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The Art of the Straight Line  By  cover art

The Art of the Straight Line

By: Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson
Narrated by: Laurie Anderson, Stephan Berwick, Bob Currie, Scott Richman, Ron Butler, Feodor Chin, Adam Grupper, Jeff Gurner, Hillary Huber, Brian Nishii, Rob Shapiro, Oliver Wyman, Eric Yang, Emily Woo Zeller
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Publisher's summary

The Art of the Straight Line captures the energy of Lou Reed’s worlds of Tai Chi, music, and meditation. It was edited by his wife, the artist Laurie Anderson, with Stephan Berwick, Bob Currie, and Scott Richman.

Lou Reed was a musician, singer, songwriter, poet, and founding member of the legendary rock band the Velvet Underground. He collaborated with many artists, from Andy Warhol and John Cale to Robert Wilson and Metallica. Reed had a groundbreaking solo career that spanned five decades until his death in 2013.

Reed was also an accomplished martial artist whose practice began in the 1980s. He studied with Chen Tai Chi pioneer Master Ren GuangYi. This book is a comprehensive collection of Reed’s writings on Tai Chi. It includes conversations with Reed’s fellow musicians, artists, friends, and Tai Chi practitioners, including Julian Schnabel, A. M. Homes, Hal Willner, Mingyur Rinpoche, Eddie Stern, Tony Visconti, and Iggy Pop.

The Art of the Straight Line features Reed’s unpublished writings on the technique, practice, and purpose of martial arts, as well as essays, observations, and riffs on meditation and life.

©2022 Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

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A nice supplement to the DeCurtis book

If you're a big Lou Reed fan, you've already read the DeCurtis biography. This makes a nice supplement to that if you're at all interested in Tai Chi.

This book is a bit too hagiographical at times, and some of the interviewees go on a bit too long talking about themselves, which is a problem with an audio book because it's harder to find where their part ends so that you can skip ahead. While the actors do a perfectly good job of "playing" various people in Lou's Tai Chi life such as Tony Visconti and Mick Rock when they read those parts of the book, it is a treat to hear Laurie Anderson read her own parts.

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Taichi passion

Love the narrative way to express the essence of taichi. It’s a piece full of love.

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