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"  For me, The Velvet Underground was the band that was always there when I wanted them, but I never consciously sought them out. So I was surprised how bummed I got at the news of Lou Reed&amp;#039;s death. I think it&amp;#039;s because urban life, old New York, and the people who inhabited it informed so much of his work and what he wrote about. It was clear he loved his city, but also how hard that love is at times. Maybe that&amp;#039;s why I was so down: I don&amp;#039;t write about that at all, but it is very much my life. I live in my city, and I love it\u2014I don&amp;#039;t think I could live anywhere else. But it&amp;#039;s a hard love sometimes, and it can make you feel very tired. When I heard about Lou Reed yesterday, Karel and I were watching a football game with a 25-year-old friend who had never heard of Reed or The Velvet Underground. I found the most easily accessible Velvet Underground album we had, which turned out to be &amp;quot;The Greatest Hits,&amp;quot; and put it on while I drove our friend home. On the way back to my quiet neighborhood, I passed by several of the tiny, crumbling apartments where Karel and I had lived. I saw corners where I had been fall-down drunk in high school, old job sites where I had worked with at-risk and incarcerated kids, and the neighborhoods where those kids and their families came from. Neighborhoods that are not that far, or drastically different, from where I&amp;#039;m raising my family. In a city like Philadelphia, nothing is really that far apart. Reed&amp;#039;s lyrics captured all of these things: the bits of the American melting pot that aren&amp;#039;t easily celebrated, or, at least, aren&amp;#039;t celebrated comfortably. Then, &amp;quot;Pale Blue Eyes&amp;quot; came on. I always forget that it&amp;#039;s out there, but it&amp;#039;s been there for me when I&amp;#039;m feeling depressed and need a lo-fi pick me up. Because in the setting sun on an autumn afternoon with &amp;quot;Pale Blue Eyes&amp;quot; on in the background, even the hardest neighborhoods in a hard city can seem very beautiful in their own way. And I think Lou Reed understood that.         "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/mens-perspective/a16284/lou-reed-remembered-aaron-traister/>