Happy Birthday David Lynch

Today is an historic day for our country.

That's right: It's David Lynch's birthday.

I've come to have a tremendous amount of affection for Lynch.

I started out not understanding Lynch. In my arrogance, concluded that there was nothing to get. Typical response of the half-bright provincial.

Eventually, I realized that I was approaching it all wrong. I was overthinking it. Lynch's surreal, non-linear, seemingly indecipherable films/tv are not pointless head games. Lynch is not concerned with giving you a cerebral experience at all. He's going for the heart - and the gut.

He is making use of the form, exploring what cinema can do. He's not taking you down a tidy path from point A to B and so on. In other words, he's doing more than just filming a play. He's abstracting something out real life and presenting to you on film. For some of us, for the first time.

But that's not why I love the guy....

Lynch: "My childhood was elegant homes, tree-lined streets, the milkman, building backyard forts, droning airplanes, blue skies, picket fences, green grass, cherry trees. Middle America as it's supposed to be. But on the cherry tree there's this pitch oozing out – some black, some yellow, and millions of red ants crawling all over it. I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath. Because I grew up in a perfect world, other things were a contrast."

This is where my affection comes from. Lynch's whole project is to show you the horrors around us, which we have normalized. Invisible in their mundanity. So the only way to show the nightmares within everyday life is to portray everyday life as a nightmare. Disjointed, creepy, unclear.

Anxiety is something you learn live with, like mental hemorrhoids. It comes to you, unbeckoned, God knows why. In the worlds Lynch creates, you don't feel calm. It's never that easy. But in Lynch's worlds, your anxiety feels coherent, logical, warranted - hell, appropriate. You don't feel good, but you don't feel crazy, either.

And it doesn’t hurt that practically every shot - especially in Twin Peaks: The Return is absolutely stunning.

The key to understanding Lynch is not to overthink him, but to underthink him. Open your heart. That's what matters, that's how you'll get in. And in the process you'll also find you've stumbled across a master storyteller.

If Twin Peaks or Mulholland Drive were done straight, every dot would connect, every loose end tied up, they'd still be great. But they wouldn't be the same.