Nina Simone's Gum: A Memoir of Things Lost and Found

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The 66-year-old star slowly made her way to the piano, sat down, took the gum from her mouth and stuck it on a towel atop the Steinway. I guess a lot of people must have noticed that she was chewing gum, because it was just the coolest thing,” says Ellis, “a small act of defiance that said so much about her whole fuck-you attitude.

Mick, he continues, “would make you step up to the plate in conversation, always playful and curious. Worrying the gum would be damaged or lost, Warren decided to first have it cast in silver and gold, sparking a chain of events that no one could have predicted, one that would take him back to his childhood and his relationship to found objects. the small, specific thing is a piece of gum: a piece of gum chewed by Nina Simone before her final London performance, in 1999, placed on a towel on top of a piano, and taken by Ellis after the show and kept for over two decades.After the show, in a state of awe, Warren Ellis crept onto the stage, took Dr Simone's piece of chewed gum from the piano, wrapped it in her stage towel and put it in a Tower Records bag. Some of those things, other than the gum, are shared here in a beautiful, simple, yet profound manner.

It’s an incredible privilege to work with Warren,” Cave tells me when I get in touch to ask him about their relationship. Someone compares it to a religious relic, which is exactly what it is - instead of the hair of a saint in a frame in a chapel somewhere, it's the chewing gum of a musical icon (the word icon invoking religion anyways) in a frame in an art exhibition. A unique study of a fan's devotion, of transcendence and of the artistic vocation - it's got depth and great warmth.I really liked the parts about Ellis's youth as well - finding an old accordion in a dump, the box of collected things under the bed, the Australian summerness nostalgia. Photograph: Cyril Zannettacci / Agence Vu/The Observer View image in fullscreen Warren Ellis photographed at home in Ivry-sur-Seine, Paris this month. He seems like a person who goes about the world in a state of wonder, that he seems so grateful for the life he leads. The larger, more general thing that Nina Simone's Gum explores is creativity, friendship, and the outsized emotional value we often place on physical objects. When I started playing with Jim [White] and Mick [Turner],” says Ellis, “it was the first time I found what I had heard in other music – just the liberation of feeling like you’ve scaled the top of a mountain one moment and you’re lying face down on the floor the next.

I read the majority of this book in one sitting, and could have finished it there, but instead I put it down for a few weeks, because I didn't want it to end.kad Warrenas – ypatingas, kažkoks truputį pusdievis, neabejotinai ir truputį išprotėjęs genijus, galintis prakalbinti bet kurį instrumentą, bet ši knyga įrodo, kad jis dar ir traukia panašius į save – jautrius ir ypatingus, galinčius suprasti, kuo dviejų dešimtmečių senumo gumos gabaliukas yra vertas ne menkesnės pagarbos, nei koks Monet originalas. In a world where it's so easy to be apathetic and defeatist about things, I found it heartening that Warren Ellis still cares (and genuinely believes in) the magic and significance between different people, connections, emotions, moments, memories and objects.