Seven Days of David Lynch Day 3: Polish Night Music

David Lynch and Marek Zebrowski's 2015 Polish Night Music is one of the most atmospheric albums I know of. Right from the start, I feel like I'm skirting the alleys of Łódź, passing dilapidated apartment buildings and ornate Gothic churches, only to be sucked into an ominous, failing machine. 

Abstract, yes, but I have Lynch himself to thank for those images. Łódź served as one of the filming locations for Inland Empire, and his lifelong obsession with industrial sounds and scenescapes is omnipotent in much of his work. 

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Watch:

I figured this would be a good time to compile a bunch of trailers released for David Lynch's films, starting with 1990's Wild At Heart. 

This film is so iconic, but it also skirts a line between deadly serious (Sailor beating a man's head open on the courthouse stairs) and completely hysterical (Thrash Metal band Powermad adding accompaniment to Sailor serenading Lula in the middle of a mosh pit). 

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Read:

Continuing with the Lynch-centric theme, I spent some time digging through my old issues of Wrapped in Plastic and found an article from the first issue I ever purchased - issue 17. The article in question was an interview with Twin Peaks writer Harley Peyton on the set of his film Keys to Tulsa. 

As usual, WIP braintrust Craig Miller and John Thorne conduct a fantastic interview, which becomes all the more entertaining as Eric Stoltz and James Spader drift in and out of it. In particular, I either had no idea or had just plain forgotten that Peyton wrote the screenplay for the cinematic adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero (a film I have yet to see, given how much I love the book).

It's been a very long time since I've seen Keys to Tulsa, may have to seek that out sometime soon...

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Playlist:

The Police - Synchronicity

Phil Manzanera - Listen Now

Midlake - The Courage of Others

Deftones - private music

YUNGBLUD - Idols

Drug Church - Prude

Fever Ray - Eponymous

David Lynch & Marek Zebrowski - Polish Night Music

Underworld - Lovely Broken Thing

Underworld - I'm a Big Sister, and I'm a Girl, and I'm a Princess, and This is My Horse

Underworld - 1992 - 2002 (Disc 2)

Zeni Geva and Steve Albini - All Right You Little Bastards

The Trapezoid & Six Ex - Cannibal Children of the West (single)

Shellac - To All Trains

David Lynch - Crazy Clown Time

Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch - Twin Peaks Season 2 OST

Myrkur - M

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Seven of Pentacles

• XIX: The Sun

* King of Swords

"The solution to the problem taking up most of your time is practice."

I had the idea to start adding quotation marks to the pulls that come off sounding like I'm offering them to someone else. I guess the idea is I'm placing the quotes there so it's obvious (to me?) that this is the cards talking to me. Or something like that. I don't know.

Anyway, pretty direct message on this one. I'm not entirely sure what it applies to, other than writing, which I've not been doing. So a nod to get back on that train, or something else?

Powermad - Slaughterhouse

 

Over the last two weeks, I had the distinct pleasure of watching several of David Lynch's films I had previously missed on the big screen at Nashville's Belcourt Theatre. The Belcourt's retrospective on Lynch's work was comprehensive; a true celebration of the man's life and art.

I spoke about seeing Eraserhead/The Grandmother in a previous post, but this past weekend my cousin Charles and his wife Lauren came down to visit us, and Sunday afternoon, the four of us caught The Straight Story on 35mm. I'll talk about that below, but suffice it to say, for Monday night's screening of Wild At Heart, Powermad's "Slaughterhouse" rang EPIC on the Belacourt's sound system. I never got into this band back in the day, but I was definitely aware of them, mostly through ads in Thrasher magazine. 

Released in 1989, this would have come at the height of my "Skate or Die" phase; man do I miss that. The last time I rode a board was circa 2011 in San Pedro; the hills almost killed me, and I kind of backed off again after that, only to have a friend accidentally break it a year or two later.

How the hell did I get here from where this began? Oh yeah, Powermad!

The bit with Powermad doing backups for Sailor's Elvis serenade really clues you into Lynch's mindset on this film. There are times when I'd almost liken Wild At Heart to Lynch's version of a Farce. Sailor's singing and mannerisms, Marietta's, well, everything, and Crispin Glover's joyfully insane Del are all so far outside the realm of seriousness for a film that can still take itself very seriously, that they help make this one unique, even among the greater body of Lynch's work. 

The two images that stand out on the big screen are the sequences of roiling fire and Bobby Peru's teeth. Nightmare fuel, that.

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Watch:

David Lynch's The Straight Story is an underseen masterpiece. I say that as a lifelong Lynch fan who, although I own the film on DVD, had only seen it twice before, and never at the Cinema. That changed this past weekend, and I can tell you that this film is a deeply moving character piece that wet my ocular sockets consistently from start to finish.  

Seeing this film on 35 mm was an entirely new experience; Lynch films on the big screen are heightened, almost altered states; few people who have experienced Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive in the cinema would contest that. Those are films that incorporate Neo Noir and Psychological Fugue/Horror elements that lend themselves to inducing altered states. The Straight Story is something else entirely. It is a story about family, love, and redemption. It is firmly rooted in the "real" world, so its altered state is a sharply emotional one. It's a beautiful and slightly disconcerting thing to let David Lynch lead you on a journey like this, but by the end, it makes you feel wonderfully alive.

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NCBD:

Finally, after being pushed back several months, we have the finale of James Tynion and Joshua Hixon's The Deviant!

To say I've been waiting for this is an understatement. Thinking about sitting down this weekend and re-reading the entire series in one sitting. One of my favorite books in forever. 

I keep thinking this cover is an homage to an issue of Larry Hama's original GI JOE comic at Marvel, but that may not be the case. Either way, pretty cool. Maybe I'm starting to warm up to this book a bit more? We'll see.

Now that I know Epitaphs From the Abyss is ending at issue 12, I'm cherishing each one of these even more. And as I say so often with this book, LOVE this cover!

Güs! 'Nuff said!

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Playlist:

Sqürl - Third Man Records Session

Melvins - Hold It In

Hangman's Chair - Saddiction

Vinyl Williams - Lansing (single)

Flogging Molly - Swagger

The Pogues - Hell's Ditch

The Pogues - Red Roses for Me

QOTSA - In Times New Roman

Sinéad O'Connor - The Lion and the Cobra

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE:

Grimm currently has a Kickstarter running for his ... And the Night Stares Back Vol. 2 coloring book, which features some of the art from the Hand of Doom Tarot. I backed this instantly, but there's no way I would ever apply color to Grimm's beautiful B&W art.

• V: The Hierophant

• Knight of Swords

• Five of Wands

Knowledge (or information) wrested from a perceived opponent can require Will to make work. 

This is straight-up on point with my work at the moment, where I actually feel like I have a bit of a "Moriarity" at the moment, and the knowledge they disseminate to me often feels occluded or guarded. Maybe even false.