Morals, Legacies and Books

Patti Smith about the recording of Horses at Electric Lady. From her memoir, Just Kids.

Jimi Hendrix never came back to create his new musical language, but he left behind a studio that resonated all his hopes for the future of our cultural voice. These things were in my mind from the first moment I entered the vocal booth. The gratitude I had for rock and roll as it pulled me through a difficult adolescence. The joy I experienced when I danced. The moral power I gleaned in taking responsibility for one's actions.

I admire the tricolon: gratitude, joy and moral power.

I also like it that she won a National Book Award for the memoir. The New York Times reported, she urged the audience at the awards ceremony, "Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book — there is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book."

Now a beautiful book could be an electronic product, heir to the beautiful books on paper.

And so for day 643
16.09.2008