Modern Love

As I was walking home this evening- yes, I walk home- it was just down the street and cars have that smell to them. That sort of enclosed, meringue smell. I was walking home, down the glass boulevard where I spied a couple making love in the alleyway. The man took out a notepad, and I heard: "Let's begin this negotiation." The woman, in her red dress and diamond-glass earrings said: "I believe this will last for twenty minutes." The man said "Yes, but could we make it another 5? My sexual organs are out-performing expectations today." The woman lent against the wall, like a starlet on cyanide- she pursed her thin lips, eventually saying "Hm. I suppose that would be acceptable, however efficiency is key." For a moment I was confused- lovemaking has changed a lot since my day, I was thinking. Then another thought passed my mind: "Ah, we are witnessing prostitution. How interesting." I called to one of my ninja-floral-pants-assistants, who was hiding under a pothole. I scolded him for the cliche of his hiding place, and asked him to get a chair. I sat outside the opening of the alleyway, watching this act of lovemaking. It was all very efficient and mechanistic. I eagerly awaited the transaction of the money- wondering Just How Much it costs for a prostitute these days (and which one is the prostitute, hmm? I believe that's what BRAD'S GONE INTO YOU DESERTER. Brad who?)
Yet there was no transaction made. I went up to the woman afterwards*, as I helped her zip up- in all honesty, she could lose a kilogram or two. Not too bad, though- not a model, either. I asked the woman: "Did he pay by credit card?"
"Non Karl" (because everybody knows who I am), "we were making Modern Love."
"Ah.." said I, remembering why I went into asexuality.

*Frankly, I prefer to be surrounded by women. (Hi Belle, Tavi, Lady Amanda, etc). Men want to be me; women simply envy me. It's terrible when somebody wants to be you- especially if they're not paying for the privilege. Imagine if somebody created a fake me? Mon dieu! Mon Coco! Mon Chanel!

Four Short Films about the Moon

There's internet on the moon, so I'm having my assistant hook it up and send my messages.
I'm on the moon, by the way (obviously, hmm?). There's no air here, so the assistants that were human now happen to be deceased. Luckily, my assistant HAL does not need to breath, so we still have one left. (There was another, but let's just say he had...an accident).

Fact one: The moon is not quilted. We are in the process of quilting it. We have shovels and such. We'll get Chanel store assistants to do it; they're a very special breed of human that's so dull that even the air is bored by them. It will have a large Chanel logo engraved into the surface of it, right in the middle.

Fact two: I am now convinced that 90% of the world is brain damaged; judging by the messages I mostly receive on facebook. You people want to be my friends, hmm? I don't want to be your friend! I don't even remember you, from that brief time we allegedly met in Le Sept. I don't even want you to message me! I have lots of friends; and they're not stupid like you, hmm? I'm not in need of human sacrifices, so you're useless to me. Useless!

Fact three: Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie lingers on the moon. He is good at poker.

Fact four: On the moon, leggings simply fly off.

We're going to be flying back to Earth shortly, and we shall land with the moon. Then I will be able to talk to the moonlight again, hmm?

Rei's haiku which isn't very haiku-ish but i'm rei goddamit

Karl's a rocket, man
He don't have no, wife
He's a rocket, man

And I think it's gonna be a long long time, man
Long time, man
Flying to Moonlight not on a jet, man

Write me one instead, Moonlight, man
Wite it on paper and a pen, man
Like Ginsberg, man
Like Dylan, man
Like those 60's fools with their paper and their pens, man

Is there any real poets on the moon, man?
Man, I need some medicines, man
Do they have medicines in space?
Do they have the ones that keep you awake, man?
'Cause Karl don't sleep

Are there polka dots on the moon, man?
Do they know what it's like to be so avant garde?
(So so avant garde)
Can you get tan on the moon?

You can't be fat in space, man
'Cause you'll just explode,
Into a million little pieces
and be on Oprah
Like James Frey, man

Million littles pieces floating through space,
Like Mr. Tamborine man, man
Smokerings and other spacey stuff,
Does Jimi Hendrix live in space?
Is he a rocket man, man?

Send a letter, man, oh man
Send a letter Moonlight to Karl,
He misses you so,
It's like he don't have no collar
And I'm Rei Kawakubo, man

Karl's a rocket, man

Script, part 3

Scene: The stage is quiet; the lights are dimmed; everybody's gone but Karl, who stands alone in a spotlight. Music plays, but it's too soft to really make out whether it's Beethoven or Joy Division. It's not Britney Spears. Karl has a skull in his hand, for no real reason. It is not a Damien Hirst skull. Karl puts dark sunglasses on the skull, and places it on the ground.

