Lou Reed: The Blue Mask

I’m trying to remember what Garland Jeffreys said about this whilst wearing t-shirt I bought from his wife at his apartment (He was doing a free concert on the grounds). Seem to recall he was unimpressed by Delmore at the time Lou introduced him. But man, I sure loved the James Atlas bio, along with the Delmore portrait in When Kafka Was the Rage, but took no little offense at his portrayal in Humboldt’s Gift.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/16/garland-jeffreys-hung-out-with-lou-reed-brush-with-greatness
The ending of this almost made me want to cry, really, although probably not nearly as hard as Lou cried at the end of Terms of Endearment.

A proud and regal name!
He told various stories about why his Mom named him that. As I mentioned on the xpost Delmore thread:
...Cynthia Ozick concludes, in her intro to Screeno: Stories and Poems, though some may think of the fancy poems as Delmore, the urban raincoat stories as Schwartz, "they're really from the same DNA." By the time GJ met him, may have already been consistently on the skids, although seems to have always been quite variable. Have held off on reading the Atlas bio because JA dismisses the stories after first collection, or more of them than I do, also, having read so much of him, don't really want to read that much more about him, as w Proust etc., but more so. Prob will someday, though.

Haven’t reread in years, but whatever beefs Atlas may have with some of the work, his portrayal of DS is extremely sympathetic.

I found Schwartz a lucid critic and pretty good short story writer and a clotted, obscurantic poet.

This indigestible hybrid of (Hart) Crane and Roethke.

You forgot top tier raconteur!

His most famous poems and a selected few others are good but yeah.

I know I seem to stand alone as his sole stan on ILB/X, but I feel something similar about Gilbert Sorrentino: indifferent to his poetry, jaw drops at everything else he does.

Coterie Writers Of Minimum Distinction Memorial Thread

The most recently, frequently revived Lou thread, so I'll paste this here, from ilxor tylerw's invaluable tumblr, doomandgloomfromthetomb:

Lou Reed - Tinley Park, Chicago, Illinois, September 12, 1992*

Last week, we heard Lou debut some spoken word renditions of a few Magic & Loss lyrics. Today, we get to hear them in a more traditional setting: you can’t beat two guitars, bass and drums. I’ve picked this particular show not only because it’s a very nice FM broadcast, but also because it features a very unique, very cool, very short-lived band: the awesome Marc Ribot on lead guitar and bassist Greg Cohen, along with drummer Michael Blair.

Ribot and Cohen at this point were probably best known for their work in the John Zorn and Tom Waits universes, and it’s interesting to hear their styles added to Lou’s early 1990s period. Ribot in particular is probably the most distinctive guitarist this side of Quine that Lou has worked with — and he sounds great here, going for broke in a way that Mike Rathke doesn’t. Check out his smoky solo on “Magician” or his driving, his shimmery sound on “Tell It To Your Heart” or his dramatic playing on “Sword of Damocles.” That latter tune is a highlight; towards the end, Lou quotes “Save The Last Dance For Me,” making its connection to Doc Pomus explicit. A really powerful moment!

I like the other Magic & Loss numbers, too — they’re a little more revved up and energetic, for sure. It’s also impressive that Lou tries to perform “Harry’s Circumcision” in front of a somewhat rowdy outdoor audience. He really believed in his new material — in fact, the set is dominated by late-period material, aside from a few obligatory walks on the wild side. Onwards!

Lou Says (1992): You’re confused because you’re thinking about pop music and pop records, or rock ‘n’ roll. Think about Brecht and Weill, “Seven Deadly Sins.” Boy, now I wish I had come up with that one first. If you think of it as Lou Reed music, not pop or rock, those expectations (of what kind of songs belong on a pop record) disappear, because they don’t exist for an artist… All the way back to “Heroin,” the idea was to tell stories from different points of view, with conflicting opinions. Some of it can seem very personal, or at least it comes across that way, because you’re acting. And then you can write something equally personal that’s completely at odds with what the first person said. Any great novel has lots of “personal things” floating through it, whatever the character you’re writing about.
*link is at top of tyler's page:
https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/search/Lou%20Reed%20Marc%20Ribot