nico raze i picked up "nico/the end" by james young the other day. i think it's been out of print for a while now. on the surface, it's an examination of the last six years or so of nico's life. but, at its core, it's more a book about people who are going nowhere slowly. in parts it's amusing & appalling at the same time. nico knew she was beautiful. she hated her beauty, so she ravaged it with heroin. she toured not in support of albums, but to support her habit. it, in turn, allowed her to get onstage without being aware of the audience's usual indifference. so i threw on "the marble index" the other night, unable to sleep. i think i listened to it once when i first bought it, five years ago, & then let it collect dust. it just wasn't my thing. but last night it was the perfect soundtrack for sleepless ennui. kind of gothic-medieval-european. her impossibly deep, germanic voice may not be the most technically-stunning instrument, but there's something compelling about it. & there are the words, written by someone for whom english was a second language. "he sways to kiss the horizontal ground & from the ground a dove rises & as a mark of honor a mask is left behind mirth birth reverie" she died of an apparent aneurysm, while cycling in ibiza. ironically, she had stopped using heroin. following the funeral, her son tried to sell her leftover methadone. to be fair, she was the one who introduced him to heroin. when he fell into a coma as a result of his affinity for the substance, she visited him in the hospital to record the mechanical bleeps of artificial sustenance for an album. heroin seems to be the drug you take to forget. to assuage guilt. the narcotic blanket of calm. "my one regret," she said near the end of her life, "is that i was born a woman instead of a man." 031122 what's it to you? who go blather from