lolabelle
from here
And one more highlight of Saturday was a special showing of Laurie Anderson's "Hidden Inside Mountains", a 25-minute piece that was created for EXPO 2005 in Japan. The screening was followed by a lenghty discussion of the work. A personal highlight was sitting next to Lou Reed and his dog Lolabelle through the entire program. The two seem to be quite close and Lolabelle even has an appearance in his "mother" Laurie Anderson's movie.
I....I don't know how to feel about this. On the one hand, I like dogs too. On the other, something inside of me has just died.
Reading about other movies that premiered at that festival, seems the Joaquin Phoenix Johnny Cash pic is going to be good, as well as the Philip Seymour Hoffman Truman Capote movie, as well as the gay cowboy Brokeback Mountain. Movies are a little exciting.
I wonder how a person sings exactly like Johnny Cash. Or exactly like anyone. Joaquin Phoenix, you are spooky.
I am tired. I wonder what would happen if I just went to bed right now.
posted by Kristi @ 5:33 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I used to think that Lou Reed was a total badass... With his wrap-around shades, dressed in black, speed and heroin addiction, well-read and seemingly street smart...there was nobody cooler.
Now, I'm convinced that he is (and probably always was) a big pussy.
Poor Lou.
Was it the drugs? Was it the affair with Bowie? Was it that he was just too eager to please? I've read the lyrics to "Vicious"... sure it's catchy... but damn... maybe it should have been called "Vacuous".
Exhibit A:
"Vicious
you hit me with a flower
You do it every hour
oh, baby, you're so vicious
Vicious
you want me to hit you with a stick
But all I've got is a guitar pick
huh, baby, you're so vicious"
Exhibit B:
The Raven - an album about and inspired by Edgar Allen Poe.
It's almost like he stopped trying to be cool around 1984. Sometimes one can be cool by "not trying", but Lou just sank deeper. He's all about gold la'me and Cosby sweaters now.
Poor, poor Lou.
-sc
Now, see, I am also a fan of glam Lou, but what I always say about glam types is that they actually are totally fucking ballsy, because of the shit they can get. So the lyrics of Vicious and whatever other songs leaned a little twee, that all just confirms for me his former badassness. It's just that now he's old, and so comfortable, and that's nice I suppose....maybe the "mother" thing was the reporter speaking, not Lou or Laurie. Oh, I hope.
I just would have thought he'd be at least a little spiky, a little rough, in old age. Oh well.
I don't necessarily mean that Lou's descent into lame-ness occured during his glam phase, but that it's apparent that his edge has been dulled. Lou stopped being relevant around the time of his "Drugs: I did them, you shouldn't start" PSAs and his Honda scooter advertisements of the mid 1980's. Around this time the old "glam" Lou was replaced by the "Tough-guy" Lou (muscle shirts and whatnot).
I think that Bowie is the flipside of Reed. Bowie still maintains an aura of cool and edge despite his new material being largely crap. On the other hand, as you mentioned, Reed is just getting old and comfortable. Maybe seeing him like this makes me re-evaluate his history, looking for chinks in the armor and hints of the lame-ness to come.
-s
Ok, my theory on this:
I bet the young Lou, the youngish Lou even, never expected the success he did get, the reputation and respect he got--how his name, and the velvet underground's, have gotten to be such watchwords of cool or something, even now decades after that music was made. I don't think he didn't think he was cool--but I think he's far more comfortable, having far more markers of success, than he'd dreamed. And I think also he probably yearned for some conventional ideas of success all this time, but felt like too much of a freak to ever get them, for whatever reasons--the differences that did make him cool. Once he didn't feel so much of an outsider, and was an undeniably successful man-- then he does the PSAs, gets all literary-canony, goes to movie premieres with his dog, just is not cool.
Oh, also, I wanted to say about Bowie--since he got his success so early, he might have been able to get a better handle on being his outsidery self without embracing conventional ideas of success and being more conventional period. But, maybe he started out weirder than Lou.
What a silly little discussion we are having, huh? Like I know anything about these people.
true, but discussing the tipping point in Lou Reed's career in infinitely better than doing math homework.
maybe I can write my dissertation on this...
I am doing homework right now whilst listening to poddy, and Vicious just came up on shuffle! Ha!
I am telling you, the Lou there: total badass, in his sassiness.
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