A 'CRAZY DAYS' 'sorta memoir' excerpt from the author's first cappuccino in 1979, out in Bob Dylan's old Greenwich Village neighborhood. | january11.2024
Alas, however, the Fat Black Pussycat is long gone. Its main entrance, like the Reggio's, was on Macdougal, but through a long hallway. Outliving the Pussycat by decades, painted over the Minetta Street entrance was the coffeehouse's sign, a relic still mourned by the few who remember the spacious cafe. Wonder why Bob was writing there, not at the much hipper Cafe Figaro on Bleecker at Macdougal. Good read, Doug, both pieces. I made this neighborhood my turf. When I was a rock critic I sold my review LPs to the Music Inn, downstairs from Bob's West 4th Street digs. Did Becca stay too? Here's something that happened around the corner at a time not distant from the one you write about here. https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/new-years-day-reprise-when-bob-dylan/
My gawd, that is an amazing memoir of a remarkable night in New York City by Lucian Truscott! I smiled all the way through, thinking, WAIT! Who ELSE has come to Norman Mailer’s party in addition to The Rolling Thunder Revue?!? Thank you for pointing me to a deeply fun read. I subscribed to support his work. Peace outwards.
PS: My senior year at Miami University in Ohio in the winter of 1979, living across the border in a farmhouse lost in the Indiana cornfields, I’d fire up a joint and dance to Patti Smith’s ‘Horses.’ She was a goddess troubadour to me.
Wonderful history! Thank you. ‘Becca’ first moved into the Marsha Washington Hotel after college, an affordable women-only residence at the time. She ended up at a nice but, of course, tiny two-room place on about West 56th or thereabouts.
Place my order!
Ha! It’s still there. Get thyself to the Village, Chuck!
Alas, however, the Fat Black Pussycat is long gone. Its main entrance, like the Reggio's, was on Macdougal, but through a long hallway. Outliving the Pussycat by decades, painted over the Minetta Street entrance was the coffeehouse's sign, a relic still mourned by the few who remember the spacious cafe. Wonder why Bob was writing there, not at the much hipper Cafe Figaro on Bleecker at Macdougal. Good read, Doug, both pieces. I made this neighborhood my turf. When I was a rock critic I sold my review LPs to the Music Inn, downstairs from Bob's West 4th Street digs. Did Becca stay too? Here's something that happened around the corner at a time not distant from the one you write about here. https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/new-years-day-reprise-when-bob-dylan/
My gawd, that is an amazing memoir of a remarkable night in New York City by Lucian Truscott! I smiled all the way through, thinking, WAIT! Who ELSE has come to Norman Mailer’s party in addition to The Rolling Thunder Revue?!? Thank you for pointing me to a deeply fun read. I subscribed to support his work. Peace outwards.
PS: My senior year at Miami University in Ohio in the winter of 1979, living across the border in a farmhouse lost in the Indiana cornfields, I’d fire up a joint and dance to Patti Smith’s ‘Horses.’ She was a goddess troubadour to me.
Wonderful history! Thank you. ‘Becca’ first moved into the Marsha Washington Hotel after college, an affordable women-only residence at the time. She ended up at a nice but, of course, tiny two-room place on about West 56th or thereabouts.