A Map of Methods for the Resurrection of the Dead, Plus Miscellany

Oh man, losing David Lynch is a crushing blow. It's 4 days before his 79th birthday, and I wish that he could have lived for 79 more. What would he say about his own death? We don't have to wonder. 

"Death in my mind isn’t a finality. There’s a continuum: It’s like at night, you go to sleep and in the daytime you wake up, or whenever you wake up, and it’s a new day.”

I don't really believe that's true. When you think about all of his films though, they're neither true nor untrue, they just are. They can't be explained, they are the thing-in-itself. The same was true for him, and although it isn't literally true, he will still somehow live on through his films.

I wish I could watch his films with my kids, but that'll have to wait for a while. I remember trying to watch Eraserhead with Gretel when she was like one or two. She had watched Nosferatu, and Bride of Frankenstein. (I think the Bride of Frankenstein was the first time she sat still for an hour straight.) So somehow I thought Eraserhead would be okay, but no way, not even close. We got several minutes in and turned it off. An obvious mistake. Some other day.

Lynch said that one time he was reading through the Bible and saw a verse that he said completely captured Eraserhead's essence. I think it was after the film was done, but perhaps it was before and he used it for guidance. I always wondered what that verse was. He said he would never tell anybody. I wonder if he ever did.

He once told an interviewer, "Believe it or not, Eraserhead is my most spiritual film."

The interviewer asked him to elaborate. He said, "No."

One of my favorite stories from his life is that while he was filming The Elephant Man, he ran into some people who were working with Stanley Kubrick on The Shining, and they told him that Kubrick had asked them to come to his house to watch his favorite movie. What was that favorite movie? Correct, Eraserhead. I love thinking about David Lynch at that time, the struggle that it was to even get Eraserhead completed (he filmed one scene where a character opened a door, but Lynch then ran out of money, and over a year later he has raised enough money to film the character going through the door)... and I imagine his joy at hearing that perhaps the greatest filmmaker of all time, certainly one of Lynch's favorites (certainly my favorite, for what it's worth), picked that film, the only film he had completed to that point, to show to collaborators as the example of his "favorite." Zowie.

Do you know another way to be certain that you've made it? When David Foster Wallace defines an adjective based on your name: 

"Lynchian: a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former’s perpetual containment within the latter."

The guy's voice, my goodness, how could that voice not exist anymore? It's impossible to read this quote, on the beauty of mud, and not hear his voice: 

"I remember Sandpoint Idaho, little Dicky Smith, my friend, he and I sat in a mud puddle under this tree. My mother dug a hole, or my dad did, that we could sit in, in the hot weather, and they filled it with, you know, water from the hose, and we’d sit in this mud puddle. It was so beautiful, and you’d get to squeeze mud and sit with your friend and under the shade of this tree. Forget it.”

Try this one. 

"I when I was cleaning up in Bogus Basin, Idaho, in the summer, cleaning brush, to work up for ski pants, and we found a bloated cow in the creek. And we had these pick axes, Polaskis they are called. One side is sharp and the other is a blade so you can dig in the ground and clear the brush, right? So, this cow is bloated and I wanted to pop it. So, I hit the thing as hard as I could with this...pick axe. And that thing bounced, and it almost tore my arms off. It BOUNCED BACK! And we were trying to pop this cow for like a half hour. And uh, it was farting and, man, it was foul."

Sorry about that.

It's common knowledge that he was offered to direct Return of the Jedi, but did you know that he was also offered Fast Times at Ridgemont High? 

In my opinion, there's no heaven. But if there is, one of the first things I want to do there is watch David Lynch-directed versions of all of my favorite films.

"In heaven, everything is fine."

In Twin Peaks: The Return, Monica Belucci, played herself inside Gordon Cole's dream, with Gordon Cole played by David Lynch himself. She said,

"We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives inside the dream. But who is the dreamer?"

