lou reed

did you see the pbs doc on lou reed? it's probably being shown again all the time. it was made no later than 1997, last dateline in it.

paid a lot of attention to reed's post velvet, solo career. i think, too much.

the earlier stuff was full of dance. that was the way to hear it. the show didn't even mention dance. the earlier stuff was about the weird power that can come from burning yourself up, self-combustion.

     I have made big decision

     I'm goin' to try to nullify my life

what energy from self-annihialtion, when you're young. think rimbaud. unless it goes on too long. then think dead.

that's not to diminish the often tender and exquisite lyrics, or reed's acknowledgment of delmore schwartz, his teacher, whose  "in dreams begin responsibilities," i will therefore finally read.

ts eliot & lou reed both fans of delmore schwartz.

the show did capture how much lou reed was of new york, imbued by it, impossible anywhere else, sucking it up & smelling of the place (which meant manhattan, a certain section thereof, back then, of course.)

but what a scene: nico, for example. i loved her vocalizing but didn't think she was so cool when i found out she had intentionally passed on her heroin addiction to her baby. (see "nico icon".)

and though, you know, it was pumped into me, i didn't really get until this show how warhol's "factory" worked to bring people from different media together, visual & acoustic, film, paint, rock 'n roll media meltdown.

warhol got that somehow, though i don't think of him as a "head", in the acid sense. he got it, though, in a low down trash glam ny way. he had impeccable taste, of a certain sort: brillo boxes, the velvets, joe dellasandro (who appears in the pbs doc) etc.