You might not have realised it at the time – you might not even realise it now – but on Friday afternoon, something truly momentous happened: David Lynch pulled a seven out of a jar.
For the most part, the burst of online celebrity visibility that marked the start of the Covid crisis has dribbled down to almost nothing. Joe Wicks has stopped doing PE lessons. John Krasinski’s Some Good News show screeched to a halt four months ago. Mercifully, nobody else has attempted another group singalong of Imagine. But David Lynch is still plugging away, updating his YouTube account twice daily.
The first videos are his weather reports, where he briefly tells us about the Los Angeles forecast. But the more gripping content comes in the form of his Today’s Number Is series, where he swirls 10 ping-pong balls around in a blacked-out jar, picks one out and shows us the number written on it.
That’s all there is to it. As of Monday morning, Lynch has pulled a number from his jar on 43 consecutive days, each video comfortingly sticking to the same script. “Here we go for today’s number,” he says, standing in the same spot outside his workshop. He reveals the date. “Ten balls. Each ball has a number. Numbers one through 10.” He takes the lid off the jar, puts his hand in. “Swirl the numbers. Pick a number.” He pulls a ball from the jar, shows the number to the camera, says it aloud and the video ends.
Exactly what it means is anybody’s guess. Lynch is known to be a fan of numerology, and his 2017 Twin Peaks revival was full of so many mysterious numbers that all manner of websites started to tie themselves in knots trying to decode their meaning. A bruised woman, never seen before or since, repeatedly cries “119” for reasons that are never explained. The screaming tree with a human brain tells Dale Cooper “253. Time and time again”. The character played by Carel Struycken orders Cooper to “remember 430”. These numbers might be relevant, or they might not.
And so it is with the jar. The comment section beneath the videos has grown into a community of likeminded numerological sleuths, trying to assign a deeper meaning to the numbers that Lynch pulls out. Overwhelmingly, the most frequently drawn number has been eight, which many took to be an ominous portent of things to come. After all, you will remember that episode eight of Twin Peaks: The Return drifted into a nuclear explosion and saw the end of the world.
For the first 40 days of the series, David Lynch pulled out every number but seven from the jar. Seven is Lynch’s favourite number. Theories began to emerge. Was it deliberate? Was it rigged? Did he keep ball seven in a freezer, so he could identify it by touch? Was he redoing any videos in which he pulled a seven? Regardless, every day a commenter called Wes W wrote the same thing: “Man if tomorrow’s not a 7 I’m gonna lose it.” Wes quickly gained a large following, as the rest of the audience took to pinning all their thwarted seven-based hopes on him.
Then, on Friday, it happened. As always, Lynch ran through his script. He swirled the numbers. He picked a number. He looked at it, and broke into a broad grin. “Today’s number, by golly,” he giggled. “Today’s number, Wes, is seven.”
The jubilation in the comments was unparalleled. Not only had a seven finally been picked, but Lynch addressed had addressed a commenter by name. “WES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” one wrote. “Almost made me cry,” wrote another. “I feel like I’m a part of history by being here,” wrote a third, and it made sense. If you’d been following the numbers from the start, this weird little game produced and watched out of boredom in a moment of personal restriction, the number and the smile and the call-out genuinely seemed significant.
And then Wes W disappeared, without so much as a reaction. As soon as seven was called, he stopped commenting. Now the comment section has transformed into a hunt for Wes, a gnomic figure with just three videos in his profile, one of which is a clip of David Lynch and five Woody Woodpeckers thanking a cinema chain for supporting Eraserhead. Who could he be? Will he return? Was he David Lynch in disguise? Are we all just projecting a much larger narrative on to something that may be meaningless? Probably, yes, but hasn’t that always been the case with David Lynch?
David Lynch is still swirling his numbers. Yesterday’s number was five. What will today’s number be?
