Lou Reed

So I've been really torn-up about Lou Reed.

The death of public figures usually doesn't upset me. Their lives haven't affected mine, not personally at least, merely in the way they shape
culture. Typically, I reserve grieving only for people I know. That changed when I heard of Christopher Hitchens' death. I knew he was very ill, but the news gig like a thunderbolt as I sat in a taxi to Paris CDG--the worst airport in the world. I immediately began sobbing. He seemed like such a genuine and earnest human being, and I was shocked he was gone.

Anyway, back to Lou Reed. On Sunday afternoon, I was sitting in Nathan's family childhood home in New Jersey, talking to his grandparents. Nathan casually and silently passes me his phone: a text from Pete: LOU REED IS DEAD. OMG. I immediately Google on my phone, and it's true. I can't believe it. He was only 71. All of this happens without breaking conversation with the grandparents, so my shock is silent.

But it doesn't really hit me until later, when we start listening to Velvet Underground and solo Lou Reed songs. It's then that I realize how far back I go with Lou.

Listening to something off of Velvet Underground, I think Pale Blue Eyes, I suddenly remember being seventeen and listening to the same song as we toured college campuses. I think it was either Haverford or Swarthmore. I don't remember much else from the trip, but I recall pulling up a verdant drive and passing some school's arboretum as the Velvet Underground played.

My initial exposure to Lou Reed is via the Velvet Underground, when I'm 16 or so, and initially discovering rock music. This discovery came alongside that of (oddly enough) Belle as Sebastian, Joy Division, and the Smiths.

Later I got into his solo work, specifically Transformer and his most cracked-out album, Street Hassle.

When I graduated high school, a close family friend pulled some strings and got us tickets to the sold-out lecture Lou Reed was giving at the Warhol museum. It was incredible. Sure, he looked more like the principal from the Breakfast Club than the Rock n Roll Animal, but it was incredible nonetheless. I did ask a question during Q&A. About poetry. And I had some books signed. It is a really special memory, and certainly the coolest graduation present I have ever received.


When I first met Nathan and we exchanged mix cd's (as couples do early in their relationship), the CD he made for me included the Velvet Underground b-side "She's my Best Friend" which previously I had not heard.

The list goes on, ad nauseum. Beyond the personal connection I feel, I think New York has lost someone special. Rarely has an artist identified so strongly with the aesthetic and ethos of a city, as Lou Reed did New York. Maybe one day Laurie Anderson will pull a Yoko and commission a Lou Reed "Strawberry fields". It's highly unlikely, and I honestly wonder what a formal memorial to him would look like, given that his works are marked by beyond innovative, anti-establishment, and against the grain. I'll conclude my ramblings on the topic to note that the world has lost a thoroughly unique soul.