The late Lou Reed is pictured here performing in Amsterdam in 1974.
(Credit: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns)
Laurie Anderson, artist and wife of Lou Reed, wrote a short but sweet obituary for her husband, who died at 71 on Oct. 27. She published the obituary last Thursday in the East Hampton Star. Anderson and Reed spent a lot of time in the Long Island town and Anderson recounted her husband’s last days practicing tai chi.
Here is the letter in full:
To our neighbors:
What a beautiful fall! Everything shimmering and golden and all that incredible soft light. Water surrounding us.
Lou and I have spent a lot of time here in the past few years, and even though we’re city people this is our spiritual home.
Last week I promised Lou to get him out of the hospital and come home to Springs. And we made it!
Lou was a tai chi master and spent his last days here being happy and dazzled by the beauty and power and softness of nature. He died on Sunday morning looking at the trees and doing the famous 21 form of tai chi with just his musician hands moving through the air.
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
