Time flies... it flies mercilessly fast or slow depending on your life experience at that moment... Lou Reed, the uber dean of modern rock passed away more than seven years ago and it almost slipped my mind.
Just finished belatedly David Keenan's second novel, For The Good Times, (yes, I know, almost two years too late since it first appeared) and got reminded of Lou Reed as Keenan has always been a huge proselytiser of all things about him and all things influenced by him, example, Peter Laughner. Smog Veil released an excellent box set on Laughner and now it has also re-issued the loving book by Adele Bertei, Peter And the Wolves. Should be somewhere in the air crossing the ocean to me.
Going back to Keenan's second one, go get it, if you haven't: brutal, earthy, surreal but yet real as hell, a book on the tragic years of The Troubles in Northern Ireland back in the 1970s and you would think that the world would be a better place today. The same cruelty, the same human irony and contradictions, the same human folly continues, albeit in slightly different geopolitical locations elsewhere. In recent months, France, Ethiopia, the USA, Lebanon, and countless others no less important than the above. Awaiting for Keenan's third to arrive anytime now.
Since I am in a mood, here are my COVID-19 stay-home essentials from the man who had walked on the wild side all those years. Perhaps the best soundtrack for this time of the year?
