Lou Reed

Lou Reed, co-founder of the Velvet Underground and the angry face of glam rock, is patron saint to three decades of rock musicians. This month the man who made the world safe for black nail polish releases a new album called Set the Twilight Reeling, and tells it like it is for V.F.'s Proust Questionnaire

Social Study

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Walking upright.

What is your most marked characteristic?

Sensitivity, modesty, and humor. I exist in a Leibnizian monad.

Which talent would you most like to have?

Ambidextrousness.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Being interviewed by an English journalist.

What is your greatest fear?

Interviews in an afterlife.

What is your current state of mind?

Elated.

When and where were you happiest?

1857.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Rent-controlled apartment.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Too much modesty.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Deafness.

What is your greatest extravagance?

I have none.

What is your favorite journey?

The No. 9 train on the West Side.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?

Too muscular.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

"Chill."

What is your greatest regret?

The loss of two Harleys.

What is your most treasured possession?

My baby teeth.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Laurie Anderson.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Peter Gabriel and his Witness program.

Which living person do you most admire?

Vaclav Havel.

Which living person do you most despise?

Rush Limbaugh, but there are so many.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?

An amplifier.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Frugality.

On what occasion do you lie?

Tax day.