There's a new memoir out by Patti Smith called "Just Kids." The primary theme is her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, from their meeting in the late 1960s until his death in 1989.

Bonnie brought it home and I've been kind of reading it "over her shoulder" as it were.

From what I've read, the writing seems to me a bit stilted. It deals in good part with the inner feelings of Patti Smith in response to people and events. Some of her feelings, as she recounts them in retrospect, appear overly romanticized. She views herself, and wishes to be understood, as the child of Baudelaire and Rimbaud. Perhaps someting of a "bright teenager" wish? Anyway, that's the book she chose to write. Who am I to naysay?

But I noticed one passage where she recounts a visit she and Mapplethorpe had paid to one of Charles Henri Ford's literary soirees at his Dakota apartment. In reviewing it she comments that Charles seemed better suited to the old days in Paris. He had been a member of the Gertrude Stein set and knew many key artistic and literary folk of the era.

That was funny because Bonnie and I were invited to tea by Charles, some 20 years later. The tea and cake was graciously served by his Nepalese butler Indra. After leaving we discussed how Charles seemed better suited to the old days in Paris. An almost word-for-word repetition of Patti Smith's comment.

I suppose it was fairly obvious and many people may have commented on it before and after us or Patti Smith and Mapplethorpe!

I made a discovery while researching some art on the internet. I suppose it's of little or no significance, just petty gossip and way past it's sell-by date, but here goes.

Bonnie and I were good friends with the filmmaker Emile De Antonio in the 1980s. "De" [pronounced DEE, as his friends called him] died in 1989. De had made a number of important documentaries [including "Point of Order"] and was very knowledgeable in contemporary art. He had been instrumental in advising Warhol, among others.

A just recalled aside: De wrote a treatment for a film, basing the main characters on Bonnie and me. Martin Sheen had shown an interest in playing me. Like so many film projects, it came to naught.

A man of rare wit, education and insight, it was always a pleasure to talk with De. Our conversations about art were among the most valuable I have had. De had produced a classic film called "Painters Painting," using direct cinema techniques to document some of the major figures of the New York School.

De and his wife Nancy lived on East 6th Street, in a house I presume he owned. We visited it often and had dinner with them. Their downstairs tenant was the well-known painter/filmmaker Alfred Leslie.

Anyway, it turns out that shortly after De died Nancy took up with Alfred Leslie and is still his live-in companion today. So something must have been brewing for a while.

We never picked up on it. Although I can imagine that De might have been a bit of a handful. I well recall his bottle of Aqua Vitae on ice and loaded rifle at the ready!

We had completely lost touch with Nancy, as our relationship was almost exclusively with De.

As I said, this couldn't mean much to anyone other than ourselves.

Mother's Day passed quietly today. Neither of our mothers are still living so we remembered them each in our own way. Bonnie burned incense. I overcooked a pot roast.

Great Neck, Long Island, where I grew up in the 60s, was haunted by the ghost of Nazi Germany. It was a mostly affluent Jewish enclave. The middle-aged residents believed they were secure. But there was an undercurrent of uneasiness. If Nazi Germany, or something like it, should rise again all bets were off. I think there was a small voice whispering to them that one could never be certain.

Nazi Germany was kind of an all-purpose bete noire. It symbolized the worst circumstances one could imagine. Therefore invoking its spectre could provide some comfort, because nothing happening to you in Great Neck could ever be so bad as the same thing happening to you in Nazi Germany.

Stubbing your toe in Nazi Germany was worse than having a stroke in Great Neck, Long Island.

"My bursitis is playing up again...but at least I'm not living in Nazi Germany."

"My wife ran off with her podiatrist and my business is bankrupt...but at least it's not happening in Nazi Germany."

Nazi Germany gave people some hope that maybe life's crises could be resolved.