In today’s premium membership issue of Planet Waves, Eric recounts how seminal the late Lou Reed’s music was in his life — and to the times in which we live. Including first-hand accounts by those who met and worked with Reed, it’s a beautiful tribute to one of humanity’s (and rock music’s) finest.
You can read the full issue, which includes the November Inner Space horoscopes and astro-news briefs, by purchasing it individually here. Or, sign up for a free one-month trial membership here.
Eric,
Thank you for the tribute to Lou Reed. Definitely a life story well told by you, beautifully and sensitively written. Your writing and reporting talents shine, enabling readers to feel, sense and appreciate the person Lou Reed was.
JannKinz
One more thought about Lou Reed that floated in a little late, from Carol Queen the SF-based sex educator. This opens up a whole new dimension…
“Lou Reed’s success was proof, as well as a powerful engine of, the sex and gender revolution. Sex people will always have a special place in our hearts for him, partly for what Rolling Stone’s obituary called his ‘ambiguous sexual persona’: reportedly his parents subjected him to electroshock ‘therapy’ to try to ‘cure’ his bisexuality when he was still a teenager, which must have made having a top 40 hit with Walk on the Wild Side seem like pretty sweet revenge.
“My favorite is the Velvet’s Venus in Furs, about sadomasochism, with the haunting final line ‘Strike, dear Mistress, and cure his heart’. Venus in Furs is the title of the 1870 novella whose author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch gave his name to masochism. And the Velvet Underground was named in the first place after a pulp-nonfiction pop sociology book about subcultural sex — no we didn’t invent that in the 1990s or even in the 1970s. Lou clearly knew his literature. And whether the sadomasochism he illuminates in Venus in Furs is based on his own lived experience or a riff on the nineteenth-century kinkery from which it borrows its imagery, its lyric look into desire and erotic power is deep and spiritual.
“Let’s assume that with the electroshock, if in the context of no other experience, Lou Reed had descended to the underworld; one element of his great genius was that he came back to the world, re-inhabited the world and his own life, and did not allow himself to be broken by his family’s and culture’s homophobia and sexphobic values. Instead, he transformed; he led.”
And thank you, too, for giving us one of the last (wonderful) photos taken of Lou Reed.
Oh gosh Eric – I was moved to tears by your beautiful tribute to Lou Reed. It helped soothe some of the sadness in my heart. So enjoyed reading about such an important piece of your life story, how Lou Reed helped you to find the courage to break free and follow your own path.
Perhaps he’s jamming up there with Nico right now,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_l5byiVnMQ
Had learned to play Perfect Day on the ukulele last smmer, the sweet melancholy of the song works beautifully on that instrument,
Eric
Countless thanks for your wondrous tribute to Lou Reed. His presence on earth during my lifetime was a gift in itself, as his consciousness, clarity, music and spirit provided point and counterpoint … and beyond!… to my own journey. Part of the soundtrack continuing to play in multiple dimensions.
Millions of us have stories about how he so clearly articulated the conundrum of our time. May his journey continue to be a blessing to all that he is and will yet become.
Peace and light,
Gloria
Gloria Star
http://www.GloriaStar.com
Thank you, Eric for a feature article that addresses (and makes) history as something more than power, presidents, war and wanton waste. Lou Reed is, not was – you get that, and you show us how to get it as well. Thank you also for the Inner Space Horoscopes that are not only unique in all he world, but also serendipitously rooted in the reason the Lou Reed is, not was. Mag-blanking-ificent.