Sante’s new book gathers pieces about music, art, and city life from the last twenty-plus years, so what he writes about is as compelling as the style with which he does it. Sante stubbornly refuses to write a stale line. Whether paying tribute to the young Patti Smith or imagining the subsequent lives of the original owners of 45s in his collection or recalling the long-gone businesses and denizens of the Lower East Side, he puts the reader right there.  Divided into five sections devoted, respectively, to music, adolescence, heroes, photography, and the old neighborhood, there are many overlaps in themes and subject-matter. As he notes early on, “Almost everything of interest in New York City lies in some degree of proximity to music.”