Karl: May I say how chic an evening it seems to be; from a casual observers viewpoint. But from my view, I can see; that all is not well and good. For I am trapped in a closet; a closet wide and big. A closet full of many things, but devoid of the moonlight's shining seamless light that passes through and wanes beneath the river. I remember, I remember; the light of the moon upon my lips. I remember, I remember; conversations quixotic and ready to shift. Upon my Germanic brow I frown; for I realize I need something after all. Non, I do not need a thing- but I desire it as I desired Lindsay (now Lindsay is old and demode; whilst you, Moonlight, are as ageless as a stormy blonde sleeping Madonna. Nay, not the Madonna of the records- not the Madonna who pretends to be English but really is as tacky as the house the Elvis built. But the Madonna upon the rocks, the one that sways and swims.
Send a letter to me, Moonlight dear. Write me, Moonlight dear.

Anna: Karl, take me to the moon? I promise not to drink the vodka. For I have heard of your red rocket; and I have heard of moon gin.
Karl: Moon gin! The fabled beer! The fabled alcohol of old. Now I see the goal is two-ply: bring back the moon and obtain it's gold.
Anna: What gold? I want gin. I want 120% alcohol!
Karl: It's a metaphor, my dear. "Old" rhymes with "gold", rather than "gin".
Anna: Yet "gin" rhymes with "swims" which is what I shall do when I obtain my gin.
Karl: How simian.
Anna: I shall swim in my gin like a drunken Quinn and dance the dance of the solid-gold bins; and shout "chin chin", to the cheese-alien fatties on the moon, and pass....
[Anna passes out]

[Rei now reads out a Haiku]

Script, Part one: Moonlight

Scene: Moonlight sets over a villa in France; we see the moonlight strike the water and shimmer off, as if it were an impressionist painting. In the background a piano plays forebodingly in C# minor, whilst in the distance we can see the silhouette of a Chanel jacket rip through the crisp midnight air. We see Karl come out of the villa.

Karl: Oh Moonlight, beautiful moonlight. How art thou tonight? Doth one twinkle upon the silver keys; doth one stand and start to shiver; shall I sketch a melody? Shall I sketch upon a quiver?

Moonlight: Karl, you fox of fashion; you flightly fever'd bird; you high collared wearing fellow. For I am good and I am fine; for I am sweet and deeper than a river.

Karl: Celebratory chic, I am myself. My collars higher than a giant's liver. For I have sketched a dress of air; and a coat that glimmers and glitters.

Moonlight: Do you dare to dance with me? To tango with the light of Lear? To dance with the funk of a thousand years?

Karl: However shall I dance with thee, for you are not human like me?

Moonlight: It seems to me that you're a god; of the highest order. So dance with me, Kaiser dear; tango but do not tantrum.

Karl: It is only Anna that leads the tantrum; for I posses no emotions. For I am Karl Lagerfeld, and I can walk through oceans.

Moonlight: Then we shall dance and Yves shall sing, and I shall project my rays down hither.
-
LIGHTS FADE, EVERYTHING GOES DARK. THE DEMODE PEOPLE ARE NOW TAKEN OUT OF THE AUDIENCE, IF THEY SOMEHOW MANAGED TO GET IN.
-

end part 1.

Court Poet

Hmph. Karl has appointed me "Court Poet", and I had to write a poem about his feelings for the moonlight. Of course, he can't do this himself because he has no feelings. So I had to "imagine" feelings. Karl himself is busy at work on his play.

--

Moonlight on the river, moonlight in my hands;
Moonlight everywhere and everywhere I go,
Shining on the river, Monet painting down

When darkness cloaks everything in silk;
and the velveteen butlers hold the trees;
Moonlight hold, me and my tears
Moonlight got everything I would ever need

Blackest of rivers, lightest of touch
Midnight hour, tracing through
Moonlight hits me and I just don't know what to do

When daytime comes, and I'm alone
I sit alone and wait for you
Going through, coming through
You keep me keeping on, moonlight I like you

Didn't see it coming, thought it was bliss
Didn't see the weather; the lightning dust
Didn't know how much I'd miss you
The blackest day and it doesn't feature you

I need your touch, and I need your strength
And I need your affection, and I know your pain
Moonlight, I need you
Moonlight nowhere, and I gotta find it before I'm through.

