Velvet Revolution; Opera Musical

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:52 PM -0400 5/9/00, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

>VELVET REVOLUTION
>
>   PRAGUE POST, May 10-16, 2000, pg. A5, col. 1:
>
>_A walk on the wild side: Lou Reed, Havel stay out all night_
>(...) Reed, 58, and Havel, 63, have been locked in a mutual admiration
>society ever since they first met in 1990, when Reed traveled to Prague to
>interview Havel for _Rolling Stone_ magazine.  (I'll check this later--ed.)
>(col. 3--ed.)  "The Velvet Underground became the Velvet Revolution," Hillary
>Clinton said at a press conference during Reed's (1998 White House--ed.)
>visit.
>   In fact, The Velvet Underground musically influenced the members of the
>dissident Czech band The Plastic People of the Universe.  Their late-1976
>arrest led to the formation of Charter 77, the human rights movement that
>made the first real crack in the Iron Curtain.
>   As for the notion that the Velvet Revolution's name was inspired by The
>Velvet Underground, local musicians and critics dismiss it as urban legend.
>   The name The Velvet Underground was lifted from a pornographic novel.
>
Wasn't it borrowed from William Burroughs' NAKED LUNCH?  If so, that's no
more (and probably less) a pornographic novel than ALICE IN WONDERLAND is a
kiddies' book or MOBY-DICK a story about whale-watchers.

larry