I believe that's somehow the key to all of Twin Peaks (and life?), and I might need to watch it all again with that in mind. Are the actors the dreamers? Are we? Is it David Lynch? Is it all of us? Think about it, it's David Lynch directing her inside the dream of his Twin Peaks alterego, and she's wondering who is dreaming us. There's a lot going on there!

I said it before and I'll say it again. Twin Peaks: The Return, it was somehow like a new religion. Jim Jarmusch said that it's his favorite film of the century. I need to reflect on this a while, but I might consider it the greatest film of all time.

Good news for you, Dear Reader, my guess is that you haven't watched it. Let us dream that it's in your future.

Do you know the weirdest place he ever turned up? It was when he played the network guy teaching Louis CK how to be a late night comedy talk show host in Louie. Man, those were a few weird episodes, such an air of tragedy to the whole thing.

Do you know what he said about Mitt Romney before the 2012 election? He said that he didn't want him to get his MITTs on R MONEY.

In the middle of 2018, he gave some political advice directly to the president at the time, in the only way that David Lynch could. 

"It’s not too late to turn the ship around. Point our ship toward a bright future for all. You can unite the country. Your soul will sing. Under great loving leadership, no one loses — everybody wins. It’s something I hope you think about and take to heart. All you need to do is treat all the people as you would like to be treated."

I believe that! I'm going to use that as a guide for the next 4 years, and hopefully the next 40, along with this observation of his:

"What a great time to be alive if you love the theater of the absurd."

Yes, I do love the theater of the absurd, and this is indeed a great time to be alive. Now it's time to figure out which of his films to watch tonight...

January 16, 2025

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David Lynch's favorite films:

Wizard of Oz 

Mr Hullot's Holiday

Mon Oncle

Sunset Boulevard 

Rear Window 

8 1/2 

It's a gift 

Lolita 

The Apartment 

Stroszek

https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/david-lynch-favorite-movies-stream/stroszek/

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So Trump wins the Iowa caucus of 2024, and on the anniversary of the opening of his first impeachment trial in 2020.

The neoconservative op-ed writer Michael Gerson said this in 2021- "The first impeachment ended up being a preview of the second impeachment. What we should have learned from the first one is that the president is willing to do anything to maintain power. That is his guiding ideology." 

Incidentally, remember what happened when Trump lost the Iowa caucus to Ted Cruz in 2016? He claimed that Cruz only won because of voter fraud! That seems like a joke, but it really happened.

January 16, 2024

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TWA Flight 3 crashed on this day in 1942, killing all 22 aboard, including the 33-year-old Carole Lombard.

"It is easier to die when the heart is full of gratitude."

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Esquivalence- the willful avoidance of one's official duties.

That's a made-up word put in the 2nd Oxford English Dictionary for them to see if anybody was plagiarizing it, haha. If some other dictionary put in the same word, there would be their proof.

In other news, we were one act of esquivalence away from losing our democracy!

January 16, 2023

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Zuzu fixed herself up. We're off to return library books.

January 16, 2021

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There are two types of people in this world, as they say. Those who don't know that they don't know what they don't know, and those who do.

January 16, 2020

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This guy Andrew Yang, on identity politics, he's a gem.

"Some of these problems affect certain groups more than others, but there are many things that bring us together much more than serve to separate us from each other. And on a national level, I think that identity politics is a very counterproductive way to go because most people are drawn to messages that talk about how we can work together, rather than saying that people who have certain experiences or don't have certain experiences aren't allowed to relate to each other."

January 16, 2020

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Perfect writing, from Ken Burns' Country Music, intro of Johnny Cash:

In the dust-ravaged town of Littlefield, Texas, Waylon Jennings' first childhood memory was of his father connecting the family radio to the pickup truck's battery so they could listen to the Carter family.

In Columbus, Georgia, 14-year-old Chester Atkins heard Maybelle's guitar-picking on a radio set he had built from mail-order parts.

