street in Kyoto
Kyoto Ramen
lighting candles in a shrine
Coffee denied. Picture by Jesse.

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]]><![CDATA[A day in Hiroshima]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/a-day-in-hiroshimahttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/a-day-in-hiroshimaMon, 28 Apr 2025 15:44:48 GMTHello everybody. It’s midnight in Kyoto. I spent most of the day in Hiroshima. I met and spoke with Keiko Ogura an eighty-eight year old survivor of the atomic bomb, dropped by the United States on her city on August 6, 1945. It was two days before her eighth birthday but she would never celebrate it. The unspeakable things that she witnessed on that terrible morning haunts her to this day. Yet she works tirelessly as a Representative of Hiroshima Interpreters for Peace, righteously preaching first hand of the inhumanity of the atomic bomb.

We placed a wreath of remembrance for the victims of Hiroshima nearly 80 years ago and prayed together for Peace and the banning of all nuclear weapons. Later we spoke of growing up in the post war world.

Laying a wreath with Keiko

After we said a prayer the gentleman I photographed below also prayed. Through the curved arched the Genbaku Dome can be seen. It was the only structure left standing in the area where the atomic bomb exploded. It has been preserved just as it was after the bombing. It stands to remind us of the bomb’s destructive power but also as a plea for Peace.

A gentleman at prayer
My Polaroid of the Genbaku Dome.

I also visited the outskirts of the epicenter where homes over a hundred years old still stand. I was moved to see architectural survivors as well as the graceful twisting pines and tranquil gardens. I was also the happy recipient of a beautiful lunch and cup of sake. It was quite an emotional day, a mix of indelible sorrow and great hope.

Rejuvinating nature
Hiroshima makes excellent sake very soft and dry..

It’s been a long day. As you can probably guess I am quite sleepy. I send good wishes to all. Tomorrow pictures from Kyoto. Sleep and wake well…

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]]><![CDATA[quick hello from Venice]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/quick-hello-from-venicehttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/quick-hello-from-veniceThu, 29 Aug 2024 14:18:09 GMTHello everybody,

I have a plethora of duties but made you a little phone video out my window.

It is 90 degrees and I am staying at my wonderful desk before boarding a boat to the next duty. I will send a report later…Good wishes to everyone.

My desk in Venice
Twilight below my window.

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]]><![CDATA[Back home saying hello]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/back-home-saying-hellohttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/back-home-saying-helloTue, 30 Jul 2024 19:07:22 GMTHello everyone,

I am back. A bit jet lagged but happy. Just wanted to say hello and send a few snapshots of our last city visited. I love Vienna, and I was fortunate enough to stay in the beautiful, historic Sacher Hotel. Since they all seem to know I love the city’s ferris wheel, made famous by a wonderful scene in Carol Reed’s The Third Man, I was surprised by an all chocolate welcome.

I hope everyone is faring well. I will be back tomorrow with more pictures, and perhaps a little more wide awake. Thank you for waiting for me…..

A chocolate welcome
Detail of Picasso’s portrait of his wife Jacqueline
A view of the Albertina Museum from my terrace
A view from The Third Man Ferris Wheel
A diorama of the amusement park
Vienna souvenirs.

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]]><![CDATA[Hello from Lisbon]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/hello-from-lisbonhttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/hello-from-lisbonFri, 22 Mar 2024 14:18:46 GMTHello everybody, a few snapshots in Lisbon and well wishes to all.

A Lisbon lantern
Centro Cultural de Belem.
My atelier within the exhibit
A section of our process wall
Press Conference
the museum at night

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]]><![CDATA[Greeting from London]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/greeting-from-londonhttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/greeting-from-londonSun, 17 Mar 2024 21:32:20 GMTSee you tomorrow everyone. Sleep well….

The opening of Light Play

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]]><![CDATA[A p.s. for subscribers]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/a-ps-for-subscribershttps://pattismith.substack.com/p/a-ps-for-subscribersSun, 21 Jan 2024 04:17:39 GMTNo words, but another image from Naples. A Polaroid of the bust of Virgil.

In a Niche at the tomb of Virgil

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]]><![CDATA[To my Subscribers]]>https://pattismith.substack.com/p/to-my-subscribers-f35https://pattismith.substack.com/p/to-my-subscribers-f35Sat, 20 Jan 2024 03:29:41 GMTIn December I was in Naples. I had a small concert and a day off. I love Naples, and I decided to head to the old section to visit the Sansevero Chapel. I wanted to revisit the Veiled Christ by Giuseppe Sanmartino. I had already seen it a few times but wanted to study it a bit further for a story I am writing; an imagined tale about the young man who mo…

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