Miscellany – Page 325

DAVID LYNCH ON MEDITATION

Sunday, January 8, 2006

Transcendental Meditation is the way of the householder in that it allows you to stay in the world. Some people like the recluse way and want to go into the cave, and there are mantras that will take you right out of the activity and put you into that cave. But Transcendental Meditation is a way of integrating these two worlds….In the West people think, yeah like I’m really gonna give up my dental practice and go to the cave, but you don’t have to quit dentistry. Meditate before you go to work and you’ll start liking the people that come in and you’ll start getting ideas about dentistry. Maybe you’ll invent something and get into the finer points of a cavity and honing that bad boy.

Lynch talks more about TM and The David Lynch Foundation, his attempt to bring Transcendental Meditation and Conciousness-Based Education to the children of the world, in this Newsweek interview.

Dale Cooper would approve.

On Charles Baxter’s recommendation, I checked out Eric Puchner‘s first book of short stories, MUSIC THROUGH THE FLOOR. The book really knocked me out. The stories are funny and sad and painted with honest details. There’s nothing close to a dud in the batch. From the NYTimes review:

Some of Puchner’s stories are laugh-aloud funny. In “A Fear of Invisible Tribes,” a carful of driver’s ed students is hijacked while their instructor is paying for gas at a minimart. The robber demands they drive him away but of course they can’t; they don’t know how to drive. One student (named Green Boy for his dyed hair) suggests that the robber let them out and drive himself. “I don’t drive stick,” he replies. “It’s an honest mistake,” says Green Boy. “Anyone could make it. How were you supposed to know?” But another student butts in: “Actually, there’s a big sign on the back? Like in yellow? Caution: Student Driver?” What’s wonderful is how this comedic story slowly evolves into a subtle tragedy, with its heroine – a nervous adult in the class – so frightened of the world she ends up squandering the possibility of intimacy offered by the fellow student who ends up saving her life.

Puchner is a former Stegner fellow, lives in San Francisco, and teaches at Stanford. Read exerpts from “Children of God” and “Animals Here Below” from the Zoetrope website, then go out and get his book.

OUR VICTORY OVER WINTER HAS BEGUN!

Wednesday, January 4, 2006

Emperor penguins are birds, but they can’t fly.

Almost every other form of life leaves Antarctica during winter; emperor penguins have chosen it as their mating season.

Did it occur to anyone else while watching March Of The Penguins, that though they’re adorably cute and full of seemingly inexaustible comedy, the emperor penguins are riding the Darwinian shortbus?

Evolve, penguins! Evolve!

CHAUTAUQUA NEW YEAR

Sunday, January 1, 2006

For New Year’s, our friends were nice enough to invite us up to their place on Lake Chautauqua in western New York.

“You can stay in the boathouse,” they said.

After two hours on the highway, they drove us to this boarded-up shanty.

“Here’s the boathouse!” they said.

Then they laughed at our horrified faces and drove us to the real boathouse.

On the way, they told us “Chautauqua” means “gunny-sack-tied-in-the-middle” in Indian.

Stupid Indians, I thought. Who knows what a gunny sack looks like?

It occured to me over breakfast that this would be a great place to write a book. I could sit at my desk and stare at the lake, white as a virgin sheet of paper, just waiting to be defiled with ink.

Here, some ice fisherman are defiling the lake with drills.

What a pretty scene for a defiling!

The Famous Fish Platter at GUPPY’S is outstanding. There’s a reason it’s famous: the fish is flavorful, and the french fries are crispy, with just the right amount of seasoning.

The decor was tartar sauce on top of the fish: above our table was a Christmas wreath decorated with a golden Budweiser sign.

It was my kind of restaurant.

No New Year is complete without a game of Drunk Scrabble. Drunk Scrabble is played after at least four glasses of wine. Proper nouns, abbreviations, and acronyms are all welcome and encouraged. Proper verbs, are included, too, like Google, even though it’s damned near impossible to end up with two Gs and two Os.

I am pleased to note that I came up with the evening’s top score: a whopping 33 points for “feat.” (The F was on a double-letter score, and the T ended up on a triple-word score.)

Happy New Year!