And in tiny Dyess, Arkansas, a New Deal resettlement community for impoverished farmers, a boy named J.R. Cash was tuning in, too.

January 16, 2020

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As I walked past a storm drain with Gretel I had to resist the urge to tell her that clowns live in it. I resisted and resisted. And I kept it to myself. That was close.

January 16, 2017

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Sorry to hear that Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan has died. The Last Man on the Moon is a great documentary on him, on Netflix. He had this to say:

"I often tell young kids and particularly my grandkids, don't ever count yourself out. You'll never know how good you are unless you try. Dream the impossible and go out and make it happen. I walked on the moon. What can't you do?"

January 16, 2017

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New Yorker cartoon by Emily Flake:

"Son, if you can't say something nice, say something clever but devastating."

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Gretel rhinestoned Zuzu's forehead and the Totoro ate them off.

January 16, 2016

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Instead of eating lunch I ate 600 tic tacs on the way home from work.

January 16, 2014

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On this day in 1909, Ernest Shackleton's expedition found the magnetic South Pole 

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Adolf Hitler moved into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker, on this day in 1945.

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On this day in 1969, Czech student Jan Palach committed suicide by self-immolation in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in protest against the Soviets' crushing of the Prague Spring the year before.

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On this day in 1988, Belinda Carlisle's Heaven is a Place on Earth hit number one on the charts.

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The Space Shuttle Columbia took off for mission STS-107 on this day in 2003. They were probably pretty joyous when they made it into orbit, not realizing that the shuttle would disintegrate 16 days later upon re-entry.

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Susan Sontag was born on this day in 1933, a month and a half before my grandma.

Susan Sontag- "Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world."

Here are her 10 Rules for Raising a Child:

1. Be consistent.

2. Don’t speak about him to others (e.g., tell funny things) in his presence. (Don’t make him self-conscious.)

3. Don’t praise him for something I wouldn’t always accept as good.

4. Don’t reprimand him harshly for something he’s been allowed to do.

5. Daily routine: eating, homework, bath, teeth, room, story, bed.

6. Don’t allow him to monopolize me when I am with other people.

7. Always speak well of his pop. (No faces, sighs, impatience, etc.)

8. Do not discourage childish fantasies.

9. Make him aware that there is a grown-up world that’s none of his business.

10. Don’t assume that what I don’t like to do (bath, hairwash) he won’t like either.

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Kate Moss was born on this day in 1974, a month and a half before me.

"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."

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Albert Pujols was born on this day in 1980. Here's a crazy stat. Eight players in baseball history had 40 doubles and 30 home runs in four different seasons. Only Lou Gehrig had five. Albert Pujols had seven!

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Other notable birthdays- Dizzy Dean (1910), Katy Jurado (1924)

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American serial killer, rapist and cannibal, Albert Fish, died on this day in 1936.

Norm MacDonald:

"Albert Fish was born May 19th in New York City in 1870. He was known as 'The Gray Man' and 'The Werewolf of Wisteria'. He was a serial killer who slayed children and ate them. When police asked a woman to describe him she said he was "gray in both appearance and demeanour". The child rapist and cannibal Fish boasted that he had children in every state. He only chose victims who were either mentally handicapped or African American. Fish tortured, mutilated and murdered the youngsters with a meat cleaver, a butcher's knife and a small handsaw, solidifying his reputation as the most vicious child slayer in criminal history. Though barely literate, Fish wrote taunting letters to the parents of his victims gruesomely detailing how he slayed, butchered, cooked and then with great enjoyment dined on their offspring. He would inevitably declare that a child's roasted rump was the most toothsome dish in all gastronomy. Additionally, Fish was a masochist and would insert wool doused with lighter fluid into his own anus and set it alight for his own enjoyment. Fish was finally arrested and he immediately began confessing to killing 700 children. He was dizzyingly happy, smiling as he described the grisly details of the tortures and the murders appearing to the detectives 'as the devil himself'... I mean this guy was a real jerk!"

