Jim Carroll at The Bottom Line (NYC)
9 September 2000 (Late Show)
Review by Tracey J. Moosa
What an amazing performance!! We went to the second reading at 10:30. Jim came out and stated that he was just going to be reading from Fear Of Dreaming because he had tried to do the “Jayne Mansfield” monologue in the first show and it fell flat. He said that, “I could see the words dying on their way out of my mouth and they hit the floor before the audience heard them.” He also thought that people weren’t understanding that it wasn’t a true story. He read “With Van Gogh” from The Book Of Nods, several eponoymously titled Poems, “I Am Not Kurt Schwitters” and “To The National Endowment For The Arts.” He capped of his performance with a special treat; he brought out Lenny Kaye who played guitar for Jim and with the Patti Smith band. They played four songs including “I Want The Angel” and “Lowrider” and then finished off with “People Who Died.” It was a truly magnificent event and I feel honored to have been in attendance.