WALK & TALK IT

They weren't your usual brand of churchgoers, this barely-contained mob in leather jackets, black-on-black costumes with white pancake made up faces, all moaning 'Louew-ew!!!' like a herd of demented cows. But then again, this wasn't the usual session of rapt communication with your favorite non-earthly deity. What was happening in the vaulted cathedral around the comer from the West side Manhattan YMCA, was a rare night of earthly transcendence: over an hour of poetry reading by Jim Carroll—who does this often— and Lou Reed—who has done this sort of performance maybe twice in the past 10 years.

According to Jason Shinder, director of the Y's 'Writers Voice' program and organizer of the standing-room-only event, he and Jim Carroll—who is arguably more acclaimed for his written words than his three Atlantic albums—decided that getting Lou to present a reading would help create an extraordinary evening, and help raise some muchneeded funding for the literaryoriented program. Because Lou had enjoyed doing a reading with Carroll, Allen Ginsberg and many others at the St. Mark's Church a year and a half ago, he accepted their request.