R.I.P. David Lynch

David Lynch in 1990, the year Twin Peaks debuted on TV. (Creative Commons photo by Alan Light). 

My favorite movie and TV director, David Lynch, died Thursday at age 78. Wikipedia says he died after being evacuated from his home because of the LA fires. 

It always hits me a bit when a favorite artist dies. Lynch had revealed last year he had emphysema from years of smoking cigarettes.  So for me as far as a shock,  it was kind of somewhere between when Kurt Cobain and John Lennon died (a complete surprise) and when Iain Banks died (he had announced he was dying of cancer). (I found out about John Lennon when I was watching "Monday Night Football" on TV and Howard Cosell shared the news. This was before the Internet of course, but I got long distance phone calls from friends). 

So many questions! Will I ever find a TV series I like as much as Twin Peaks? (I own all three series and the movie; I have been engaged in a long re-watch. I'm in the second season right now). Was Sheryl Lee really the most beautiful screen siren ever, or did David Lynch make it seem so? Did Lynch and Mark Frost realize what a gift to the fans it was when they brought it back in 2017? What if Lynch had accepted the offer to direct Return of the Jedi? 

The New York Times has its weaknesses but it's still a good newspaper, and it really went all out with the Lynch news -- a long obituary, and six sidebars! Here are gift links to get you behind the paywall: The obituary, an appraisal from chief Times movie critic Manohla Dargis (who recounts getting lots of abuse for a rave review of Mulholland Drive), 12 Lynch titles and where to screen them,  some of the tributes from film industry figures,  his life in some memorable photos, a discussion of Twin Peaks from main TV critic James Poniewozik,  a "critics notebook" on his look from Guy Trebay. 

The Wikipedia article on Lynch is very long and detailed. 

Jesse Walker's favorite Oscar moment

Jesse Walker posted on X.com: "My favorite Oscars moment, from 2002: David Lynch and Robert Altman sharing a smile after they both lost the Best Director award to Ron Howard. Watching at home, we couldn't hear what they were saying. But Lynch said later that Altman was telling him, 'It's better this way'."

A St. Louis synchronicity

I like to record synchronicities on this blog, and I had one this week.  Before I married her, my wife was my Cleveland girlfriend and I lived in Oklahoma, so we had to travel to see each other.  Ann and I met in St. Louis a couple of times when we were dating, and one memorable get together featured a dinner in a very nice restaurant, a walk in a neighborhood with a house where T.S. Eliot once lived, and a viewing of "Mulholland Drive" (described by the New York Times as Lynch's acknowledged masterpiece) in a nice old movie theater. (That last bit may have been my idea). 

I flew from Ohio to Oklahoma this week to see my mother, and I stopped to change planes in St. Louis, which of course reminded me of all this. 

Robert Shea, Twin Peaks fan

I feel confident in posting all of this  because I know many RAW fans are big Lynch fans. Gregory Arnott texted me to make sure I saw the news. (See his article for this blog on occult aspects of Twin Peaks.)

One of the minor mysteries of writing this blog is that I've never been able to find any evidence RAW was a Twin Peaks fan. (I asked Scott Apel years ago). But you know what? Robert Shea was! I asked his son Mike Shea, and Mike replied, "He was! I didn’t watch it with him at the time but I watched it a couple of years ago and loved it."