Patti Smith

Patti Smith wrote a book about her early life; it's so early that her boyfriend at the time was Robert Mapplethorpe! She calls the book, "Just Kids" and it's basically about her time when she first moved to NYC, pre-fame, in the late 60s and she's living with her boyfriend (Mapplethorpe), and what ended up a lifelong friendship. It's a really great book, actually, and I say that not as a particularly big fan of her music. In fact, I'd say this book is the best thing I've ever seen her do!

Anyways, TWICE in the book, she gets tickled. I wish I had the book, I would write it out for ya, but basically in one part Mapplethorpe comes home and tickle attacks Patti in bed. In another part, she's with an older man who's she's getting romantic with, or maybe he's trying to get romantic with her, I can't remember, I think it's at the Chelsea Hotel. Anyways, she starts laughing and telling him that she feels ticklish, or "it tickles" or something like that.

Very nice find.

I found one of the quotes on Google Books. It sounds like she's one of those people who can feel themselves being tickled just from the fear of it, because she describes a scene where a guy gave her "the look" and she started laughing from it.

Harry zeroed in on me with his mock, menacing stare. I started laughing.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Because it tickles."
"You can feel that?"
"Yes, certainly."
"Fascinating!"

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TMF Jeff said:

I found one of the quotes on Google Books. It sounds like she's one of those people who can feel themselves being tickled just from the fear of it, because she describes a scene where a guy gave her "the look" and she started laughing from it.

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Ok, that's one! That's the scene. I didn't remember it was just "a look".

The other one is a full blown tickling, the sentence read something along the lines of "and then he suddenly held me down and started tickling me until I couldn't breathe." or something like that. This is all from memory, and I read the book a few years ago. And I believe that scene comes before the one quoted above. The book is "Just Kids", by Patti Smith.