Buy now on Amazon: Just Kids

If you don’t know much about Patti Smith and you look her up you will see that she is a very accomplished poet, visual artist, song writer and performer.   Her music is of the punk rock variety. She even co-wrote a song with Bruce Springsteen that made it to #13 and she has received all kinds of recognition for her body of work including being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This book touches upon some of the many things that she has done but it is really a story of  her relationship with a man who wasn’t her husband or the father of her children and wasn’t even a musician. The man however, was an artist and although I don’t believe she used the term about him, it is fair to say that he was her “soul mate.” The man is Robert Mapplethorpe and if by chance you don’t know much about him and look him up you will see that he was a preeminent photographer known best for mostly black and white photos, many Polaroid, and many  of flowers and nude men . His photos were frequently known for their homoerotism. He also took many portraits including  photos of Patti Smith and did the cover for many of her albums.

The both were born in 1946. Patti was born in Chicago and grew up in New Jersey in alower middle class religious family. At age 21 she left college and religion as she headed to New York City with  some vague ideas about being a writer and a poet.  Robert Mapplethorpe was born in Queens and went to Pratt College and studied drawing, painting and sculpture and then set about trying to figure out how to become the artist that he knew he was destined to be. Smith and Mapplethorpe literally ran into each other and became a struggling, symbiotic and literally a starving duo. They had no or little money, at times very little food but clearly had found each other. They shared whatever they had including their bed and themselves. They supported each other in every way. They understood each other and their aspirations. They both believed in each other’s art and destiny to be artists. One time they overhear an older couple talking about them in the park saying, “They are just kids.”

Although she barely mentioned it , Smith obviously kept a diary . She has written this book in a continuous flow as she tells about the everyday events of her life especially about the first several years of her relationship with “ Robert” During most of the book , Smith has not started to sing and is only writing mostly poetry. Similarly for  the majority of the narrative, Mapplethorpe has not picked up a camera yet  and is drawing, making collages and various complex pieces to express himself. We hear  of the names of the many people who were the underground artistic life in New York City. The reader is introduced to life at the Chelsea Hotel with all the great conversations at the big round table in the back room. Some people’s names are more recognizable than others at least to this writer, ie. Alan Ginsberg , Andy Warhol, Sam Shepherd but I am sure that many others would be recognized by the  aficionados of the poetry and art scene of that time  but such familiarity is not necessary to appreciate this story.

Things do happen, these people grow up, establish adult important meaningful connections, opportunities appear, but these two are also always there for each other. Robert begins to confront his own sexuality and establishes various relationships with men. His own art flourishes and he explores his expression through photography. Patti has success with her poetry, publishes, adds music to her work and eventually becomes an important singer. We watch them come into their own and by necessity drift apart but yet are always connected. It is Robert who can photograph Patti for the perfect picture for her latest album. When the deadly scourge of the 1980s especially for the gay community strikes Robert, he asks Patti to some day tell their story. It has taken Patti more than 20 years to be able to do it and we feel enriched by being allowed to share it.

Buy now on Amazon: Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir

I had always wanted to learn more about the interesting work of psychiatrist Robert J. Lipton that I had heard about, but I never got around to reading his various books and other writings. This is the reason that I was pleased to embark upon reading this recent memoir. The author not only reviews his four main projects but he shares his recollections and feelings about the many people he has met along the way of his fascinating life’s work.

Lifton’s psychiatric training was interrupted by having to join the military as a physician during the Korean War. Although he was able to resume and even ultimately have some training at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, he never became a conventional psychiatrist or analyst. After spending sometime in Hong Kong Lifton became intensely interested what had become known as Chinese thought control. The Chinese communists had embarked upon what they had called a “reeducation” program aimed at indoctrinating everyone in the country but especially the educated and the young people to completely and without any question accept the sanctity of their leader and the validity of their doctrine.. Lifton’s technique of gathering data was to make contact with appropriate subjects and then hold open ended exploratory interviews. He used a trusted translator most of the time. He had made friends and contacts in Hong Kong who led him to meet various people from China who had been subjected to this mind control. A variation of this technique was applied to the Americans airmen taken prisoner of war by the Chinese in the Korean War. At that time the term “ brain washing” became popularly applied to what was being done .The techniques involved isolation, repetition of ideas, raising self doubts about old ideas. It was a relentless style of re-education which also included the encouragement of reporting to the authorities anyone known to rebel and not accept this new way of thinking. As Lifton saw the overall impact on Chinese society, he applied the term “totalism” to the complete penetration of this doctrinal thinking in all phases of living in China. Lifton was to also use this term when he studied other groups particularly the German people falling under the influence of Hitler. His suggestion that any group whether it be religious, political or even social which makes an all out effort to control the thinking of it’s potential followers should be identified as applying “totalism” to its efforts. He is very clear about the destructive nature of such thinking and the reader cannot but think how various modern day movements may be leaning in this direction.

