Below is a link to the full article on Lou Reed:

http://esotericembers.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/lou-reed-the-primordial-poet/

This is a short excerpt:

Lou was a prince and a fighter and I know his songs of the pain and beauty in the world will fill many people with the incredible joy he felt for life. Long live the beauty that comes down and through and onto all of us.

— Laurie Anderson, his loving wife and eternal friend

first published in the East Hampton Star

There is a line from the play An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde that captures some of the core Beauty in the being and work of Lou Reed: “it takes great courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.”  Like Oscar Wilde before him, Lou Reed was one of an ancient line of poets and bards who could be dismissed at times by society as libertines, yet whose masterful command of language combined with the courage to live a life on their own terms outside societal conventions, gave them the ability to uncover the greatest ills and hypocrisy of the very same society that judged them.  Lou Reed paid attention to people living in the streets of the city, people without a home, people addicted to drugs, people who felt like the gender given to them at birth was not their true gender- and loved them immensely, revealing the pain and tragedy of life at the same time he vibrated visceral vitality in being alive.

Lou Reed had the sort of grand ambitions that some label egotistical, such as openly admitting he wanted to be the greatest writer of all time, rivaling Shakespeare and Dostoevsky.  A Pisces Sun sign, Lou could express deep wisdom in his writing full of empathic compassion, yet at other times seem as condescending as a Pisces who becomes a Godhead once given the stage.  You will read some accounts of people calling Lou a monster, read or hear interviews of him not only derailing the entire interview process like his mentor Andy Warhol but also berating the journalist interviewing him.  For those that Lou let his guard down with, however, he was universally said to be known to have a heart of gold.  In the end, what most of us are left with is Lou’s work and the inspiration of his music, lyrics, and life.   I believe Lou created a stronger and more persistent archetypal role of the artist through his work in the 1960s than the other more celebrated icons of that era, in part because Lou never reached their level of gross excess and commercial success.  Lou has inspired countless numbers of youth in the generations that followed him to leave their status quo life behind and pursue the life of the artist, passionately working on art for art’s sake rather than material gain or fame.  In particular, through his connection with the poet Delmore Schwartz in college and then the rising art icon Andy Warhol once living in the streets of New York City, Lou colored his role with avant garde leanings in writing and sound that were dynamic, inventive, and cutting edge in comparison to the mainstream of his time.  Today, we are very familiar with associating New York City, for example the Lower Eastside, with avant garde artists living on their own and defining their own values, but Lou was pivotal in cementing this archetype in the popular imagination.