'Then I Run...'

Serge Lutens is an interesting person. He has lived for many years now, far away from Paris where his two main studio/showrooms are - one which is literally inside the Palais Royal in Paris - in Marrakech.

The Palais Royal is a former royal palace (of the Sun King, eventually) albeit it was built ostensibly for Cardinal Richelieu to begin with, and currently is the headquarters of the French government's Ministry of Culture.

Serge Luten's birth and early childhood is slightly shrouded in mystery, but at minimum it is known that both his father and mother were in diplomatic roles in Europe.

He says himself that he had a 'complicated' relationship with his mother and the standard Euro-snob narrative is that he himself is gay.

I cannot say that I personally like his graphic designs or his photography in the sense of 'like;' 'am attracted to.' The images are very different to anything that resides anywhere near the obvious conscious surface of my own brain, or even anywhere down deep and dark, and/or in any of the undergrowth in there(!), so far as I know.

But having listened to a number of his interviews in the french language and in English too, and read some of his writing, what strikes me is his extraordinary ability to feel.

And so then I go back and look at his photographs and design work and wonder at it.

And then when you turn it in your hands, you realize that it is wonderful. There are no answers in any of it, at least not to me because well frankly, I am not that smart - certainly not that kind of smart that those art critics and others are, who can explain to you what all these things mean. Or 'might' mean.

To me they don't have any obvious meaning. It's just that I am watching someone say something to the world of other human...

...Oh, but wait. Did I tell you that CIA has a file on Serge Lutens?

His friend - 'the man with the
golden gun...'

It's probably a little lost in the back archives now, but it was a very special thing back when Marilyn Monroe was alive, and before that. Serge worked with some pretty clever Japanese industrial chemists, and all of them for the American Secret Service just after the war.

...I was going to say 'of other human beings,' wasn't I?

Yes. Sometimes great artists can speak to the world of other human beings and say something - but then, it is not always heard or understood even when it is heard.

I mean, you too, do want to say something to others, right?

What is it, that you want to tell them?

Some psychologist-types say that Serge wants to tell the world he hated his mother, others that he loved his mother. I mean seriously though, who cares what anyone thinks about their mothers! Because, after all, right, we are animals evolved from the primordial slime and we just sleep and digest, and feed and breed. And then we die. We have exactly no depth of feeling at all about things that have passed; we have not depth of feeling - other than what is in front of our greedy little eyes right now or in our lusting imagination for the near future. And if we 'miss out' on over-powering someone nearby, and having and exerting control all the time, we get angry. And then we do something bad against others. And this doesn't stop us from being angry, but at least we can tell ourselves that we 'have power.'

We have no art. We are artless.

But we have Netflix and 'Game of Thrones.'

And the throne in Paris is officially 'unoccupied,' and in any case it is contested by two or even three claimants.

The carnival ride - Kitty's 'carnival ride.' lol

Serge has his showroom in Richelieu's old buildings.

Everything is permanently in transition and knowledge is only relative.

Perhaps 'Black Lives Matter' will shortly take over the administration of the Palais Royal and kick Serge Lutens out.

And the transition will take place and any knowledge of why it ever was that Serge Lutens was so great will evaporate.

Serge made this perfume once, that had the scent of gunpowder in it, like you have drifting all around you when you are at the carnival area in Paris at nighttime. ...And candy floss. And women's iris butter lipstick. Marilyn's style of lipstick.

He also did another one as well, a homage to Marlene Dietrich - called 'La fille de Berlin.' After, 'Ich bin ein Berliner,' I guess.

Serge had a friend one time - a crack-shot with a rifle.

Things are all different, of course, these days.

Nobody does any bad things noh moh, right?

Deep inside, way deep deep down inside of people, are they really quite angry and resentful of so many things - or are they traumatized and numb by what life has dished out to them. There is a mass human psychological problem issue, isn't there? Maybe it isn't people's fault either - because so much of it is just 'external bad things happening to them.'

This is a dangerous place, this human world. Serge Lutens has more or less run away and hid. 

I think... Here is what I think - I think that inasmuch as I do know for sure that there are far superior intelligent beings from distant stars, and they are hereabouts at least; and far superior than ordinary human beings (and it is an interesting question a poster here made, about how they got there at all, to that position of advanced moral reasoning if not from a 'similar' evolution process that the human race thinks it is on), I think they are not all that interested in 'saving people' just from themselves, as it were. 

I mean, if you are able to solve your own internal conflicts and angers and come out of the whirlpool of life with some balance and the ability to be socially interesting without all of the risky patterns of conflict and aggression that human beings have tended to exhibit rather a lot down through history - it would be better for humans to do that than to have it 'done for them' by some other lot, surely.

I don't need to caption this, seriously
do I - all of you over 55?

But I think there has been enough history already to show that there is no 'process' of moral evolution' going on via the presumed 'dialectic' or 'two-polar conflict dynamic' that is the standard condition of human society and always has been.

This thing we are witnessing right now over the election of the US President - it is all about a passive-aggressive psychopathology.

What people really want to do - on either side - is to shoot someone. Lin Wood already voiced that and he has a platform but a zillion other 'little' people have said as much all over social media.

If a super advanced ET Alien went and visited Serge Lutens, in Marrakech, or when he was having lunch at El Buli in Spain when that was still there, would Serge want 'technology' to go shoot someone - he has enough cause, from what I understand of his life - or would he want some advanced ideas and some insights into new things to make?