Intense Ominous Whooshing
I met David Lynch in the Other Room, Over There
Way back amidst the ancient history of the previous century, early in the years of the epoch referred to now as The 1980s, I saw David Lynch’s Eraserhead at a midnight showing at the IFC Theater on 6th Avenue in New York City.
As I walked down the street afterward with my friends, I recall saying something to the effect that it would be impossible to unsee what we had just seen—and, I might have gone so far as to say that I wished I hadn’t seen it all.
A week or two later I was back to see it again—and over the years have watched it a number of times more. If you are an enthusiast of cinema as an art form you cannot but be in awe of the magic happening on screen. (Stanley Kubrick, another one of my favorite directors, loved the film.)
Last night I watched it again, and again I both laughed out loud and felt my sphincter muscles tighten in horror.
I was unaware of Eraserhead until some time after I had already seen David Lynch’s following film, The Elephant Man(1980).
The deep unease of Elephant Man, a distressing dark dream, did not prepare me for the desolate grotesques and shocks of the nightmarish Eraserhead.
[Insert a decade+ of my life here.
Through these years and into the present I created a lot of visual art—collages, first with paper/glue and eventually digitally. My work always inhabited realms of surrealism—that artistic perspective on reality that I appreciated back then and have explored and discovered more of over the years. In paintings by artists like Salvador Dali, André Breton, Max Ernst—in writings of Jorge Luis Borges and Edgar Allen Poe—and in cinema with Luis Buñuel, Jan Švankmajer, Alejandro Jodorowsky . . . and David Lynch.
I later applied my collage-perspective to audio and video works, as well as to my style of writing.]
From 1988 onward I was bringing up a family with three kids in Vermont.
I was unaware of the amazing work that David Lynch was creating.
Blue Velvet (1987). Wild At Heart (1990).
Although, in 1990, it seemed that a question was hanging over the culture— even on bumper stickers— “Who Killed Laura Palmer?”
Twin Peaks mania was everywhere and I responded as I do to anything and everything “television”, and most things that popular—I sighed and ignored it. I don’t believe I even knew it was the work of David Lynch.
[Me and television. I had given up on television in the 1960s, in my teens. While my parents we enjoying Old West shenanigans with “Hoss” Cartwright at the Ponderosa Ranch, or having goofy space adventures with Spock in the Enterprise, I was partaking in experiments with Dr. Albert Hoffman’s elixir. A crack opened in my cosmic egg and I could never go back to The Beverly Hillbillies or most of the other brain pablum that was created to sell Mr. Clean.]
The flat screen in our home is still unconnected to “television” in its endless variations—it’s a surface to watch films on.
The fact that I wasn’t personally paying attention did not stop David Lynch from exploring and expanding his vision.
A second Twin Peaks season in 1992.
Lost Highway (1997). Mullholland Drive (2001).
The Discovery of Twin Peaks
Somewhere in the middle of the first decade of this century something got me to watch Twin Peaks. Possibly I had stumbled upon his film Inland Empire (2006), or maybe it was a positive review from my son who had been indoctrinated in weirdness and was exploring on his own. Whatever it was, I was hooked, and I slowly began working my way through Seasons 1 and 2 of this brilliant subversion of “television”. The availability of rental in the relatively new DVD format, made it easily accessible.
Twin Peaks contains multitudes—mystery, comedy, romance, supernatural, horror, detective, drama, psychological thriller—serving a singular multi-leveled vision. There is something going on here—stirring an Awe that I can’t put my words on, and won’t try.
After spending time in that world I of course went on to catch up with all of the David Lynch movies I had missed—liking some more than others, but always being fascinated by the creative logic and magic of each one.
In 2017, 25 years after the cliffhanger ending of Season Two, a third season of Twin Peaks was revealed. This time I was ready to jump in.
Unlike the original series, which was pre-internet and thus had to be watched on the night it was broadcast on television, now, in addition to the broadcast on the Showtime television network, the episodes were swiftly being shared through peer2peer platforms. Now, any conversations and debates, covering perspectives and meanings, were instantly stirred up on social media.
Never mind who killed Laura Palmer — now there were new bigger questions — like who is Judy?
And yet I guess I wasn’t quite prepared for where David Lynch’s vision had taken the story and I bailed after the first episode.
Well, paused, I should say— because a short while later I tried again and down the rabbit hole of eighteen episodes I went.
David Lynch is gone. He has left us a large body of work that bears many repeated viewing—films that always reveal more treasures for the eye, and mind. Thank you.
I did meet David Lynch—but only in the Other Room, Over There.
Rabbit (or Rabbits) hole ahead.
This past December my partner in life & art, writer Tammy Remington, discussed watching the entire Twin Peaks opus—all three seasons (a 45 hour movie in 48 fragments!)—sometime this year. As close to “binge-watching” as these senior citizens get.)
David Lynch’s departure made us want to get started soon.
The choice was quite simple—February 24th—the date of Laura Palmer’s death as well as Dale Cooper’s arrival in the town of Twin Peaks.
Join us? We’ll put some popcorn on.
A really interesting song by Donovan, with a fabulous video—produced and directed by David Lynch.|
My sincere little homage to a few of the master filmaker’s visual motifs.
art/text © AleXander Hirka 2024. All Rights Reserved.
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