Permanent Vacation

by Sam Tremble

Ed Hamilton moved in to the Chelsea Hotel 12 years ago to become a writer. The idea was to channel the creative energy of past residents like Thomas Wolfe, Jack Kerouac and Dylan Thomas into his novel, but he soon found himself against the constant distraction of the hotel's eccentric guests, residents and staff. They eventually became the basis of his work and he began blogging about life in the hotel in 2005, which is what led to his chaotic compilation Legends of the Chelsea Hotel.

The episodic blogyssey through New York's most infamous hotel voyages into new publishing territory; it's common for print publications to duplicate and archive material online, but giving Web content corporeal existence is as rare as it is bold. And it takes more planning than copying and pasting. The series of slice-of-life sketches do eventually build up to form a portrait of the hotel, but if more care had been taken to weed out the less colorful renderings, the final result wouldn't be so hazy.

Not everyone with creative dreams can be successful, observes Hamilton, who originally set out to document the bizarre everyday struggles of unknown artists living in the Chelsea. It seems that this might be true for his book, too.

Short biographies of the pseudo-famous are inserted into his stories for context but disrupt the flow. (On the Web, these interruptions would be relegated to hyperlinks and pop-ups, and wouldn't seem so crowded.) Too often, he tries to tangentially force himself into these biographies: He once saw Patti Smith on a stairwell, he suspects he might use Thomas Wolfe's bathroom. But just because his strange endeavor didn't come out perfectly doesn't mean it's a complete failure, either.

Hamilton's best sketches come from direct observations and firsthand experiences — and don't worry, there are plenty of them. In "Expert Advice on Combating Terrorism," for example, he takes a break from writing his novel to transcribe construction workers bothering him outside his window. The result is a concise and accurate portrayal of what it is to live in post-9/11 New York as it builds itself into something new.

Maybe now he can get back to writing that novel. He certainly has enough material — he just needs a quiet place to write.

(s_tremble@citypaper.net)

Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Artists and Outlaws of New York's Rebel Mecca

By Ed Hamilton

Thunder's Mouth Press, 352 pp., $15.99