Lou Reed RIP

Great thread. The only Delmore Schwartz story I've read (by him, though it may also be about him) is "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities." Hope a Lou song with that title comes to light (according to Rolling Stone, he'd been playing with something called the Metal Machine Trio, and another one which included Laurie Anderson and John Zorn---let the box sets continue, and Bootleg Series begin). Anyway, I liked the story. Lots of good LR comments, memoirs etc. linked from rockcritics.com. Here's one such: "Lou Velvet(Or, Longtime Companion)(Kinda)" http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com/2013_11_01_archive.html

Found out about some bizarre but believable and touching anecdote that Donald has been telling. Someone posted it in the comments to Alex in NYCs blog among other places.
― Into The Disco Mystic (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, November 16, 2013 1:43 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what's the name of Alex's blog?

Flaming Pablum

thanks

Thanks for the link, dow. That guy is a great writer, I wonder if he posts on ilx?

The only Delmore Schwartz story I've read (by him, though it may also be about him) is "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities."

Thanks for the link, dow. That guy is a great writer, I wonder if he posts on ilx?

― Into The Disco Mystic (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, November 16, 2013 5:56 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is joek?

greg proops did a long bit dedicated to Lou Reed in the new episode of his podcast, goddamn it got me teary all over again

this is joek
squarepusher theme

Sorry link I meant to post was Defend The Indefensible: Elvis Costello's "No Action"

Meaning yes.

In fact, I posted that as soon as I saw the byline and scanned the first paragraph. Now that I've read the whole thing I would like to say something like: Don, that was really great and may be your best yet, which is saying something.

Thanks, James. Sorry if anybody's already posted this, but worth the risk: Reed's prose poem to Schwartz, published last year (check the comments too, esp. the sixth one, by Lote Tree)http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/article/244148#article

James Atlas biography of Delmore was very good. He also shows up to great effect in Anatole Broyard's When Kafka Was The Rage. Apparently he was one incredibly gifted raconteur who could weave together these fantastically long stories featuring famous people and all kind of incredible detail that would go on for hours or even days that, however preposterous, were also at the same time somehow plausible and believable.

He's pretty much the center or off-center of Humboldt's Gift too. And a lotta links here (great pic of DS w the Agees, also on the cover of a posthumous Schwartz comp) http://praymont.blogspot.com/2013/11/delmore-and-lou.html

Hey, one of the authors linked to on that page once "borrowed" some Delmore Schwartz books from me. In quotes because I had to remind him that they were mine and take them back off his shelf.

What are the essential Schwartz books? Or if correct answer is "All of 'em", what should we start with?

Wasn't crazy about the portrayal in Humboldt's Gift, seemed to be too much about the decline, although the sequence in which the Bellow standin (Charlie Citrine?) sees his former mentor looking demented holding a paper bag of groceries and passes up what would have been his past chance to talk to him is kind of unforgettable.

Yeah, that's almost the only thing I remember about it! Also, think Citrine glimpsed him from RFK's limo (as Kennedy was tersely grilling him about essential info on Spinoza or some other pillar of Western Civ)

Definitely read In Dreams Begin Responsibilities and Other Stories, for the other stories as well as the title one. That poem by Lou is the preface of the latest edition, which also contains intro by Atlas and the original afterword by Irving Howe as far as I can tell. See if you can find a collection which has his most famous poems, like "Plato" and "Socrates" for short, might find them in a general anthology, or just go for Summer Knowledge. Also definitely try to get a hold of some of his criticism to really see how he put language and ideas together. I never owned any of the last, just used to stop off and read some at the Mid-Manhattan Library, which is now up for sale, on my commute home from high school.

Hey, check these out. I don't have a subscription so I can't read the whole articles don't know if you do, but even the free teaser parts are informative:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1966/sep/08/delmore-schwartz-19131966/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1971/may/20/delmore-schwartz-the-paradox-of-precocity/

will get the books, thanks (o but Amazon, be ye not quite so damned convenient)

Feel like the perhaps excusable failure of SB to acknowledge his friend is overtaken by his inability to bring him to life on the page and show what a large shadow he really cast in his heyday- perhaps some kind of anxiety of influence. Maybe the reason Anatole Broyard was able to capture Delmore so well was that the two of them were kind of similar characters in that they both lived for literature and could thereupon expound wittily and endlessly but in the end never came near their potential, albeit for different reasons, so that in the end the biography is almost as and in the latter case more interesting than the work.

