This Guy Blows My Mind

David Lynch, at age 65, recently released his debut album,Crazy Clown Time, (which he wrote and sings!?).  I have been a big fan of his for almost as long as I have had the ability to appreciate any form of art (mostly meaning films that are not completely generic and 'hollywood').  Even though I know what is going to happen in Lost Highway, it never loses its ability to scare me completely.  I have appreciated him as a director and a writer for years, but I never knew about all the other work he does (other than selling coffee and giving weather forecasts for LA, which I did hear about).  But in a recent article in the Guardian, David Lynch and Xan Brooks discuss his work.  They mention that "he's been working on his lithos, on his painting, and on his music, too. He's been designing a nightclub (Silencio), across the river, and he has been waiting to catch the idea for his next feature film."  The whole interview is really interesting, but more than anything I just took away that I should try to do more in different artistic mediums.  I will never be a singer (the most I ever sing is in a group at Karaoke after a few drinks, or alone in my car so as not to damage anyone's ears) but I have dabbled in painting, and I should try more.  Also, some time in the summer a couple of friends asked me about trying to write them some song lyrics, and I immediately thought 'no way at all.  I can't'.  But after reading Lynch's opinion about it, I think I should try.

"Writing a song is much the same as writing a film, he explains. It's all about chasing ideas; about telling a story or letting the story tell you. And this, it turns out, is about as far as he is prepared to go in discussing his working method. "Because none of the things are yourself, not really. The ideas come from someplace else. It's like fish," he says.

What's like fish? "The ideas," says Lynch. "You didn't make the fish. You caught the fish. Now you can cook it in a good way or a bad way, but that's as far as it goes. The fish came from someplace else. And sometimes …" His eyes take on a faraway look. "Sometimes it talks back to you. Tells you how it wants to be cooked.""

So, probably not til this semester is over, and even then maybe not right away, but sometime I will try to catch a fish and try to cook it with paint, lyrics, or some other form of writing.