047: Give Me Back My Phone
First, Tha NEWS.
In an attempt to stay sane, I'm going to just... go to work, I guess. In a manner of speaking.
David Lynch died. To say he was an influence on my work would be selling it short.
The first and foremost thing, though, is that he taught me that paradox does not overpower truth; two opposite things can be true at once. Or can they? (A note about that scene: it was my first and only reference for Robert Blake until, y'know, that thing he did. So that thing didn't surprise me in a very odd way.) (Another note: it's unfortunate that Lost Highway manages to have both Blake and Marilyn Manson in it.)
The second thing is the power of dream (or vision, I suppose.) Shoutout to the late legend Don S. Davis for that magnificent performance, as well.
But most important, David Lynch's work has taught me that everything is deliberate, even if you don't really know why. If you want an example, look no further than all of Mulholland Drive. All of the clues and images in it are very specific, but often make little to no sense. Even Lynch himself in his book Catching the Big Fish, writes: "The Box and the Key - I don't have a clue what those are." Intuition is as much a guiding light as any canny plot beat. His Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks often operates on what he calls "The Tibetan Method." During production, a filming error--lighting crewmember Frank Silva was in a reflection--led to an entire arc being created.
And to be fair, sometimes that intuition can go a little astray... some of the unexplained weird in season two of Twin Peaks, for example... but some of the most powerful work in the man's entire career just sort of happened, and he rolled with it.
The world is darker without his presence. Goodbye to an unreal one.
This cold snap has been A Thing. Here in the apartment it's almost as if there's nothing happening at all, because it's roughly 80 degrees (Fahrenheit) up here with the windows open, thanks to the combination of being on the third floor and having radiators whose valves don't close all the way. I have very nearly hit the practical limit of my thermal range. Sweating more in the winter than the summer. However, it is in fact still cold as fuck outside. Between that and the general bullshit of American politics right now I just... can't seem to get out. Last night was a poetry reading I really wanted to go to (including a reading by one of the subscribers of this very newsletter!) and yet the thought of all of the everything just kept me in and dissociating with Pokemon. Score another one for the double meaning of "climate" these days.
Second, INTERLUDE.
While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I’m a naysayer and hatchet man in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I’ll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. I love you, Sheriff Truman. ~ Special Agent Albert Rosenfield, as played by Miguel Ferrer, Twin Peaks, written by Bob Engels and directed by Lesli Linka Glatter
Third, CONSUMPTION.
I reread Lynch's aforementioned Catching the Big Fish. It's part behind the scenes, part film and life philosophy, part evangelizing for Transcendental Meditation. A lot of it, also, is a compilation of his answers to common interview questions, the most important answer, I think, being "The Film is the Thing."
A friend gave us the board game Wyrmspan for Xmas this year, and we got our first game in with it this past weekend. It's a dragon-themed reskin of the award-winning game Wingspan (which we also have, but have not yet played.) Overall the game itself is fun. It seems like it would be more fiddly than it actually is, and the pace is pretty quick once you get the hang of it. By which I mean, I've played it once and by turn 2 or so I felt like I could make strategic moves rather than simply trying to remember the mechanics. My favorite part, by far, is that it comes with a "guide" to the dragons... which is basically a compilation of all the flavor text for each of the hundred or so dragons, presented as a field guide or spotters' guide. Overall just a precious and evocative game, despite effectively only being moving a bunch of resources from place to place on a board.
The kiddo bought Chappell Roan's Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess on cassette, after already owning it on vinyl. The tape is blue, you see. I will say, though, the cassette case is possibly the highest-quality tape case I have ever seen. Just a well-packaged product. Which I understand is a weird thing to say, but as both a music fan and an appreciator of good industrial design, it's a refreshing change from the horseshit brittle and ugly packaging we had when I was growing up.
Fourth, HUSTLE.
First and foremost is my most recent book, confessions from a drainage ditch, which was released on Sept 1st through Amazon, and is available in ebook and paperback formats. If you haven't picked it up, it's a great introduction to my more concrete and mainstream work.
If you're looking for something weirder, you can check out A Void and Cloudless Sky, a chapbook, which is also available from Amazon, as well as most other retailers. By being a subscriber to this newsletter, you're also entitled to a free PDF version, which you can get here.
If you're liking this whole project and want to support it directly, here is my Patreon. There are lots of little benefits you can get there, from poems written to your specifications to subscriber-only limited-edition chapbooks.
Finally, THE OUTRO.
I'm going to resist the urge to go full doomer here, but I do need to point out that you're reading an email written by and openly transfemme individual. In light of the recent events, specifically in the US and UK, but sort of... everywhere, I'd just like you to take an extra five minutes today and take stock of the trans folks in your life. Are they safe? Is there something you can help them with financially, emotionally, personally, or materially? If there aren't any of those people, ask yourself why that might be. We genuinely need everyone here. The path to fascism begins at the denial of humanity and/or existence.
And to end on a positive note, if you don't already, you might want to keep an eye (ear?) on the podcast, as there will be some interesting news there soon, which I'll talk about more in the next newsletter. But for now, quiver with antici.......