Through Beet-Colored Glasses, more on Just Kids

Robert and Patti

Last night Ben and I played the High Fidelity game — you know, the one where you list your Top 5 of something and then debate over certain choices that you think prove the other player to be uninformed or possibly Communist. We were both padding around the kitchen in our “comfy pants,” which is what I call track pants when I use them for non-athletic endeavors, which is always. Ben vaguely resembles John Cusack, making it even more satisfying to yell, “The Blue Album!” and interrupt him mid-sentence to add another title to my list of Most Influential Albums of Our Generation. Ben has a certain way of pausing what he’s doing to consider something, head angled skyward, and then nod a nod that says, okay I concede, but here’s one better.  To every R.E.M. album I pronounced, he had an Incubus or a Nine Inch Nails. It quickly became obvious that we grew up on different planets.

We were cooking dinner together. We do this often and move easily around the kitchen together. Mostly Ben cooks and I clean; good teamwork. Yesterday Ben stood over our white ceramic sink peeling beets, juice like blood cycloning around the drain. The most endearing parts of Patti Smith’s Just Kids are moments like this — moments that existed between her and Robert Mapplethorpe alone. Sharing a thermos of coffee over an afternoon of people-watching in Washington Square. Sharing their art with each other first. Sharing secrets.