Twin Peaks: It IS Happening Again

In honor of today's announcement about the return of my favorite TV show of all time, I present this blog post from a few years back:

Wow, Bob, wow, I'm tired. Instead of further forays into magniloquent persiflage, I'll share this with you:

"Starting at 10 a.m. today (EST), Miller will watch every episode of the David Lynch TV-Series Twin Peaks (including the European pilot) in a 30-hour stretch expected to run through mid-afternoon on Friday."

You can read more about performance artist Tom Miller's marathon fit of Peak here.

"I have found no evidence that anyone in the world has publicly achieved watching every episode of 'Twin Peaks' (plus the movie 'Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me') in one continuous sitting while only consuming coffee, cherry pie and doughnuts. I will be the first."

Thirty hours of caffeine, sugar, and surrealism. Let's rock!



~~~

magniloquent = high-flown or bombastic
persiflage = banter

Photo of the Week: Head's Up (by me)

The mind-body disconnection.

Quote of the Day: Wood

"There is an abundance of fish in the sea. But tonight, I would like to speak about wood. There are many times in the world when the phone rings and someone is inquiring about wood. This happens primarily at lumber yards and in this case, it’s necessary to have a phone. It is only natural that trees are growing and that they are made of wood. Much happiness can come from observing a tree and the same can be said about observing the many shapes fashioned out of wood. Quite often when when we are talking about beauty, we are talking about wood. Thank you very much!"
--David Lynch

Link Mania: Zootaxa

Zootaxa?

I typed my name into Google Story Creator, and this was the result:

Zootaxa.

Great Lakes Entomologist. 2005.

It actually went so close to perfect that we could hardly believe it.

And when they do, we nail them.
Those parts range literally from boots on our feet to satellites zipping overhead.

They had night vision gear, so they moved quickly.

Interesting. It seems to have something to do with a successful clandestine military or espionage mission (code name "Zootaxa"?) in 2005 that involved "nailing" an entomologist -- possibly near the Great Lakes. Some poor scientist studying insects at night - a real threat to the government? I wonder why my name generated such a creepy tale.

"You have the vocabulary of an aspidistra in panic."

Everyone could use a compliment now and then, but it can be hard to come up with something original. You might try some of the novel extolations below on your friends and rivals. If you deliver them fast enough, they might not even notice the 100 percent inanity content.

Anathema comes ever to mind when thinking of you.

Your face is like an imperfectly shaven tennis ball.

Your aquiline senescence implores me to generalize within the realms of a starfish's lifelong hallucinations of gelatin pools and of actuaries floating upon the Rhine.

Entranced by the bitter harmony of your lips, I gaze beyond reason to find the oasis of your ruptured soul.

You are truly a wristwatch in a world of lumps.

You have the vocabulary of an aspidistra in panic.

Wallets of fur would bombard a triassic keychain rather than dialyse in your equable fishtank.

You ever remind me of the enigma of postage not sent.

I find your eye sockets to be a wondrous amusement park of neo-plastic pleasures and oncogenic delights.

Your raw sensuality flusters me like a dog sneezing into a ventilation fan.

Tribes of primitve hunters, with rhinestone codpieces rampant, should build pyramids of Chevy engines covered in butterscotch syrup to exalt the diastolic, ineffable, scintillated and cacophonous salamander of truth which slimes and distracts from each and every orifice of your holy refrigerator, Sears be its brand.

You can generate more of these at the Surrealist Compliment Generator.

Random Sequence

Scene from a New York Marriage

In an attempt to avoid any squishier wastefulness, Adrian eschewed another unwitting enchilada, much to the disappointment of the inebriated Philipe, his suborbital sycophant, whose face portrayed a flabbergasted adagio. Philipe then attempted some boozy abracadabra, by offering Adrian the alternative of some caesarean albacore, but to no avail. Proud of his cookery, he attempted some lighthearted conviviality, which at least salvaged the fate of the piteous enchilada, which was then split between them on a tectonic plate of halcyon consensus.

~~~
Meanwhile....

The first lines of Haruki Murakami's hotly anticipated 1Q84.

