Even as she recuperates at home in New York City, Patti Smith keeps busy. To mend the two neckbones broken by that Tampa stage fall, Patti works out three times a week at the Nautilus Institute For Sport Medicine, where wounded athletes exercise.

She's also working on a book (Rat Art) of interviews, poems and photos compiled during the past year. And, Patti stays up until 2:30 each a.m. to watch The Saint on TV.

"\4ove Roger Moore," she enthused during one of my visits. "It's so great to finally have a hero who's alive. But," she added with a twinkle in her eye, "don't you think he looks a little bit like Rimbaud?"

Lying on the queen-sized bed covered with green and white checked sheets and a Moroccan bedspread Patti resembled a young longshoreman; wool cap covering the 29 stitches in her head, a striped boat-necked t-shirt that could easily be pulled over the neckbrace she's forced to wear for a few months, white "Jeff Beck" sneakers and rolled up old black gabardine slacks.