[Genteel Death]

https://medium.com/cuepoint/a-family...d-20e8399f84a3

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

https://medium.com/cuepoint/a-family...d-20e8399f84a3

great great thanks

a sweet read (no pun)

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Here is my two cents.. siblings ALWAYS have different experiences and perceptions of their parents and upbringing, especially with age differences. Basically this article comes across aas a sister trying desperately to defend her parents when Lou himself had expressed different sentiments. I don't know all the gossip, and i don't want too, but id take Lou's own word for it over his sister's posthumous apologetics

[Toilet & Bowels]

Well obviously her experience is less valid because she isn't famous and successful

[whorefrost]

Hear hear!

[rebeccagotcursedout]

poor Lou. I've been reading snippets from Velvet Underground Day by Day off google books.

the 67 period is interesting. esp. their dealing with The Beatles manager Brian Epstein.

[Rob Instigator]

everyone knows Lou Reed was a Grade-A asshole.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Yes he was but maybe he had his reasons? Im not dissing his sister BUT she is younger than him, her memories may be distorted by childhood. Further and again, people have differing memories of their parents from childhood. For example me and my younger sister have totally different experiences and explanations for our childhood experiences. Further me and my older sisters also have different views about the exact same events and people! So if Lou said his childhood was shit i trust his own opinion about his own life above his sister who can only speak for herself

[Genteel Death]

Reed Wiener told Billboard during Friday’s induction eve VIP party at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum that she’d actually penned the essay shortly after Reed died during Oct. 2013 and “gave it to certain biographers and said, ‘Look, don’t misquote me now.’ I felt that depicting something as complicated as what actually happened in a cartoonish way, a sensationalized way, from lyrics and interpreting them as truth had reached a point with so many biographers circling around that I needed to make a statement. I was so enraged. There’s a book that came out by a guy named Jeremy Reed (Waiting For The Man: The Life and Career of Lou Reed) that says that my father beat my mother and a host of other things. It’s just so ludicrous, and for someone to be that facile in interpreting lyrics as truth is… I mean, do we take D.H. Lawrence and assume everything is authentic?"

Weiner added: "So I wrote it and then my son, the media savvy guy, said, ‘Mom, we can put it on the Internet.’ So I said, ‘Why not? Let’s set the record straight,’ and that’s what I endeavored to do and I feel like I did it. And I knew Lou always wanted me to do that.”
http://www.billboard.com/articles/ne...ction-ceremony

[Genteel Death]

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...-10166659.html

 

A perfect day: Lou Reed at home on his wedding day in 1973 (1973 Bettye Kronstad)

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

There’s a book that came out by a guy named Jeremy Reed (Waiting For The Man: The Life and Career of Lou Reed) that says that my father beat my mother and a host of other things. It’s just so ludicrous, and for someone to be that facile in interpreting lyrics as truth is… I mean, do we take D.H. Lawrence and assume everything is authentic?"

A former friend used to work in bookshop with Jeremy Reed, he always struck me as a bit of a twit. It doesn't surprise me that he mistook Lou Reed's lyrics for for historical facts.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Yes he was but maybe he had his reasons? Im not dissing his sister BUT she is younger than him, her memories may be distorted by childhood. Further and again, people have differing memories of their parents from childhood. For example me and my younger sister have totally different experiences and explanations for our childhood experiences. Further me and my older sisters also have different views about the exact same events and people! So if Lou said his childhood was shit i trust his own opinion about his own life above his sister who can only speak for herself

*Correction: Her memories from childhood are most definitely distorted. It's not speciation, it's fact. Memory is colored and shifted and fractured almost immediately. Seriously, seconds are more than enough to turn a memory into a fantasy. It's a sad truth that most people don't know how to accept, but our brains don't keep time in a bottle. At this point, whatever specific memories she claims to have are more likely to be ballpark guesses. This is especially true when it comes to memories of things NOT happening. It is no more possible for someone to accurately claim that something (like a domestic assault) did not occur than it is to prove a negative.

So you're absolutely right. Science is only beginning to grasp the degree to which memory is inherently corruptible and unreliable. I truly doubt Lou Reed's sister is the exception to this.

All we have is evidence, and while memory can be a supplement to evidence, it's the archival evidence that has the best chance at telling an accurate story.

...

I also think oral histories are pretty safe, because you can compare and contrast the equally fucked memories of multiple people. This makes discrepancies easy to spot, and allows readers to pick up on common and recurring concepts.

[Genteel Death]

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

A former friend used to work in bookshop with Jeremy Reed, he always struck me as a bit of a twit. It doesn't surprise me that he mistook Lou Reed's lyrics for for historical facts.

Have you ever read the book yourself?

[Genteel Death]

Suchfriends knows Lou Reed better than his sister. Who knew?

