Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Lynchendental Meditation

Thanks to The Don I'll be seeing David Lynch's much talked about Inland Empire on the 24th at the lovely Paramount Theatre in Austin, TX -- with Lynch himself in attendance! Of course, it's hugely doubtful there'll be a chance to go one on one with the man -- but as I've often said to many a fellow Lynch Nut, of all my favorite filmmakers, he's the only one to whom I'd have no idea what to say. Lynch is the kind of guy whose voice and vision stands on its own.

Which leads me to his other latest endeavor, the book entitled Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, a piece which strikes me as noteworthy because David Lynch doesn't write books every day, and certainly not on subjects that are personal to him. It's nearly 200 pages of Lynch talking about (in the words of the Amazon description) "his personal methods of capturing and working with ideas, and the immense creative benefits he has experienced from the practice of meditation". If you're at all like me, it sounds like a bunch of new age hooey...but if like me you love the man's work, you're also hard-pressed to dismiss this effort to reach out to the public on the matter. (One wonders if Terry Gilliam could benefit from these philosophies?) I'm not exactly rushing to Borders to pick this up, but I'm pretty sure I'll own a copy within the next couple weeks; it's very reasonably priced for a hardcover.

I got "My Borders Monthly" in my e-mail box last night, and it was pimping the book, along with an excerpt titled "The Pace of Life", a brief excerpt from the audio version of the book, and an engaging Q & A with Lynch. Check out the links, as I think you'll come away from them with a slightly different attitude toward this work. It doesn't strike me as the kind of text that's specific to Lynch's audience; this seems like fare that might benefit anyone engaged in creative endeavors.

Check out Ryland Walker Knight's writeup/review of the book over at The House Next Door.

Pete Martell: There was a fish -- in the percolator!