Tastes of Culture

The San Francisco artist Tom Marioni has a motto that has served him well: The act of drinking beer with friends is the highest form of art. It’s the subtitle of his 2003 memoir: “Beer, Art and Philosophy.” It’s the…

Nostalgia is never more suspect than when the person romantically harking back is too young to have experienced the era firsthand. But reading Patti Smith’s memoir “Just Kids,” a tender recollection of her coming of age as a singer-songwriter alongside…