SAM SHEPARD AND PATTI SMITH AT 92Y; NANCY CRAMPTON

"We're not entirely prepared," Patti Smith announced to the crowd gathered at the 92nd Street Y last night. "But I've never been." Smith, the ragtag godmother of New York City punk, took the stage last night for a reading with playwright and longtime friend Sam Shepard. As it turns out, Smith's warning was more than just coy stage banter: The whole evening was mostly improvised, with Shepard and Smith unsure who was supposed to read when, or quite what to do with the guitars the Y had helpfully set up beside their chairs. Like most improvisations, the result was mixed: some nervous laughter, quite a few awkward silences, and a couple moments of pure, you-had-to-be-there magic.

Unsurprisingly, Shepard, in light of his considerable acting career, was the more animated dramatic reader, choosing passages about motel-dwellers, desperate would-be cowboys, and a man stuck in a Cracker Barrel, tormented by Shania Twain's "maudlin ballads of deprived youth." Smith selected anecdotes from her newly published memoir, Just Kids, recounting in her South Jersey accent how she met her former boyfriend and lifelong artistic collaborator Robert Mapplethorpe (he rescued her from a bad date) and what Sam Shepard was like in the 1970s  ("just some grey-toothed hillbilly" who introduced himself as "Slim Shadow.") The dynamic between Smith and Shepard began as something like that of competing siblings ("This isn't a contest," Shepard reminded Smith after one selection), but metamorphosed into one of artists deeply appreciative of each other's work. Toward the end of the night, Smith began to smilingly defer to Shepard, looking like a child listening eagerly to a bedtime story. Smith was most riveting when she performed, singing a 17th century sea ballad with Shepard and closing the night with a rendition of "You Are My Sunshine" (the guitar beside her chair went untouched, however.) "We should have practiced," she sighed. "Oh well."