Fixing Our Hearts: Another David Lynch Tribute
Some best of David Lynch, according to me
When I’d heard the news that Prince had died back in 2016, I completely dissociated for a few seconds. When I came to, I realized I had walked, barefoot, as my shoes were off under my desk and I hate socks and don’t wear them if it’s at all warm out, out the front door of the building I worked in at the time and onto its front lawn. I don’t know why this is how I reacted, but it felt downright Lynchian to have momentarily lost track of time and bodily autonomy, to come to in a whole new environment, barefoot and bereft, alive in a world in which someone I didn’t even know I loved so much and from so afar, someone who had meant so much to me and my sense of self, was dead.
Like Prince, David Lynch is a cornerstone in my pop culture pantheon. Twin Peaks premiered in the spring of 1990. I was 14 years old and in 9th grade, and I was just starting to become interested in things I classified as “kind of weird.” Twin Peaks was perfect — beautiful, slightly menacing (it quickly became VERY menacing and was probably my first experience enjoying being scared), dreamlike, funny, sexy, ironic, and deeply weird. It was the first time I was interested in something that was a pop culture phenomenon among adults, and I felt like I had arrived in some way. I borrowed a friend’s tape of the soundtrack, made my own copy, popped out the protection tabs so I’d never accidentally record over it, and spent hours in my room with a candle lit, letting Angelo Badalamenti’s music take me away, especially “Laura’s Theme,” “Audrey’s Dance,” “Falling,” and “Into The Night,” the last two featuring the ethereal vocals of the late, great Julee Cruise. Oh my god, Lynch, Badalamenti, and Cruise are all dead now! I’m surprised I don’t spend a good portion of my life these days barefoot on my lawn wondering wtf is even happening.
A few years later, HBO had one of its freebie weekends, which in my house meant videotaping whatever was available, watching it later, and keeping anything we liked for future viewing. One of the movies that ran was Wild At Heart, which also came out in 1990. Once again, I was scared, titillated, amused, and fascinated and quickly made liking the movie about 15 percent of my personality. I watched the movie again and again — it was on a videotape with Pretty In Pink, a tape I referred to as the Harry Dean Stanton Variety Hour, a tape that bridged my tween and teen interests and remains precious to me. Harry Dean Stanton is dead, too.
Here are some links I’m enjoying as I mourn another loss.
I rewatched David Lynch: The Art Life on Friday for the first time since it came out, and it made me feel better—inspired, even. Like the description says, it’s a documentary by Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, and Olivia Neergaard-Holm in which “from his secluded home and painting studio in the Hollywood Hills, a candid Lynch conjures people and places from his past, from his boyhood to his experiences at art school to the beginnings of his filmmaking career—in stories that unfold like scenes from his movies.” It’s free on the Criterion Channel through the end of the month.
Speaking of free, Pluto is running the original Twin Peaks for free!
Twin Peaks parodies abound, including a 2017 WWE SmackDown storyline, an episode of Sesame Street’s Monsterpiece Theatre, “Twin Beaks,” an episode of Darkwing Duck, also called “Twin Beaks,” not one but two perfect moments on The Simpsons, and even an episode of Northern Exposure, which was another fav of mine as a young teen. When this happened, I squeed like I never had before and never have since. [I can still see the TikTok video linked above, can you? What’s happening here?]
The David Lynch Theater YouTube channel is full of treasures, including “Do You Have a Question For David, Part 1” (there are no additional parts), the 20,000 mile road trip over 70 days across the United States that was Interview Project, and the blessed Covid lock down era daily check-ins Today’s Number Is and of course his famous Weather Reports…he paid tribute to the death of Angelo Badalamenti on December 12, 2022 in the middle of his report with the simple, heartbreaking line “Today…no music.”
Raquel Laneri’s story from her Substack newsletter Wearable Art on how David Lynch’s Top 5 sandwiches came to run in Forbes, of all places, in 2009 is a delight. Definitely look at the Forbes article, too, to see how the photos used made it all the more accidentally Lynchian.
He directed a bunch of hauntingly beautiful commercials and Audrey Kemp has curated and discussed them in The Drum.
John Waters is another one of My Guys and he had this to say about David Lynch in the documentary Lynch/Oz, which also rules and is about the connection between Lynch’s movies and The Wizard of Oz. Here they are meeting in front of Lynch’s beloved Bob’s Big Boy:
Speaking of which…Lynch ate lunch here every day for seven years and now people are honoring him.
He made a horrifying cow sculpture for New York’s CowParade in 2000, which was summarily rejected and returned to California. He had this to say: “Don't you think when people tell you you're allowed to do whatever you want as long as it's not sexually X-rated that they should stand behind their word and show your cow?” It was later part of Stockholm’s 2004 Cow Parade.
David Lynch’s children have asked people to honor his memory tomorrow with ten minutes of meditation at noon PST. I can think of worse things to do tomorrow.
Thank you for this. I had never seen "Do You Have Questions For David, Part 1" and I found it so inspirational. I loved how seriously he took every question. (I also now definitely want to see Lynch/Oz!) What a loss of a brilliant artist.
Thanks for this lovely tribute!