Winter, 2023
By Jason Sebastian Russo
Retsoor asks: can people change?
JL: I think rarely does someone decide that they must change and they do. But basically, people are always changing.
RS: Is the belief in God a choice?
JL: I think absolutely not. Seems like – people who are raised with religion usually run as far as possible from the idea of God when older. Whereas someone who is raised an atheist can be riding along on their bike when God taps them on the shoulder and says “Hello! It’s me God! How the fuck are you? Let me show you some stuff.”
RS: Is everything singular or plural?
JL: Don’t know what this means.
RS: What percentage of the world is evil?
JL: I think pure evil is a very rare thing. Most evil things seem to be a result of a cheapness of spirit in people or blindness due to greed or jealousy, jealousy is a big one. Most of the evil things that people did to me were a result of jealousy. But someone who sets out with the intent of wreaking evil is very rare.
RS: Why do you get out of bed in the morning?
JL: You have to try to keep moving. You feel really shitty if you stop moving. Also, I am 70 and have to pee.
RS: What % of your personality can you choose?
JL: I try to push my mind and personality in positive directions as constantly as possible. I do one meditation sometimes, I guess I invented this – I lie there and imagine I am dead. Then I fill the carcass lying there with light. And for some amount of time that changes me.
RS: How has mental health affected your creative life?
JL: My mental health and my creative life are pretty much one and the same.
RS: Which parent do you sound like when you’re angry?
JL: Neither of my parents had anywhere near the amount of sound as what comes out of me when I am angry. My sister had a dream when I was quite young. In the dream I was very angry. I would walk into a room and as soon as I left the room, it would explode. My parents didn’t make rooms explode – in dreams or otherwise.
RS: What % of your unhappiness do you have control over?
JL: As I grew older I learned to feel depression coming on and have been able to push it away before it takes hold. Once it is in there, depression is very hard to break out of.
RS: What % of utility have we lost or gained from the internet?
JL: I think about this often.. You would think that I would have a good quick answer but I don’t. My answer would take too much time to write out.
RS: Do you do what you do so you don’t get sad or because you are?
JL: Not so I don’t get sad, but if I don’t work I begin to feel awful. With the painting I try to create worlds and hypnotize myself inside those worlds as I paint.
RS: Does answering questions in a public forum worry you or inspire you?
JL: Interviews could be a truly inspiring thing. But they so rarely publish what one actually says. I used to enjoy doing it., but now I have trepidation. Agreeing to do an article with the New Yorker magazine was the absolute worst thing that ever happened to my life. And that is coming from someone who has had cancer and chronic Lyme. So you get an idea how much damage they did. It was like the writer set out to destroy me and almost did.
RS: Which list is longer: a list of everything that is wrong, or a list of everything that isn’t?
JL: We tend to dwell on what is wrong and take for granted what is right. There is something very real about giving thanks. Most of us have food. We have water and air, at least for now. We have gravity. Imagine what it would be like without gravity. Your apartment would be a mess. Things all floating around. So we never get up and say “ah, good, gravity is still working!” But if we woke up bouncing off the ceiling we would proclaim everything as being fucked.
RS: Would you choose to live again, without knowing you were given a choice, if you had the choice?
JL: Here? Nope. Some other realm, I would give it a go.
RS: Bonus question: Drugs?
JL: Are you offering me drugs?
RS: Bonus Jeopardy: one small regret I have is: (no big regrets allowed, please).
JL: I went to this very expensive restaurant last night in Big Sur. One of those places where you don’t order and they bring you tiny dishes, one at a time. I really wish I had eaten at home.
John Lurie has been a creative Northstar for more than one generation by now, an artist that was working in most directions—painting, music, acting, writing, and beyond—before anyone was allowed to be good at more than one thing. Unsure of your next creative move? It’s never a bad idea to ask yourself what he might do, someone to set your watch to, artistically. What an honor to get his take. – JSR @retsoor