David Lynch is gone. But David Lynch is also all around me, basically every day. Part of this is undoubtedly simply an occupational hazard: teaching in a film department, being around established and burgeoning cinephiles, it is hard to get through a semester or even a week or sometimes even a day without discussing Lynch, sometimes in depth and at length, other times just in passing, with quick mentions of favorite films, anecdotes, shorts, Twin Peaks gags, and so on. I am confident in saying that I cannot be alone in feeling like it is impossible to get away from him—not that I want to, to be clear.

Probably the most common place that I encounter Lynch in my everyday life is on social media. Like many others, I try (and fail) to avoid social media as much as I can. Yet it seems that when I inevitably log on, there is always Lynch: in Twin Peaks-themed memes, in sporadic reposts of his Angriest Dog in the World comics, and more. Most commonly, most unavoidably, there are simply clips of Lynch talking. Some of these are funny, posted for us to laugh with and remind us of his charm: his thoughts on the iPhone, for instance, or his savagely acute takedown of critics attempting to explain and interpret his work (Best David Lynch Moment, 2013; David Lynch on iPhone, 2008). Some are appreciative, loving reposts of his weather reports, his numbers of the day, and other content from his own YouTube channel (“DAVID LYNCH THEATER,” n.d.). More often, though, these are videos of Lynch talking about art, creativity, passion, dreams, love, and life. For as much as we love Lynch’s work (and we do), we also love the man himself, his thoughts, the perspective that his total commitment to art and belief offer us as viewers, fans, and creators, and the inspiration that his unrelenting drive and passion spur.

A variety of scholars, theologians, and cultural critics frequently bemoan the spiritual state of our contemporary age, praising or blaming the ostensible secularization of culture for various woes. Yet, there are many who argue that wondrous elements of the spiritual continue to surround us every day. David Lynch, through his films, the vitality of his personality as seen in interviews, and especially via his YouTube channel, conveyed this idea vividly and often. Here was a man enthralled with the beauty, power, and possibilities of life. Here was a man who loved living, people, and the capacity of art to facilitate communion and connection between disparate individuals. Though not religious in a traditional, institutional sense, Lynch’s spirituality and his adherence to Transcendental Meditation as a discipline and spiritual practice suffuse his work with a spiritual aura (Sheldon, 2020). Part of this “aura” emerges from the beautiful, lovable quirkiness of Lynch’s personality, as evidenced in his interviews and other public appearances and statements. In his very person, Lynch held a fanciful, wonder-filled appeal all its own, famously remarked upon by commentators like David Foster Wallace as being startlingly, even disarmingly sincere given the intense darkness characterizing much of his work (Wallace, 1997). This sincerity curiously translates to his films, certainly, but also his commercial works, his short films, his daily updates about the weather in Los Angeles, and his celebration of random numbers on random ping-pong balls. Lynch’s oeuvre is many things, but one of those is a clarion call to pay attention to the basic wonder and beauty of the world and the joy to be had in life, art, and the unexplained (Sheldon, 2024, 2026).

Because of this perspective, there is among Lynch's fans an attraction to his work that stems from and reinforces a fascination with the man himself. His distinctive voice (literally, and aesthetically/authorially) speaks to a desire for and recognition of genuine, sincere belief in a fellow human being. That Lynch so clearly lived out his foundational beliefs in art, and that he so freely and passionately shared his convictions in the transformational power of creativity and his methods for pursuing his creative voice and freedom, make him an unsurprising and appropriately eccentric representative of the fulfilling, subversive possibilities of art in all its guises—cinematic, photographic, and otherwise. It is no surprise, then, that Lynch’s words on art, creativity, belief, and more are repeatedly and reverently shared by so many across social media.

The prevalence of this behavior remains intriguing, though. For many of the creatives and cinephiles that I know, quoting Lynch is comparable to quoting a theologian, or better yet, a biblical or other religious author. In the way his work and words are reposted and lauded, Lynch is celebrated as the unofficial patron saint of quirkiness, of surrealism, of wonder, of beauty, of art itself.

Lynch was also an entertainment industry celebrity, and celebrities are often worshipped. Held up as the idealized distillations of cultural values, aspirations, woes, and possibilities, celebrities receive different, special treatment from society (Dyer, 1986; Herwitz, 2008; Ward, 2020). But not all celebrities are sainted. Fame is a fickle thing, and many icons of an age disappear as fads fade, and fashions and tastes develop. Rare, then, is the figure whose stature only grows, whose memorialization and celebration in and after death is as great, if not greater, than when they were alive. Lynch was an auteur and a celebrity, yes, but one resoundingly unique even amongst these categories. Lynch is, undoubtedly, one of these sainted few.

