Of course I’ve no right to the banner image, or to step into the Twin Peaks world, as David Lynch did not influence my “art” at all. But I loved his work. One of the eulogies online - Kule Mac, I think - noted that he was more interested in the questions than the answers, and that’s a good thing for all the people who pore over Peaks to consider. Many things were answered in the end, but there was always another question behind them. Typical reddit post:
So, I’m convinced now that the sound the Fireman’s record player makes in the White Lodge, the strange scratching noise that may be related to the Bob Frog-Insect in S03E08, is actually the sound of Laura Palmer unlocking her diary in FWWM, at 35:21
Oh. Well. Maybe it is. There are people who have interminable YouTube lectures explaining everything, and I can’t see how anyone finds that satisfying. The best part of Lynch’s work was always the dreamlike sense of things at the margins that are vaguely familiar but frustratingly vague and inexplicable. Machinery you recognize as machinery, but which serves no understandable purpose. Words that make sense, simple utterances, that speak simply about incomprehensible facts. People who unnerve you to your core with one unexpected and ordinary sentence.
Someone else on X noted something I’ve insisted for years: the reason the work has power and depth is not because Lynch is peeling back the artifice and showing us the TRUE CORRUPTION AT THE HEART OF IT ALL. It’s because he actually loved all the post-war Americana, all the tail-fin dreams, the happy music, the hopes for a green lawn and a white fence and your best gal as your wife. Yes, Blue Velvet starts by going under that to show the insect eating in the dirt, but it ends with the green lawn and the birds, restoring the necessary surfaces and contrivances and desires we lay over the corruption so we can be happy. This is not a bad thing. It is not an easy thing. . Especially when you are as keenly aware of sadness and sorrow as he was.
You know, there were lyrics.
I have settled on a car. I am not surprised by my choice, and not really all that disappointed in myself, because my self-justifications are solid and irrefutable. I resisted the enticements of the fast and pricey rocket; I realized that the less-expensive car that had nice features was less expensive because it was made of cheaper materials. (I was also discourage by the glossy plastic in the interior, which looked as if it woudl scratch or crack. Yeah, that was it.) In the end I could say it came down to familiarity, confidence, solidity, and dependability over glitz and flash, but do you know what really sealed it?
The color.
As of this writing I have not bought it, but when I was discussing the deal with the salesman and noted that it was odd when the color was the deciding factor, he said Oh, no, I get it, completely. Absolutely it's the color. I don't know if he was just buffing up the mark, or agreeing that aesthetics are paramount. I am so so sick of white / red / black/ grey.
Well, my friends, this is not any of those. Perhaps we'll have the big reveal next week. I could balk, you know.
I haven't seen the color outside of brochures.
We were living in a small and not entirely attractive apartment, having moved from a much larger apartment a little while ago. I was suddenly struck with the idea that I hadn't been paying rent in three or four months, because I didn't know if they were still subtracting it from my bank account.
I went to the apartment manager office, which was quite nice – seem to take up half of the ground floor, plate glass windows etc.
When I walked in the manager called me by name so apparently I was known there, and I said that I was unsure whether not I had been paying rent. She laughed and said "let's take a look." By now there were a couple of other department managers who'd come over, and one said I was indeed paying rent at double the rate, and that their future success as a company depended upon people like me noticing. More managers appeared and reiterated that they would lose their jobs if I paid the regular rate.
"Well there's nothing I can do about that," I said, and sI extricated myself as best as as I could, sliding out in between the large of apartment managers. One of them was mocking me in a amused friendly way for complaining. Where upon I said “do I look as if I've been complaining? Do I sound as if I've been complaining?” and she had to admit that I have not. On the way out I was stopped by another manager who came up and showed me a sheaf of small thin book plates, excitedly showing me each one. I didn't know if I was expected to buy them. They were not particularly remarkable, but were diverse in their styles. They were of course thin and slippery as book plates are.
LANCE CHINSLAB era, very early. Tiny hasn't started to pack it on yet, but he's ramping up.
I really wish a hair drier had figured in the solution. OR DOES IT
This year we're going back a (gulp) half century. Remember, just because they were low-charting in the top 250 doesn't mean they didn't rise up the next year. For my rankings I use the Whitburn collection, and I'm sure there are other charts that dispute these particular ranks. Who cares! It's just for fun.
Wiki: "The Natural Four was an American R&B group from Oakland, California that played from 1967 to 1976."
"After their third album failed to chart, the group called it quits."
That horn solo is very first-part-of-the-decade, to me. All of it is, I suppose, but it seem completely dispensible. Obligatory slow-dance number, perhaps.
Anyway, that's it for now! Thank you for your visits, and I'll see you Monday.