Random Sequence

Ivan Dreams

The postmodern cowboy/bandit holds an asymmetric handgun in Ivan's dream. "Give me some of your energizing wampum!" the cowboy yells. Ivan realizes that the firearm is only a squirt-gun and smiles with infatuate jolliness. "I don't think so," he drawls with reedy affability. The cowboy scowls and then shrinks into a small cactus with prehensile spines.

Ivan wakes up and begins to write down what he remembers of the dream in the journal he keeps on his bedside table. More crumby eclecticism, he writes, but with some psychogenic particularity. It's the ninth dream he's remembered well enough to record in the last two weeks. A few of them amuse him when he reads about them later in the day. But others disgust him with their overripe absurdity. Still, he's determined to record all of his dreams for the month, as he promised the painter, the "mental portraitist", the dream aficionado....

Photo of the Week

This is some fooling around I did with my photo of the Hamilton Park (Jersey City) fountain. Obviously, I used the wrong crayons, so to speak, but someone on Flickr.com called this "simply beautiful". It kind of surprised me, since most Flickroids are into "pure" photography, not manipulated images.

Click it for a closer inspection of my cockeyed coloring book -- unless you're one of those stay-inside-the-lines types.

Photo of the Week: Snow Queen

This is not my wyfe, or my sister. This is a mannequin I convinced to let me photograph her, though she actually required very little convincing. That's the great thing about mannequins -- they're always ready to pose for you, and they're very good at it. Rock steady, you might say.

Since winter is still -- alas -- with us, despite a one-day respite we had on Friday, I thought I'd share this manipulated pic with you, which I call "The Snow Queen". The original was snapped a few years ago at the Bouckeville Antiques Fair in upstate New York (near my point of origin), and then I made a negative version in some photo program. She resides in a folder on Flickr that I've christened Negative Attitude, along with some other psychomimetic reversals.

Click the pic, feel the chill, and feed your head.

Photo of the Week: Lady Fingers

Nice fingers, yes? Truly a digital photo.

My wyfe is working on an art project, and part of it has involved gluing a mannequin's hand to a mirror. (Don't ask....) The serendipitous result: an opportunity for me to shoot a surrealist image worthy of Man Ray -- or at least a groovy ad for hand cream.

Click it for a larger experience and to be forever changed.

Photo of the Week

You've heard of pot heads? Well, these are pot legs. This is a photo I took at the Exquisite Corpse art show last weekend. It was part of the 2010 Jersey City Studio Arts Tour. An artist friend named Cat made this.

