I'm Waiting Here
LA and Lynch and Laura and Lykke Li
When David Lynch died, I thought about the time when, in Saratoga Springs, my friend Jo Andres said it’s funny how no one knows that his best movie is Disney’s The Straight Story (1999). I had only recently seen it then and ecstatically agreed, although maybe I think Inland Empire (2006) is better because of Grace Zabriskie and Laura Dern, who published a great letter to Lynch today in the LA Times. In the first sentence, she mentions that it still feels “too soon to express what I’m feeling”—a sentiment that used to be given more weight. I love that they called each other Tidbit.
I remember seeing Inland Empire alone in an Ann Arbor theater when it came out. Is that possible? Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) is better than Twin Peaks (1990) but we’d have nothing without the original, which I borrowed from the library on VHS in Grand Rapids. “I’m Waiting Here” is one of my favorite music videos of all time and I sometimes listen to the song on repeat. LA, a city continuously defined by extreme aridness that could any day fall into an ocean, and other forms of drama, is still in flames.
I’m increasingly repelled by the idea of publicly responding to events as they are happening, not that I want everyone else to stop (how else will I know?). I’m just not the competitive type. (Jealousy is another story). We sometimes say “joining a chorus,” but what we’re talking about isn’t that. No one is trying to harmonize; someone’s voice is always drowning out another’s, even about favorite films, pleasant memories. I’ve lately been saying “good” when people ask “how are you?” and am surprised if they say “okay” when I ask it back. It has taken so much complaining to get to “good,” I forgot that everyone else is perhaps on another path—or letting the “you” in that question mean “everything.”
A friend I’ve known since childhood came to New York for work and brought me a stack of my (and every local’s) favorite Tucson tortillas, from St. Mary’s (since 1978), the perfect gift. We had dinner at the Serbian restaurant Kafana on Avenue C and I made burritos the next day with leftover meat, spare vegetables, and sliced avocado. This type of housewarming present is my favorite: a local treat brought from home, like the Italian bakery Christmas cookies someone came with from South Brooklyn to our friends’ annual holiday party in Ridgewood.
Jouissance Parfums is hosting a reading and reception at Tenderbooks in London on February 4th. I believe that to attend, you must sign up for their newsletter and RSVP. I won’t be there, but the fiction collection being presented, The Collector, features a story I wrote, and it will be for sale as a set of booklets along with the perfumes. This letter is free today. Thank you for reading it.