To understand this phenomenon, this short essay examines facets of Lynch’s spirituality in conversation with the idea of “sacred forms” in culture and perspectives on the importance, influence, and mechanisms of public memory. The concept of “sacred forms” helps identify ways that religious and spiritual values are made manifest in expressions of popular and material culture. Seeing popular culture as suffused with spiritual ideas and ideals makes it natural to consider the cultural fascination with auteur figures like Lynch akin to the veneration of saints and prophets in traditional, institutional religions, with consequences for how their public reputations and remembrances develop. Putting Lynch’s celebrity into conversation with these concepts and, importantly, with his own pervasive spirituality is an opportunity to offer conjecture as to why Lynch matters so much, and why and how he and his work will continue to matter far into the future.

“Devising a World, an Experience” – Sacred Forms and Public Memory

Reports vary on whether the world is becoming more or less spiritual or secular. Depending on who you read, which surveys you consult, and which measures you employ, the secularization of culture is in decline, proceeding apace, or has already occurred. Even as measures or institutions of traditional religion vacillate in their prominence or efficacy, an element of the sacred persists in modern culture, manifest in the collective values that inform pockets of society and supply an underlying ethic for how individuals behave in and make meaning of culture.

Often, these values are not explicitly taught. Rather, they are instantiated in what is referred to as “sacred forms.” These are “specific, historically contingent, instances of the sacred…constituted by constellations of specific symbols, thought/discourse, emotions and actions grounded in the body” that help “constitute groups who share these discourses, sentiments and practices” (Lynch, 2012). Sacred forms embody the underlying values and ethics of a culture in ways that engage the thoughts, feelings, and bodies of individuals, bringing them into conformity and ultimately collectivity with others based on those shared values.

Popular culture provides an especially potent type of sacred form. Stories are powerful, offering concise distillations and expressions of the aesthetics, ethics, beliefs, and principles of a time and place in entertaining but also evocative and thought-provoking packages. Media like novels, films, television shows, and even TV commercials offer viewers/consumers narratives, characters, and ideas to use to explain their feelings of spirituality or just their understanding of the world. Media become a “symbolic inventory” out of which individuals and collectives construct aspects of their identity (Hoover, 2006). Beyond content for conversation and meaning-making, media also offer experiences that are heightened, even transformative and transcendent elucidations of the world, such that some argue popular culture has become “society’s main purveyor of enchanted experiences” (Hjarvard, 2008, p. 17) that reinvigorate enthusiasm and appreciation of the world around us.

It is easy to see Lynch’s work slotting into these categories. His films and television series are frequently cited for their deconstruction of the mythos of Americana and the American dream, with critics tying them to other media, texts, and people who eschew simplistic, nostalgic views of the nation’s past and innocence. In evocative moments like Blue Velvet’s Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) stumbling on a severed ear and gazing through the slatted closet doors at the rape of Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini) to Twin Peaks’ Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) wrapped in plastic on the beach, amongst others, Lynch’s work has supplied a library of haunting, even iconic imagery tying audiences together with their shared experiences of those moments and the shorthand they offer for explaining and expressing cultural values and psychology. And in the harrowing and breathtaking surrealism of so much of Lynch’s work—the diner sequence in Mulholland Drive, the Red Room in Twin Peaks, nearly all of The Return but especially the episode “Gotta Light?”— Lynch creates confusing, emotional, palpable experiences of transcendence that mystify and alienate but resonate with audiences. He enchants, even as he horrifies, perplexes, and entertains.

But Lynch’s consistent ability to do these things, and the unity of theme, tone, and archetype found across his work, elevates consideration of Lynch as sacred. The ritual of sharing Lynch’s creative musings and advice, his humorous aphorisms, and his bizarrely charming stories points to Lynch as a sacred figure and form in his own right. Instagram is riddled with image posts of interviews with Lynch, subtitled with his words of creative vision and encouragement: “If you have a dream, never let go of it. Just hold onto it and keep working hard.” “The film is the thing. You work so hard to get this thing built, all the elements to feel correct, the whole to feel correct in this beautiful language called cinema, and the second it’s finished, people want you to change it back into words. And it’s very saddening and it’s torture. It’s the film. The language is the cinema.” “‘Eraserhead is my most spiritual film.’ ‘Elaborate on that.’ ‘No.’” Or a perpetual favorite, often accompanying varied cartoon versions of Lynch: “Keep your eye on the donut, not the hole.” In posts like these, Lynch stands as a totem of unbound creativity and trust in the power of art. The affinity that his base of fans and scholars has for his bizarre, troubling, beautiful creations ultimately elevates him as a figure whose life embodied a commitment to personal exploration and psychological honesty that continues to rally devotees around his work and the creative ethos that drove him. His values of radical devotion to the creative act, to honesty of expression, and to the power and importance of art become the values his disciples use to evaluate the art and commitments of other artists and the values they wish to emulate. His words and stories not only memorialize the man himself but spur further creative acts. Lynch’s unique personality, his quotability, his candor, and his cadence become part of the re-enchantment of the creative act. Sharing soundbites, clips, and stories of and by Lynch becomes an act of alignment, tying the individual into the tribe of Lynch admirers and like-minded creators, all of whom are contributing to an ongoing process of public memorialization and collective remembering.

