Undoubtedly Brilliant David Lynch

That time I talked with David Lynch

Vivian McInerny
Human Parts
Picture of the book David Lynch wrote on creativity and meditation. Image by Vivian McInerny

Of course, I’d seen the movies of David Lynch.

Their eerie violence gave me the creeps. But also made me smile. And then the amused up-turned lips on my face would cause me to question if I were a creepier creep than Moby.

The entire time I watched The Straight Story, a sweet film about an old man who drives a tractor across Iowa to see his ailing brother, I was at the edge of my seat. I anxiously awaited something hilariously horrible to happen, like maybe his head would randomly explode or he’d discover a severed ear.

It didn’t necessarily have to be an ear. Any unattached appendage would have been perfectly Lynchian.

So the first thing that surprised me when I heard David Lynch speak was his squeaky, creaky, grandpa voice.

It was just so unexpected.

Evidently my spook-bias had imagined a voice more like that of Alfred Hitchcock. or Vincent Price, or even Rod Serling.

But Lynch spoke with an almost innocent enthusiasm about his deep passion — not for film — for meditation.

He’d spoken a bit about his meditation practice through the years. But it seemed to me he’d recently become very vocal on the subject, like someone who’d…

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