Just Friends: The Social Network of Patti Smith

In research on social networks one often finds a bias towards the study of "star networks", as exemplified by the fixation with the Kevin Bacon number, or the study of "nerd networks", as exemplified by the fixation with the Paul Erdos number. The former work seems to stem from the availability of movie databases such as IMDB, while the latter stems from the availability of scientific literature citation databases made available by Google Scholar and others. Which brings up the issue of where can one find the social networks associated with artists, authors, musicians, and other cultural figures. It appears to me that Wikipedia is not rich enough (yet) to support queries into the wide social and intellectual influences of important artists.

This idea came to me as I read the book Just Kids by Patti Smith. Smith's book is a memoir about her years living with Robert Mapplethorpe in New York City, and it is filled with references to her friends and artistic influences - she is a 'name dropper' in the best sense of the term. I wrote a short script that extracted all the names of people that she referenced in her book. I will post them here, and encourage others to help build a data set that can, hopefully, be used in the future to trace the social and artistic influences of important artists like Patti Smith.

Social Network of Patti Smith (from Just Kids by Patti Smith, 2010, Harper Collins)

Peter Allen
Stanley Amos
Eric Andersen
Diane Arbus
Albert Ayler
Charles Aznavour
Josephine Baker
Hank Ballard
Stanley Bard
Syd Barrett
Samuel Beckett
Pierre Bergé
Ted Berrigann
Peggy Biderman
William Blake
Susan Bottomly
Jim Brady
Joe Brainard
Ray Bremser
Andy Brown
Oscar Brown
James Brown
Tim Buckley

Robert Burns
William Burroughs
Paul Butterfield
Arthur C. Clarke
John Cale
Julia Margaret Cameron
Donald Cammel
Art Carney
Lewis Carroll
Jim Carroll
Johnny Carson
Ben Casey
Leo Castelli
John Chamberlain
Shirley Clarke
Roberto Clemente
Charles Cole
John Coltrane
Gary Cooper
Joseph Cornell
Gregory Corso
Albert Cossery
Lee Crabtree

Robert Creeley
David Croland
Edward Curtis
Sandy Daley
Joe Dallesandro
Lynn Davis
Miles Davis
Dorothy Dean
Jay Dee Daugherty
Sharon Delano
Louis Delsarte
Eric Dolphy
Marcel Ducham
Bob Dylan
Penny Each
Thomas Eakins
Isabelle Eberhardt
Jonathan Eisen
Bill Elliott
William Faulkner
Andrea Feldman
Danny Field
Frances Finley

Bobby Fischer
Jim Fisk
Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Flagg
Dan Flavin
Dennis Florio
Anne Frank
Sam Friedman
Jane Friedman
John Garfield
Judy Garland
Marvin Gaye
Henry Geldzahler
Jean Genet
Allen Ginsberg
John Giorno
Tony Glover
Danny Goldberg
Edward Gorey
John Graham
Maureen Gray
Emmett Grog
Sally Grossman
Peggy Guggenheim
Daniel Halpern
Janet Hamill
Mike Hammer
Ed Hansen
Tim Hardin
Howard Hawk
Patty Hearst
Richard Hell
David Hemming

Jimi Hendrix
Charles Henri Ford
Audrey Hepburn
Hans Hoffman
Billie Holiday
Edward Hopper
Lorraine Hotel
Fred Hughes
Victor Hugo
Tony Ingrassi
Jimmy Iovine
Mick Jagger
Henry James
Jesse James
Country Joe

Robert John
Brian Jones
Jennifer Jones
Janis Joplin
James Joyce
Anna Karina
Anna Kavan
Lenny Kaye
Margaret Kennedy
Clark Kent
Jack Kerouac
Scott King
George Kleinsinger
Ruth Kligman

Willem de Kooning
Lee Krasner
Kris Kristofferson
Sidney Lanier
Allen Lanier
Timothy Leary
William Lee
John Lennon
Lotte Lenya
Betsy Lerner
Richard Lester

Judy Linn
Richard Lloyd
Lance Loud
Charles Ludlam
Martin Luther
Donald Lyons
Mary Magdalene
Anna Magnani
Gerard Malanga
George Mandel
Charles Manson
Michael Mapplethorpe
Edward Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe
Dave Marsh
Bernadette Mayer
Bobby McGee
Roger McGuinn
John McKendry
Willie McTell
Richard Meltzer
Howard Michael

Nancy Milford

Robert Miller
Sal Mineo
Keith Moon
Jeanne Moreau
Jim Morrison
Van Morrison
Paul Muni
Billy Name

Nancy M. Rooney
Bob Neuwirth
Kim Novak
Phil Ochs
Peter Orlovsky
Frank O’Hara
Eugene O’Neill
Anita Pallenberg
Harvey Park
Charlie Patton
Steve Paul
Tom Paxton
Sandy Pearlman
Gregory Peck
Irving Penn

Elsa Peretti
Tony Perkins
Pablo Picasso
James Place
George Plimpton
Diane Podlewski

Michael Pollard
Jackson Pollock

Larry Poons
Richard Poussette-Dart
Annie Powell
Ann Powell
Charlie Pride
Mary Quant

Robert Querelle
George Raft
Jerome Ragni
Oliver Ray
Lou Reed
Peter Reich
Matthew Reich
Paul Revere
Rene Ricard
Keith Richard
Jonathan Richman
Arthur Rimbaud
Lisa Rinzler
Larry River
Lisa Robinson

Nicolas Roeg
Mickey Rooney
Nancy M. Rooney
Gypsy Rose Lee
Raymond Roussel
Bruce Rudow
Todd Rundgren
Mickey Ruski
Albert Ryder
Paul Schrader
Albert Schweitzer
Steven Sebring
Edie Sedgwick
Sam Shepard
Frank Sinatra
Grace Slick
Adam Smith
Fred Sonic Smith
Linda Smith
Jack Smith
Jesse Paris Smith
Harry Smith
Richard Sohl
Valerie Solanas
Holly Solomon
Susan Sontag
Terry Southern
Phil Spector
Mickey Spillane
Bruce Springsteen
Robert Louis Stevenson
Ellen Stewart
Alfred Stieglitz
Paul Strand
Billy Swan
Sharon Tate
Elizabeth Taylor
Dylan Thomas
Nick Tosches
Spencer Tracy
Alexander Trocchi
John Vaccaro
Roger Vadim
Rudy Vallée
Tom Verlaine
Paul Verlaine
Jean Vigo
Sam Wagstaff
Jones Wagstaff
Anne Waldman
Andy Warhol
Jimmy Washington
Patty Water
Kurt Weill
Samuel Weiser
Andrea Whips
Walt Whitman
Oscar Wilde
Paul William
Hank William
Colin Wilson
Johnny Winter
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Wolfe
Holly Woodlaw
Andrew Wylie
Neil Young
Lloyd Ziff