LARB interviews Alejandro Jodorowsky: "The work is to live all our years at once."

I saw Jodorowsky's El Topo when it first toured the States, back in the early 1970s. It blew my mind. I had to see it again, and I did. Maybe even a third time.

I watched it a half dozen years ago on DVD. Meh. "Lots of sun and sand and sending the intellectual rubes up the flag pole. With meaning."

Anyhow, Gregg LaGambina interviews him in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Here's a snippet:

What is the greatest difference between your 88-year-old self and your eight-year-old self?

That is a beautiful question. In some ways, I am still a little boy of eight years. In another part of my brain, I have 1,000 years. The soul when you are born is always the same. She was the soul before you were born, and she will continue to be when you die. That does not change. You have the same age. The work, in our life, is to live all our years at once. I am a child. I am an adolescent. I am a man of 40 years, or 80 years. At 88, I am starting! I swear I am starting! For me, it is an easy age. When you feel old, you get old. That’s why I don’t get old. Next, I will prepare three pictures. I may not have 100 pictures when I have 100 years, but I will do it, if I don’t die.

Feels about right, though he's got a couple of decades on me.