When we got The New Yorker (Sept. 4, 06) in the mail this week it was stuffed in a plastic bag together with an idiotic-looking supplement called “Fashion Rocks” with a picture of pop-culture luminaries Beyoncé and Jamie Foxx on the cover. Boy, this magazine sinks lower with every issue, I thought. I was about ready to toss the supplement in the trash, when, on a whim, I decided to flip through it. There amidst all the other puff pieces—worthy of Vogue or Teen Beat, but hardly The New Yorker--was an article on Edie Sedgwick written by, of all people, Patti Smith! It was written to 
promote not only the long overdue Sienna Miller-as-Edie Sedgwick movie, but also Patti’s own book, also scheduled to be released sometime before the cows come home, if we can believe an e-mail we received from the publisher.
In the article, Patti tells of how she saw Edie’s picture in Vogue and tacked it up to her wall alongside John Lennon, Maria Callas, and Arthur Rimbaud—a claim which I find rather odd, but what the hell. Patti donned a miniskirt and tights and went to New York to emulate her heroine—and wound up, of course, becoming something much different. Edie was long gone by the time Patti and Robert checked into the Chelsea, but, says Patti, “...the specter of the Chelsea Girls still haunted the historic hotel as much as Dylan Thomas and Oscar Wilde.”
(Oscar Wilde?! First we’ve heard of him being associated with the Chelsea. We asked our friend Sherill Tippins, who’s writing a history of the hotel, and she said it’s highly unlikely, that as far as she knows Wilde was last in America in 1882. The Chelsea was built in 1883, opening in 1884.)
Patti’s book, Just Kids: From Brooklyn to the Chelsea Hotel, is about her time with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and, although her editor says she doesn’t know if the book will include anything about the Chelsea, I’m not sure how it could be avoided. (They lived together at the Chelsea, in case you didn’t know. ) Perhaps Patti is angling to be the second woman to have a plaque on the front of the hotel.
I’m glad I didn’t throw out that supplement. Significantly, at least from our point of view, this week’s New Yorker turned out to be a Chelsea Super Bonus Issue. In addition to the Patti piece, the supplement includes articles about Bob Dylan (specifically, about a new Twyla Tharp play based on his songs) and Courtney Love, and a picture of Sid and Nancy in an article about Punk Fashion. In The New Yorker proper there is another article about Dylan (this time about a book, Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews), two Allen Ginsberg Poems, and a listing for a new documentary about Andy Warhol. (The Chelsea is hot, I’m telling ya!) We may renew our subscription after all.
But really, please, Chelsea material or no get rid of the trashy supplement. (Ed Hamilton)
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