I never got into the music of Lou Reed. Don’t hate. I am not actually sure I could pick his music out of a lineup. During lunch, I accidentally ran into a Lou Reed memorial. It was a bunch of chairs, chevron-ed under a cluster of trees at Lincoln Center, with speakers blasting music. A lot of people were sitting and standing there listening, and I walked quickly around trying to find the source of the music, going “where’s the show? where’s the band?” like a genius. Turned out it was a DJ playing Lou Reed’s greatest hits, or maybe all of the B-sides, or all of his music. I would not know.
In any case, even though I have not sampled his music, I like what I’ve read about him. He caught my eye by being a successful musician married to another successful musician who was actually his age. That’s rare. Usually it seems one partner’s powers are quite diminished compared to the star partner’s powers. Laurie Anderson, his bad arse music star wife (another musician whose work strikes me as meh, but whose life seems terribly interesting), read at her husband’s induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She talked about how right before he died, his hands were moving in different tai chi positions (they both practiced), and it made her feel incredibly and unexpectedly light.
Here are the rules of life they developed:
1. Don’t be afraid of anyone.
2. Get a really good bullshit detector and learn how to use it.

3. Be really really tender.