This is a must-watch!

https://youtu.be/DMcXkA-dWb4

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Hiroo Onoda left us on this day in 2014. He was the Japanese soldier who continued fighting World war II for decades after it was over. Herzog supposedly had an opportunity to meet emperor hero YouTube but said that he preferred to meet on Oda instead. He wrote a novel about him, Fever Dream. 

His orders:

As soon as our troops have been withdrawn from Lubang, it is your duty to hold the island until the Imperial Army’s return. You are to defend its territory by guerrilla tactics, at all costs. You will have to make your own decisions. No one will give you orders. You must be self-reliant.

Well that's what he did!

When he asked about writing a novel of based on a true story Herzog said: 

“I do believe that to a certain degree we all live a certain fiction that we have accepted and articulated and formulated for ourselves. We are permanently in some kind of performance.”

I guess that's true of all of us, and Onoda in particular.

Not an esquivalent bone in his body!

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Record producer and murderer Phil Spector, died on this day in 2021. He famously held a gun to Johnny Ramone to get his way when they were recording. But in fairness, who hasn't wanted to hold a gun to Johnny Ramone at one point or another? I think he did the same to Debbie Harry though, which is only explainable through mental illness. He's responsible for perhaps the greatest song in the history of humankind, Be My baby by the Ronnettes.

Here are the Ramones talking about what it's like to work with him:

https://youtu.be/PU2A62fem5k

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Did you guys see that Satan wrote a letter to the editor about Pat Robertson in the Star Tribune? Leave it to old Satan to write one of the best letters to the editor in the history of letters to the editor.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/81595442.html

January 16, 2010

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http://www.theonion.com/articles/god-admits-he-rarely-forgives,34970/

Future generations may recognize this Onion article as the beginning of a truly great religion.

Updated Jan 16, 2014 9:58:56pm

Jan 16, 2014 9:58:56pm

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NPR- Boy Says He Didn't Go To Heaven; Publisher Says It Will Pull Book

Alex Malarkey's book was a lie??? That's cool that he fessed up. And at least we still have Little Johnny Bullshit's firsthand account, Heaven Really Is Real, Really, I'm Serious.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/01/15/377589757/boy-says-he-didn-t-go-to-heaven-publisher-says-it-will-pull-book

January 16, 2015

Postscript-- You think it's possible then that Tom Hogwash wasn't raped by a chupacabra? 

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New Scientist- Comets can't explain weird 'alien megastructure' star after all

That's a headline you don't see everyday.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28786-comets-cant-explain-weird-alien-megastructure-star-after-all/

January 16, 2016

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New York Times- Trump Promises ‘Insurance for Everybody’ as Health Law Replacement

It's good to remember that Trump could be a great president! (Of course he'll have to contend with the fact that he's an awful person, but he could still be a great president.) "Insurance for all," lower deductibles, people will be "beautifully covered." I'll support that. So will Bernie Sanders, but no Republicans. I think this was just one of those dumb things that came out of his mouth, one of those things Kellyanne Conway says we should ignore, because we have to remember his black, black heart. That's what she said right?

Either way, the rallies in support of Obamacare are going to look pretty ridiculous in retrospect if Trump comes through with it. I mean, were the rallies in support of Trump? 

I think it's a bit more likely that he's an outmatched jabberjaw trying to deal with a massive amount of information giving us a window into stream of consciousness. He found something popular and wants it to be his.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/15/us/politics/trump-health-law-replacement.html

January 16, 2017

Postscript- The guy had every opportunity in the world to be truly great!