While it is difficult to say which of his experiences had the greatest impact on him as they all obviously did and each embellished on the other. However, it seemed to me that his study of the survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bombing which he did when he was in his early 30s, emotionally penetrated deeper than anything he subsequently experienced and irreversibly changed him. Through his personal interviews with the subjects of his research, as a relatively young man he repeatedly encountered the meaning of death, destruction and mutilation. He appeared to feel their despair. While he intellectually understood and scientifically described the complicated grief and walking death that so many of the Japanese were to live throughout the rest of their lives, Lifton was transformed into a lifelong and very effective pacifist. Those of us who never had the emotional confrontation with the results of the A Bomb, might be able to accept President Truman’s decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki based on the calculation to save the lives of many thousands of Americans who would have invaded Japan. Lifton I believe, never raised this issue and appeared to believe in retrospect it had to be the wrong decision. He continues to bring a pacifist point of view to every relevant modern political and social issue of his time.

While I never met with anyone who went through anything approaching the magnitude of Hiroshima, my experience as a consultant to a major burn unit and having had some professional work in the aftermath of 9/11 gave me some perspective to to relate to his writing on this subject. However his decision to attempt to interview the Nazi doctors was “ mind boggling” to me, meaning that I had no frame of reference to this subject. Since this was his memoir, it probably was relatively short on the details of this work and conclusions which was covered in his earlier published work. But this book was relatively long on his personal reactions to the people with whom he met. His own perspective in approaching the Nazi doctors was as physican, psychiatrist, pacifist and a Jew. He seemed to have no trouble making the contacts and finding the surviving doctors who were willing to speak with him. In this memoir Lifton shares his struggle to understand whether these doctors were inherently evil people or whether circumstances might induce people to do terrible things to other people.

Lifton’s analysis and discussion of his experience in looking at the Viet Nam War and anti-war movement carried through to his comments on the U.S. war in Iraq. His reasoning and anti-war point of view is not simply founded upon his pacifist point of view but brings in a political and historical analysis. He also describes his interest in understanding post traumatic stress. He may have originated the term psychic numbing based on his earlier observations as well as those on the returning Viet Nam veterans. It is not surprising that he had great interest in understanding the My Lai massacre and raised once again how could descent people (in ths case the American soldiers) do horrifying deeds.

It was a special treat to learn about the many writers, historians and other intellectuals with whom Lifton interacted over the years. His personal discussions with people as diverse as Erik Erikson and Norman Mailer were recounted. Many of them took place at seminars he and his wife held at their summer home in Wellfleet. Betty Jean Lifton died shortly after her husband finished most of his memoir She was a writer mostly of children’s books but she shared his passion for psychohistory and their relationship is warmly reflected at many places in this book.

If you are any kind of a fan of Carl Reiner, you would have loved to have been a fly on the wall as he was developing his ideas for the 2000 Year Old Man with Mel Brooks or writing the Dick Van Dyke Show or the Show of Show of Shows with Sid Caesar or directing the Jerk or any of the numerous comedic works that this now almost 90 year man has created in his career. The format of this 2006 novel by Reiner gives the reader the opportunity to get a glimpse into his genius and his sense of humor. You view most of the book through the eyes of Nat Noland who is a novelist struggling to write his 5th novel appropriately titled NNNNN: A Novel, (You might guess the names of his first 4 which each increased in length by one letter and since they all were successful, he couldn’t go wrong with this title). Nat happens to have a problem of constantly talking to himself which disturbs him and his wife so he eventually goes to see a New York Viennese psychiatrist Dr. Frucht. However, this trait of carrying on a conversation with himself gives the reader some insight into his thinking as he struggles with his novel and then with an unusual discovery he is about to make about himself. His topic for his book is a proposed new version of Genesis. He starts off recounting his imagined conversation of the two brothers in the Garden of Eden when Abel reports to Cain that he has seen another women other than “Mama.” She was of dark skin and made him feel that he wanted to lie with her. Cain can’t believe him and insists it must have been Mama how terrible it is that he should want to lie with Mama. The story goes on from there with the novelist debating with himself how to develop the plot. While in the midst or writing this novel and going for his sessions with Dr. Frucht, he runs into Dr. Gertrude Trampleasure who has an office in the same building of the good psychiatrist. Dr.Trampleasure herself is an “empathologist” and by coincidence she thought she recognized Nat Noland as a good friend she knew many years ago. Turns out that pictures of this other person look exactly like Nat suggesting he may have been a twin. The twists and turns of the story multiple a couple of times and we come to share the workings of Carl Reiner’s comedic mind in a funny and intriguing novel.