At 75, the punk poet, singer, artist and author talks candidly about life, loss, loneliness and her acclaimed new photography project
Having interviewed her on the phone in 2020, I already know she has an extraordinary ability to stay naturally herself . And now the assistant curator is leading the way up the escalator and into the exhibition space and I see her at once, deep in conversation with Soundwalk curator/director Stéphan Crasneanscki, considering a collage of photographs, her back facing me, talking about the extra space needed to allow her chosen artists to breathe.
I ask if she has ever had her palm read and she tells the strangest tale. She was born during a hurricane, in Chicago, in 1946, and raised in Germantown, Philadelphia. Her father was a machinist, her mother a waitress who took in ironing.
One day you’re walking down the street and the pain of a loss that happened years earlier will come back at full capacityis personally devotional too. It practises the art of losing.
She must sometimes get lonely? She does, she says. But more often, she gets restless. As a person, and a writer, she travels light. A picture of her old travelling boots bears the caption: “Time to get moving” . I imagine her recent tour must have been exhausting? “It did take it out of me. This year has been tough, trying to make up obligations cancelled in 2020 and 2021.” Next year, she plans to focus more on writing and a new recording: “I’m going to simplify my life.
Coming to the Chelsea hotel, aged 22, she found it filled with people “already damaged by drugs”. And there was another reason to resist: “I like my mind. I have an intense imagination. I like to be in control of my own state.” But there must have been pressure to join in? “I’m not one to succumb to peer pressure,” she replies.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Unsuccessful Adelaide mayoral candidate raises concerns over suspected voting irregularitiesRex Patrick, who narrowly lost the election to Jane Lomax-Smith, says he has raised concerns with the electoral commission about allegations of illegal voter activity.
Read more »
‘Brain snap’: Anthony Albanese ‘drops the ball’ with Xi Jinping meetingSky News host Chris Smith says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese learned a “harsh lesson” from the “aggressive” Chinese leadership after he was snubbed from a meeting with President Xi Jinping. “Here he was, flying off to Cambodia for the first of 4 different international summits and on the brink of finally getting a meeting with the Chinese President, he drops the ball cold,” Mr Smith said. “In what must have been one of his worst brain snaps, the prime minister tries to flex his muscles and put a qualifier in the way of this long-awaited meeting. “He wanted China to lift all their subsidies and bans on Australian produce before he would take such a meeting.”
Read more »
Victorian Opposition vows to upgrade hospitalThe Victorian Opposition has promised to upgrade a major trauma hospital. Sky News Reporter Holly Edwards-Smith says the upgrade to the Alfred Hospital will cost $2.4 billion dollars, which will create a new wing called the St Kilda wing, adding an extra 79 ICU beds and 102 acute mental health beds. It is one of 20 hospitals the Coalition has pledged to either revamp or build.
Read more »
Victorians have a lot of ‘pent-up anger’ towards Daniel AndrewsIndependent Candidate for Mulgrave Ian Cook says many Victorians have this “pent-up anger” towards Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews after a health inspector allegedly planted a slug on the floor of an I Cook Foods processing plant. “He’s outspending me, and we have already got reports, he’s promised $10 million to all the sporting clubs,' he told Sky News host Chris Smith. “He’s outspending us with not only taxpayers money but the money that fires into him from the union movement. “Our whole campaign relies on the goodness of people around Australia giving us small donations.”
Read more »
Daniel Andrews’ election campaign has been ‘derailed’Monash University political scientist Dr Zareh Ghazarian says there has been a “shift” and the Victorian Labor Party’s election campaign has been “derailed” by issues that have arisen. Dr Ghazarian referred to new revelations from a collision between Daniel Andrews’ wife, Catherine, and bike rider Ryan Meuleman in 2013, along with recent backlash from the United Firefighters Union in Victoria. “These sorts of things, when they do come up, derail the campaign because the premier and the government has to respond to these issues rather than have that clean air that parties would like to have to be able to talk about their own policies and their own policy agenda,” he told Sky News host Chris Smith.
Read more »