LOU REED & the Secret Life of Plants

“Where does this put me with the punk-rockers?” Lou Reed mutters, not caring much, as he helps himself to another blini. We’re lunching at New York’s totally unreal, definitely prerevolutionary Russian Tea Room, just a cork-pop down 57th Street from Carnegie Hall. It’s like walking into Dr. Zhivago—a red and forest-green swankerie, festooned with tinsel Christmas decorations twelve months a year and a catchy line-up of second-string impressionist/fauvist/cubist paintings sold off by immigrant White Russian ndbles who fled the Bolsheviks to become New York City doormen. (“Blini”, for all you uncouth louts, is caviar pancakes with sour cream—you don’t dare ask for maple syrup.)

“The corrupting influence is the promotion people,” Lou observes, cheerfully gulping another morsel of the $16-an-ounce fish eggs. So true, since we’re gathered to honor Lou Reed Live —Take No Prisoners, his new double album on Arista. Lou looks All-American normal today in his greyand-white checked lumberjack shirt. Sure, when the waitress comes he offers me bread-and-water (just the obligatory get-acquainted jab to test my balance). Sure", when she brings me a Perrier he tells me scientists have discovered the stuff causes stomach cramps and ulcers (serves me right for paying extra for bubbles). Basically, though, he seems to be in an accomodating mood.