"the latter"---Schwartz's life more interesting than his work, or do you mean Broyard's? (mostly remember AB as gadfly reviewer, but All The Rage sounds good)

Broyard's life more interesting than work, Delmore's life almost as interesting but work still in the lead. I guess you never read the Skip Gates article on AB or his daughter's book or at least a review of it.

Too bad I don't have my copies if the books anymore- maybe I should have left one on the guy's shelf after all- or I might have just sent them to you. In any case you can read some of the poems through google books or even here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171344

http://web.princeton.edu/sites/english/NEH/GATES1.HTM

Yeah, don't want you to go crazy buying books but you should definitely read When Kafka Was The Rage.

Used to think Lou made too much of the Schwartz connection but I guess at this stage it is reasonably clear that there were many times when he WAS channeling the guy.

Need it be added that the guy was also silent film-star handsome in his day.

And that his shade flickers through the aperture at screenings of Zelig?

Which just led me by a commodius vicus to this: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/music/115016/lou-reeds-rabbi-2?all=1

If that's too compare-and-contrast for you, you can just go directly here: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/74715/growing-pains

And then read the bio at the Poetry Foundation page: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/delmore-schwartz
and then this poem: http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/delmore-schwartz/tired-and-unhappy-you-think-of-houses/

And the bio over there as well: http://www.poemhunter.com/delmore-schwartz/biography/
OK, I'll stop. Sorry it took a while.

Hm. That last website is kind of cheesy. Some stuff on it though.

Basically what it seems to add up to was that the guy was a poet's poet's poet's poet.

Holy shit, just finished reading the princeton.edu re Broyard. I'd heard about some of that, but not in depth, incl.lingering questions (balanced by many accounts of the price he and others quite evidently paid). Leave it to Gates! I'll have to get his whole book, and see how this fits in. Thanks for all these links.

Sure. But Gates didn't write a book, just the article, as far as I know, Broyard's daughter wrote one pretty recently called One Drop. Believe she was annoyed that Gates wrote the article because she thought he was going to leave it to her to do it.

I took it as the one piece about Broyard in a collection of essays and/or profiles, since the site cites:
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "The Passing of Anatole Broyard." In Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man. New York: Random House, 1997. Pp. 180-214.

Yeah, now I see references to O.J. and other subjects in its reviewers' descriptions---gotta get it.

Lou Reed Remembered will air at 9pm on BBC Four this Sunday (December 15) and will include contributions from Reed's former Velvet Underground bandmates Mo Tucker and Doug Yule plus Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore as well as Boy George and Debbie Harry.

Berlin guitarist Steve Hunter, novelist Paul Auster and photographer Mick Rock will also speak about Reed while Trash actress Holly Woodlawn, referenced in the opening lyric of The Velvet Underground's 'Walk on the Wild Side', will also appear.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/lou-reed/74328#PvwITO08ZC0xUx98.99

Can you spot what's wrong with the above? NME did not.

"Walk on the Wild Side" was by the Stooges

Paul Auster didn't play on Loaded

Yay, Doug Yule

Thurston Moore isn't in Sonic Youth?

*facepalm* got it now.

Still, a bit better than the Evening Standard having "Jerry Dammers sang about Nelson Mandela"

Lou Reed Remembered will air at 9pm on BBC Four this Sunday (December 15) and will include contributions from Reed's former Velvet Underground bandmates Mo Tucker and Doug Yule plus Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore as well as Boy George and Debbie Harry

Where was Doug Yule then? I was like, "... Dougie must be up next... is that him... when's Dougie coming on..." And Victor Fucking Bockris was on it! Almost blubbed at Mo's bit though, I must admit.

I missed the first half but was John Cale featured at all? Hope it gets repeated when I can see it.

No, didn't expect him to be on it anyway.