Plenty more pictures of things I saw on the Tour are here. I didn't just see art that day, by the way. Oh no! There are also photos of the One and Nines (saw them at the 4th Street Art & Music Festival), a nicely preserved car from the 60s, an hilarious vintage advertising poster for Salem cigarettes, a painted kid, and some interesting architectural features. It's all quite surreal, if I do say so myself.

~~~

Random:
Here are some photos from John Lennon's 40th birthday (he would have been 70 today) and a long article by a fan who spent quite a bit of time in the autumn of 1980 outside the Dakota, occasionally seeing and interacting with JL, and obsessively recording these encounters -- which comes across as rather creepy, considering.

Sound barricades itself into rolls of peanut butter when you speak

"Your affluent effluent drives even the most zeal-minded to imbibe."

Everyone needs a compliment now and then, but it's hard to come up with something original. You might try some of the novel extolations below on your friends and rivals. If you deliver them fast enough, they might not even notice the 100-percent inanity content.

"You foment graciously, as ever any dying monster did rot."

"Wheals and boils come forth as testament to your fine sense of haut couture."

"Your cleverness ferments meat without the need of oxygen."

"Woe is me, for I must forever more huddle, unminded, in the dark shadow of your undeserved engine of procreation."

"Come, let me gnaw your fingernails that I may absorb and lose myself in the wise and gritty detritus that is you."

"I find your eye sockets to be a wondrous amusement park filled with neo-plastic pleasures and oncogenic delights."

"Your sweet voice is like the snap of a bra strap upon a sunburnt back."

"The sand runes crossing your divided consciousness do speak of contemptuous cardinals setting a Spanish village ablaze."

"You turn the atmosphere wild with currents of vitriol when you smile at the passing insects."

You can generate more of these at the Surrealist Compliment Generator.

'Grim Augery': Dark Night of the Soul Photos

After some legal knots were finally untangled, the Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse/David Lynch collaborative album Dark Night of the Soul has now been released, and it's an eclectic pleasure (for me anyway). The album was originally supposed to be released with an accompanying book of Lynch's photographs inspired by the music, but instead the book was released by itself with a blank CD, apparently as a sarcastic comment on the legal roadblock. The new CD includes a few of the photos in a booklet, but more of them can be viewed here. They're funny and disturbing, sometimes simultaneously. Typical Lynch -- and that's peachy keen.

Shanghaied

David Lynch's new long-form commercial (it hardly seems like one) for Dior, "Lady Blue Shanghai", is here. It stars Marion Cotillard as yet another "woman in trouble" and features a number of Lynchian tropes, including red curtains, a scratchy phonograph, and...something inside a Dior purse. I won't spoil the surprise. Is Lynch running out of ideas, holding back his new ones for his next feature, or merely winking at his fans? Whatever, as an atmospheric short film, I think this works -- though I'm not sure it would make anyone want to buy a purse.

Quote of the Day

"I'd love to go fishing with David Lynch. We'd set out on a rickety old pirate ship, he'd be eating a banana and whistling the theme song to The Love Boat. I'd only be able to speak backwards yet he would somehow be able to understand. Small goats would wander around the boat and every so often one would do a cannonball into the black sea on which we sail. Then I would catch a little fish. The little fish would open his mouth and a stream of fireworks would shoot into the air. David and I would embrace, and I would know that all is right in this strange, strange world."
--Amber Hunt

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I'd like to visit the mysterious Garden of Cosmic Speculation. Unfortunately, it's private and only open to the public for one day a year -- and it's in Scotland. (Why couldn't it be in the "Garden State"?) There's an illustrated coffee-table book about it, but it costs over $140. At least I can look at pictures and dream.

Brain Dump

In the name of the fresco, rheostat, and parallelogram, let me prove that quibble exhaust can inspire a compass vector, dividing any plague or harbinger -- especially for brouhahas. Let us route for receivership with an inchoate method while we export honors celebrating kingdom come. Appendicitis attacks still exhibit hexagonal pangs when distorted, so we humbly beseech you to regurgitate some of your inadvertent grace at any moment. Just please, Lord, don't snap at a spasmodic jogger when blessing his plaintiff along the way. And hush my coprolalial mouth if it is your will to give that birdbath leeway. Amen!

Lost Her Head

My living room is becoming more and more surreal. My wyfe brought home this antique wheelchair from a hospital auction a couple of years ago, and a couple of days ago, she brought home this mannequin -- with some spare parts, but no head (although we also have a disembodied mannequin head or two around here). Click it, above or below, for closer inspection. You know you want to.

#24 Dream

Right now, dishcloths are plotting to maintain Web pages about a nervous meals-on-wheels van. My maypole and snorkel are flaming, and toxic waste barrels that I work with may be half-dead.

Friday will be here at last in less than an hour, and after a tough week, incoherent babbling seems perfectly appropriate to me. You can find more of this sort of applesauce at 24 Dreaming, a site that generates surreal statements, apparently based (loosely) on actual plot summaries from the TV series 24. They're fun. Doesn't seem to matter if, like me, you don't watch the show -- as long as you gyre and gimble in the wabe.

Brain Dump

Beehive?

To appraise is reflection: you must eat these leftovers. Possibly, to have a name shuts down everything, including all indications that come; they give privilege. The transports for the relative authorization of the accumulation of the age indicate that the outside and the colors of today center around the interior of a heart, but if so, why move senselessly? Why be ignited? The way to protection is rigid, unlike a flow of honey. You request something to distract you from the relative abundance of direction--something complete at the moment of lowest superficial intensity, keeping in mind the view from the door. The form, therefore, must be extremely decreased, or gone behind...even when it works.