Because the night

Last night we were lucky enough to attend the opening of a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition titled A season in hell at the Alison Jacques gallery. A Season In Hell is the title of an Arthur Rimbaud poem. The opening marked Rimbaud's birthday and the twentieth anniversary of Mapplethorpe's passing. It was opened by Patti Smith...



She played to a filled street from the door of the gallery. She spoke lovingly of living with Robert Mapplethorpe in the Chelsea hotel and a little of the similarities between him and Arthur Rimbaud, encouraging everyone present to devote some time to enjoying their work in the week to come in their memory. She opened by playing "grateful" Later on she gave a reading of "People Have the Power" There were more than a few moments where the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. She spoke of having a three/sometimes four chord limitation by way of introducing her rendition of the title of today's post. Just before she launched into a crowd sing-along acapella version of "Because the Night" she encouraged audience paticipation and told everyone that next time they feel stupid or awkward they should think of her standing there. She didn't look stupid or awkward at all. The hairs that had stood up earlier were joined by many more, I'm sure it was a veritable goosebump fest all round. To find out more about the show
Click here
You should go and have a look yourself. I'm not giving away too much by bringing you this photo of Edson. Without his heads up we wouldn't have made it there at all...



Things like that don't come around everyday, I'm glad we had our yesterday