Moonlight, the play

We'll have Chanel build a Children, we'll do this "Royal Karl Company" project. And yes Deline, you may be a part of it. We'll call the first play "Moonlight" and it will play with a PJ Harvey-inspired impressionist soundtrack on piano- like those old silent movies.

PLOT: Karl Lagerfeld was once a normal human being, living in a French villa sketching and drinking diet Coke. Okay, semi-normal being. Somewhat normal. Not really, but whatever, hmm? So Karl Lagerfeld lived in this villa, and had the happiest time of his life-- not with the smelly humans. But talking to the moonlight. We'll have dancing actors here; vaguely happy music by Moby or someone; somebody with a deep voice will go "These were happy days, and I am Gary Coleman."
At one point Karl says to Brad: "Sentimentality! What sentimentality? I could live anywhere and be happy!", and here Karl moves to a closet just to prove his point.

But the days go on, and Karl feels pangings of loneliness. We have dramatic music play here. The set's in monochrome. Russian Romantic music-- Rachmaninoff, etc. Karl sketches and sketches, and pretends to be unemotional. Only 10 assistants will die during this production.

One day, as Karl lies upside down radioing thoughts to Tavi, he hatches upon a plan.

Karl: Ahuh!
Chanel jacket: What?
Karl: I have a cunning plan!
Chanel jacket: Really now.

His plan involves building a rocket to the moon, and bringing the moon back to the closet. We have Elton play "Rocket Man" live here-- then some David Bowie. "Space Oddity", etc. The rocket is built, with quilted interior and many Chanel logos for good luck-- not that Karl believes in that sort of thing. It is powered by diet Coke, with a backup supply of Anna's vodka.

During the journey to the moon Karl meets the ghost of Beethoven, who offers to come with him to the moon. Meanwhile, Kafka sits on a rocket of his own devising fighting with Nabokov.

Karl finally arrives at the moon, where he sings his ode to the moonlight. But how does the moonlight respond, hmm? We may cover this later.

We'll be holding auditions soon. My bookshop in Paris, please. Try and share private jets, because Al Gore's going to be there.

Moonlight

I've been living in this closet for some months now. It's rather spacious, and it's got diet Coke and vodka on tap; as well as a squad of Russian dancing men who are also underwear models if Anna's in the mood for that sort of thing. But one thing has been irking me about it, for as I pretend to sleep, upside down on one of the railings, I can only see the black of the ceiling (for a while I thought about having it painted like the Sistine Chapel- but with Anna and I and other important people, rather than cherubs and such. Cherubs are so fat and ugly, don't you think?). And what's been irking me is the absence of moonlight.

You see, when I lived in the "outside world" I would hang upside down from the ceiling and look at the moonlight longingly. I would have conversations with it, on the river that passed by one of my Mansions. Because everybody else would be passed out/asleep (mostly passed out. Sleeping's a very rare thing in fashion), and the only things I had to talk to were what was not human. That is, the clothes; the floor; the windows; the animals that hadn't been kidnapped by PETA for their super-secret soups which claim to be vegetarian, but are in fact mostly meat that's been convinced to act as vegtables-- all those sort of things. And the moonlight was the most interesting of all those things. No, it was not just interesting. It was love. The grass never had much to say ("Giday mate, nice weather we're having"...it was one of those...non-people. If it were human it'd wear too-high shorts and have a hairy chest.), and the clothes are oh-so bitchy sometimes. Of course, the moonlight was always so far away...

Anyway, I miss it because we don't get the moonlight in the closet. I talked to Anna about installing a moon in it, but she explained that moons are rather large things, and it'd probably do some gravity thing to the rest of the planet. Cause global warming, global obesity (because it's adding weight to the Earth), etc. And besides, it wouldn't be the same moon from which moonlight came from.

To solve this problem at Chanel we're making a rocket. Not a big kind of rocket, just a small one that has ropes attached to put the moon onto. It's going to be red, so it'll be fast. Everybody knows red makes things go faster.
If the moonlight happens to be reading this now, I'd like to ask it to come into the closet by itself, if possible. I really miss it. Or how about a dialogue to the moonlight, hmm? That's rather Shakespearian. I shall give it a go.

Karl: Oh Moonlight, moonlight. Come back to me. My cold heart yearns for your rays of Debussy-played light onto the black screen of my sunglasses.

And there we go. Maybe I'll write a play about it, hmm? We could have "The Royal Karl Company" to perform it.