I’m not really ready to think about a world without David Lynch yet.
My mental life was massively expanded by that show.
I was that kid at school brushing my hair like Cooper - back when I had hair!
(I was eventually successful on that front.)
Pretty much ideal, really.
My friend said it was the only time he’d ever seen Lynch as he truly was.
And there’s this magical moment that I’ve rewatched about four times so far.
Lynch is talking about his idyllic childhood in the late 40s, early 50s.
What did he like to do more than anything?
He liked to sit in a hole dug under a tree with his best friend.
His dad would partly fill the hole with water from a hose so there was mud to play with.
“Forget it!”
My dad belongs to the same generation as Lynch, and so I understood that “forget it”.
It meant that there was no higher compliment available, that his joy was fairly topped out.
Friends, a mood, sensation: forget it.
Yep, my same old nonsense, but that’s the point.
The murder mystery, but also the cherry pie and coffee.
It must be fostered, protected.
“A beautiful thing came to her,” he says - that word again.
“They would be restrictive and kill creativity.”
“My life was no bigger than a couple of blocks,” he says.
Not to a kid.
“Huge worlds were in those two blocks.
Look closely, I think he’s saying.
There is wonder all around you.
More specifically what surrealism is often for.
50s kids played with toy guns.
And probably not just 50s kids.
But that feels a bit too obvious.
(This stuff is serious, too, particularly for Lynch.
I had missed it, with all the pie and coffee and donuts but it changes things completely.)
Last quote, and this has been doing the rounds recently on TikTok and other places.
He wanted a pleasant set.
He wanted, he said, to “get more happiness in the doing.”
What a simple thought - and how beautiful!
Thank you for everything, David Lynch.
