One morning -- early afternoon, actually -- Lou Reed rolled out of bed.

"I should really lighten up," he said aloud to his shuttered New York existence.

No one answered, so he kept going.

"Maybe get cable, eat a lot of fusion food, drink imported beer, read comics, hang out with sarcastic college kids and get a subscription to Details, People and the Utne Reader."

He scratched his lined and haggard face.

"Yes. Lighten up -- that would be good. I think I was that. Once. Maybe."

Then he opened the curtains and looked outside at a world he thought he knew.

But this time, as he stared at the pavement below, he began to view things in a very different way.

When he looked down, no longer did he see the hookers and the pimps and the junkies and the rats and the dirt and the disease and the hate and the smog and the futility of the outside world.

Instead, on the streets he saw the consumers and the businessmen and the billboards and the marquees and the fashion and the dropped coins and the shiny pop cans and the frisbee-catching dogs and the buskers and the possibilities of another day.

And he liked it.

From window to window he went, raising the curtains and, at the same time, his mood, so that when he was finally done, his view of the world, of his world, wasn't dark and directly down -- it was quirky, hip and all around.

He was now, in mind, body and musical spirit, Stephen Malkmus.

Track Listing 1. Black Book
  2.Phantasies
  3.Jo Jo's Jacket
  4.Church On White
  5.The Hook
  6.Discretion Grove
  7.Troubbble
  8.Pink India
  9.Trojan Curfew
  10.Vague Space
  11.Jennifer AAnd The Ess-Dog
  12.Deado