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Business Insider- 'The Hare Psychopathy Checklist': The test that will tell you if someone is a psychopathy

I hear that the president requested a mental health test and scored perfectly. "A" mental health test. Dollars to donuts it was a perfect 40 on the psychopath test. Even those who like him have to give him at least a 30, which qualifies him as a psychopath. He's a psychopath for all the reasons he's liked! Try it yourself.

http://www.businessinsider.com/hare-psychopath-checklist-test-sociopath-2016-11

January 16, 2018

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Vice- Conan O'Brien Wants You to Know That Nothing Matters and You're Going to Die

Excellent article! I think about this every day and it honestly peps me up.

Favorite sentence: "Eventually, all our graves go unattended."

Second favorite sentence: "It all started casually enough, with a question from Itzkoff about how O'Brien wants to "go out," before O'Brien veered into an existential pit of despair fast enough to make Jean-Paul Sartre's googly-eyes spin."

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wj3wab/conan-obrien-interview-death-nihilism-all-our-graves-go-unattended-vgtrn

January 16, 2019

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The Atlantic- Why Are Republicans Being So Divisive?

Isn't it strange when the minority screams about unity? If they want unity, great, let's unite behind the plain truth about what caused this, and unite behind a just punishment.

From the article:

The fundamental question here is simple: Who is most responsible for the current division?

On the one hand, there is Trump, who spent two months lying to his supporters that the election had been stolen; called state elections officials and pressured them to throw out valid votes; tried to strong-arm the vice president into handing the election to him; summoned a crowd to Washington with the promise that January 6 would be “wild”; encouraged the crowd to march to the Capitol; and then once matters had turned violent, refused for hours to condemn the assault on the Capitol or call in the National Guard, and praised the rioters. (The people who stormed the Capitol must be held to account as well, but as I’ve written, they are already facing consequences.)

On the other hand, there are those who are calling for Trump to face some punishment, using a constitutionally prescribed remedy.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/why-are-republicans-being-so-divisive/617648/

January 16, 2021

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CNN- The 15 most notable lies of Donald Trump’s presidency

Here you go, in case you were in need of this... 15 big broad brushstroke lies! Whenever someone criticizes the New York Times or the Washington Post, it helps to take a step back and consider what they accept as objective reality.

Note- most of my favorites didn't even make the list. That reminds me, somebody tell Biden not to worry about inspecting the bunkers. Inspector #45 checked them out and they're tip top.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/16/politics/fact-check-dale-top-15-donald-trump-lies/index.html

January 16, 2021

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Schopenhauer- "If we suspect that a man is lying, we should pretend to believe him; for then he becomes bold and assured, lies more vigorously, and is unmasked."

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Big Think- Epiphenomenalism: One of philosophy’s most disturbing ideas

Our thoughts might not add anything to the physical world, we are just aware of things, but locked inside our heads.

"Epiphenomenalism is the idea that our conscious minds serve no role in affecting the physical world. On the contrary, our thoughts are a causally irrelevant byproduct of physical processes that are occurring inside of our brains. According to epiphenomenalism, we are like children pretending to drive a car — it can be great fun, but we are really not in charge."

https://bigthink.com/thinking/epiphenomenalism-mind-body-problem-dualism/

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Russell's Paradox, The Collector:

"Consider the barber paradox: Imagine a barber who shaves all the men in a village who do not shave themselves, and only those men who do not shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself? If we say, ‘No’, then he is a man in this village who doesn’t shave himself, and so who must shave him? The barber! But he is the barber, so he does actually shave himself. If we say, ‘Yes’, then he is a man who shaves himself, so he can’t be shaved by the barber, but that means he in fact does not shave himself, and so on."

Or more formally: Is the set of all sets which are not members of themselves (which we can call A), a member of itself?

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A Map of Methods for the Resurrection of the Dead

https://bigthink.com/hard-science/resurrection-science

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William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying- “The reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.”

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James Joyce- "Life is too short to read a bad book."

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Robert Anton Wilson- "The fear of death is the beginning of slavery."

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Camus- "Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable."

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Asimov- "To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today."

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Hawking- "My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."

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To end his special: "My name is James Acaster. Death comes to us all."

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