[Severian]

Sorry to go all cognitive neuro-nazi on the thread. Clearly I miss being in my actual discipline.

Cognition, perception and memory are insanely fascinating academic and medical specializations, but they are also infuriating to those who aren't into neuroscience.

I have real trouble interacting with people on the subject of memory. When people tell me heavily detailed stories from their distant past, it takes a Herculean exertion of willpower to refrain from saying, "You know, unless you're Kim fuckin' Peak, what you're telling me is a work of fiction... like, I know you love telling this story about his thing that happened when you were five, and I know you've made it part of your self concept, part of your very identity... But you should know that you probably only have about 12% of the facts straight. The rest is filler... not flashbulb memories but little movies your consciousness has adapted from stories other people have told you, which were themselves full of holes and manufactured content. So .... You know... Nice story and stuff, but.... it didn't happen like that."

... Sometimes resistance is futile and I say something despite myself, and I see the familiar look of searing hatred in the eyes of the person I'm speaking to. But fuck, man... I didn't design the human brain. I'm just aware of the fact that I'm not a goddamn robot, and I think it's utterly fascinating that human attention and memory are so flawed and prone to distortion. It's such a cool neurobiological and neurophilosophical mystery. I am always surprised to see that others don't find it as entertaining as I do.

...
Man I'm a fuckin freak.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

Suchfriends knows Lou Reed better than his sister. Who knew?

Is that what he's claiming? To me it seemed like he was suggesting a possibility. The use of the word "maybe" and the question mark punctuation were what tipped me off... looked like he was trying to participate in a conversation to me.

But you're probably right... he probably was implying that he knew a man he'd never met more intimately than said man's immediate family. You're a paragon of reason and authenticity, battling bullshit like the Toxic Avenger. I'm sure SFAD is hanging his head in shame.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

Suchfriends knows Lou Reed better than his sister. Who knew?

I never said that at all, what i said exactly was i think LOU REED KNOWS MORE ABOUT HIS OWN EXPERIENCE growing up and so id take his word about it over his sister's yo.. Thanks for playing, better luck nxt year

 

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Severian

To me it seemed like he was suggesting a possibility.

eh? suchfriends is NEVER uncertain about anything-- that "maybe" was rhetorical, followed by a string of categorical judgments.

anyway, re: memory shifted/fractured -- sure, memory is selective, has to be sifted, etc..

but on a practical way, it can't be that inaccurate/fantastic, can it?

just imagine the ancient hunter gatherer: "this is the way we follow the caribou-- i remember from last year"-- and then they walk into a volcano crater and burn to cinders. or: "hey, i remember this fruit, it was delicious!" and then they all get poisoned. if memory was THAT inaccurate we'd be extinct.

we've evolved to have memory because it has some evolutionary advantage-- without it learning would be impossible. memory's function can't be the construction of a pure fantasyland. it has a correlate to reality, however imperfect. when it's overly distorted, it's a sign of mental illness.

also if memory is a fantasy then this would extend to lou as well-- and the biographers. so who is fantasizing more? who knows! right?

and yes, people have a way to block out trauma (mental illness)-- but seeing as how the lady in question is now a mental health professional with decades of experience, she must know a thing or two about that? she's probably had plenty of therapy herself, as it's a requirement to practice. hard to believe she's just peddling denial (but it could be).

last, the article from the ex-wife saying how "lewis" (i like how she calls him that) went back home and found a supportive atmosphere & even worked for his dad as a typist. if it had been such a terrifying home he wouldn't have returned there, would he? and the girl wasn't 12 then either.

last-last, the quote i found from lou reed about removing homosexuality with electroshock-- he attributes it to the hospital not his parents.

so yes, we color memory, it's selective, transformed, etc.-- but memory isn't pure nonsense either. if it was i wouldn't be able to typjasdn;v8eg;

i'm not saying this person is right this person is wrong-- we don't have access to an absolute truth here, but i do appreciate reading the sister's perspective in this story. no need to believe everything she says, but no need to dismiss her outright either. she was there, after all, and we weren't.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Im not saying what you OR Severian are saying, what i said was that his sister shouldn't be assumed to speak on his behalf about his own experiences. Her experience of her parents may just have been different from her brother's

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Im not saying what you OR Severian are saying, what i said was that his sister shouldn't be assumed to speak on his behalf about his own experiences. Her experience of her parents may just have been different from her brother's

she wasn't talking about lou's subjective experiences though-- she was talking first-person about family history. and that is what's i like about what she wrote.

it's not merrill vs. lou-- it's merrill vs. the (for-profit) biographers (mostly).

eta: in the end she says "the stories he tells seem like total fantasy to me". okay. there's that. who knows? maybe he was being 100% truthful maybe he was creating his own legend.