David Lynch - the great poet laureate of dream reality - and his work are at the very heart of The Secret Sun, so the news that he's shuffled off his mortal coil and returned to the dreamlands whence he came is a cause for both mourning and celebration - mourning his death and celebrating his life.
In fact, one of the earliest posts on this blog was about Lynch's nightmare-reality masterpiece, Inland Empire, whose themes of the collapse of a Hollywood dream are eerily current, if not unfolding before our very eyes.
Now, I've heard talk that the master may have succumbed to complications from emphysema while being evacuated from the wildfires, but haven't gotten confirmation on that.
But if so, it would be all too appropriate for the last of the great Hollywood dreamers. Maybe his passing is the final omen for the death of his industry and adopted city.
There's so much more to say, of course, but you can't talk about David Lynch without talking about the Siren and the Sibyl, which lay within the beating heart of his own work, from Blue Velvet on.
Oddly enough, there are a lot of clues that may indicate that the Sibyl inspired the Laura Palmer character, at least in part - I mean, TWIN Peaks? - but we'll save those for another time. But suffice it to say it's a topic we've been discussing in the Dive this past week.
Timing is everything in the sync business.
Speaking of which, I'd just posted the first part of a series called "The Liminal Symbolism of Twin Peaks" at the newly-opened Secret Sun Extension School two days ago.
I had planned to post a notice about all that this morning, but I'd been having trouble putting together an announcement. Now I guess I know why.
Either way, you can click this link for the article, which is free for all readers: https://thesecretsun.substack.com/p/the-liminal-symbolism-of-twin-peaks
I'll also be talking about the master with Miguel on a special Aeon Byte livestream this weekend, so keep an eye out for that.
I've written a lot about the master, especially in the wake of the apocalypse kickoff in 2017. I don't know if he read any of that - or any of the Sibyl pieces back in the old days - but some people have told me over the years that they thought "The Search for the Zone" and the Matthew Lilard character in Twin Peaks: The Return were Lynch and Frost riffing on The Secret Sun.
If so, I'm deeply honored, more than I can say.
As I've said many times, the term "Secret Sun" itself doesn't come from Sirius or Saturn or any cringe bullsht like that, but from a recurring dream in which the sun comes out in the middle of the night, but only certain people can see it.
That's a dream I'm sure the master would have appreciated.
For the time being, I'll post this as an elegy and tribute to the master. I'm sure he'll appreciate it.
