Our morning routines have changed. More energetic types may have been bouncing out of bed for a virtual PE lesson, and domestic deities are shuffling into the kitchen to inspect their sourdough starters. Me, I’ve been waking up each morning to check yesterday’s weather in Los Angeles.
In mid-May David Lynch activated a YouTube channel (David Lynch Theater) for the express purpose, it seems, of keeping Angelenos up to date with the local weather forecast. It’s the revival of an old habit: he used his website for the same purpose back in the early 2000s. In clips just a few seconds long, the director, artist, musician and now YouTuber can be seen seated at his desk, with curls of steam rising from his coffee cup, delivering a weather forecast (in fahrenheit and celsius), pausing only to turn his head and gaze out of the window, as he assesses the stage of the morning cloud formation. True to form, his forecasts are generally optimistic. The clouds will burn away, the mercury will rise and there will be “sunshine all the way”. He concludes with a salute, and the instruction to “have a great day”.
The weather forecasts may be perfunctory, but their daily appearance is soothing. I don’t get tingles from ASMR, but I do get a frisson from my low-key Lynchdates; the director’s dark shirts, his impressive snow-white quiff, and his office, soaked in hazy morning sunlight have become comfortingly familiar. Nevertheless, Lynch is not averse to shaking up the format. On 6 June, he marked the anniversary of D-day by recounting a dream he had of being a young German soldier in the second world war, dying on a beach in Normandy. And 12 June became a day of celebration as the director excitedly unveiled his new microphone, a gift from his admirers at the Santa Monica College station KCRW radio. Which probably makes Lynch an influencer.
On 2 June, designated #blackouttuesday by the music industry, Lynch was absent from the frame, leaving us with 28 seconds of silence and an empty chair. Even the coffee appeared to be cold. In case his point had been missed, the following day, he gave the forecast in front of a handmade sign painted with the words: “BLACK LIVES MATTER/PEACE JUSTICE/NO FEAR”. Did 74-year-old Lynch join the BLM demonstrations in Los Angeles? Maybe so.
Lynch has more than meteorology on his mind. He has uploaded two short films to the channel, exploiting the element of surprise as he did when he released 2017’s What Did Jack Do? on Netflix in January. First he sprang the abstract animation Fire (Pozar) on us and more recently, episodes of his 2002 leporine hellmouth “sitcom” Rabbits, starring Scott Coffey, Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring: “In a nameless city deluged by a continuous rain … three rabbits live with a fearful mystery.” He has even debuted a David Lynch Theater original: The Story of a Small Bug, in which Lynch’s narration and fearful sound design elevate the encounter between a hungry lizard and an unsuspecting creepy-crawly to an Attenborough-esque horror.
My favourites are the videos labelled What Is David Working on Today?, snapshots of Lynch pottering in his workshop. He might be fixing a sink (complete with “swing-out urinal”!) or debuting his new invention “the incredible checking stick”, a device to help him channel his creative intuition while painting. As he murmurs appreciatively: “Wood is such a blessing for humanity.”
I had a trip to California booked this spring, which I cancelled, naturally. So it should be bittersweet to check in with the weather on America’s west coast every day, but somehow it’s not. Like the checking stick, each video is “a tasty little piece”. I hope Lynch stays on YouTube for the summer. Life in lockdown London may be filled with uncertainty, but on my computer screen at least, the coffee is always steaming hot, the sunshine is golden, and the director of Eraserhead wants me to have a great day.
