Fifteen years ago, we were in New York for my nephew’s bar mitzvah at a little synagogue in Manhattan. Lou Reed was among the invited guests called up to read or recite a prayer, which he did nervously, in Hebrew.
A long-time fan of Velvet Underground and their frontman, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little star struck. Later when we arrived for the celebratory lunch at the beautiful Four Seasons restaurant (not to be confused with the hotel of the same name), I was somewhat chuffed to discover we were seated at the same table as Lou and his not-yet-wife, performance artist and singer/musician Laurie Anderson (of O Superman fame). A man of few words that day, I did make Laurie laugh when I related that some years back I’d accompanied my (now prominent) art world sister to Soho, where Laurie was playing her violin in a shop window.
Later, Lou and Richard were taking a smoke break when Richard asked whether there were any live shows he recommended. And so it was that we took my elderly mother a few days later to a small theatre in an hotel where survivors of the Titanic disaster were put up, to see an odd little alternative musical called Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Tellingly, perhaps, Lou’s choice was a cult attraction about a fictional rock band fronted by an East German transgender singer!
Thank you for the music, Lou Reed.