A culture’s memory and depiction of its history is often shaped less by facts and more by the relationship of that culture to its own past. We operate much as Bill Pullman’s Fred Madison in Lost Highway when he remarks, “I like to remember things my own way. …Not necessarily the way they happened.” Present-day events, attitudes, and beliefs are necessarily linked to the past in a dynamic that can be described as “history-in-motion,” where public discourse remakes “the residue of past decades into material with contemporary resonance” (Zelizer, 1995, pp. 216, 217). Accuracy in memories or descriptions of past people, places, or events is thus variable, introducing fundamental questions of how cultural memories are constructed in particular times and places and the effect these memories have as texts that are fashioned, mediated, and situated.

Emphasizing the constructed, mediated nature of collective memory situates such enterprises squarely within the rhetorical field and especially the epideictic genre. Epideictic rhetoric is ceremonial, typically focused on praising or censuring individuals for the virtues or vices they have displayed, using the moment of oration as a fixed point from which to look backwards and evaluate. Eulogies are epideictic, and of course directly linked to the narration of memory, harnessing memories of the deceased “to rhetorically instruct, educate, guide, and motivate” (Kiewe, 2004, p. 251). Media form an especially important part of this rhetorical construction of remembrance, with biopics, biographies, and other forms of mediated remembrance serving an epideictic, instructional, and memorializing purpose (Custen, 1992; Sheldon, 2021). Lynch’s words in the various clips and images shared of him are not epideictic because he was in no way memorializing himself. He memorialized others, notably Angelo Badalamenti, but wasted none of his own breath on himself. But deployment of Lynch's expressions by fans and creatives shifts them into an epideictic mode, utilized to build a cohesive and comprehensive vision of the man through his own words and works.

There is a reverence in the repetition of Lynch’s enthusiastic words and encouragements. Some of the most popular memes and posts that I see are images from the daily weather updates he gave from his workshop and posted to his YouTube channel. “I am wearing dark glasses today because I am seeing the future, and it’s looking very bright!” “One day the sadness will end. But I don’t think today’s the day.” “Looks like blue skies and golden sunshine all along the way.” “Good morning, everyone, it’s…what fucking day is it now?” Reposting Lynch’s funniest, most heartfelt, off-the-cuff remarks from his personally run YouTube series reorients these messages that he was sending to others to be about their feelings towards him. Or consider how various Lynch and Twin Peaks-oriented social media accounts (and I and two of my best friends from college) celebrate “Twin Peaks Day” by reposting the iconic image of Dale Cooper making his first entrance into the town, speaking into his tape recorder, “Diane, 11:30am, February 24^th. Entering the town of Twin Peaks.” Honoring the resonance of characters and creations so intimately tied to Lynch as their creator becomes an act of both celebration and remembrance.

Posts like these or the ones described further above exemplify the distinctive functional power of epideictic for both those sharing this content and the audience consuming that content. Rhetorician Michelle Condit (1985) notes that there are three “functional pairs” of terms that define the unique function of epideictic for both speaker (or sharer) and audience. The “definition/understanding” pair positions the speaker as someone defining the figure to be commemorated, advancing a particular understanding of that person for their audience. The “display/entertainment” pairing lets the speaker demonstrate their eloquence and taste while entertaining their audience and elevating the memorialized figure along lines of grandiosity, sweetness, or nobility. And the “shaping/sharing of community” pairing enables the speaker to shape understandings of shared experiences and thus integrate the audience into a community around their admiration and understanding of the figure being eulogized (pp. 288-289). Each of these functional pairs is on clear display in the way that Lynch’s rhetoric, creativity, and art are characterized and transmitted across social media.

For one thing, many posts featuring Lynch’s art, or clips, or illustrations of inspirational quotes, do not identify Lynch as a filmmaker or artist. There is an assumed familiarity with the man, which can also translate into defining him by his words on creativity rather than his artistic output. Consequently, the understanding fostered by such posts is of Lynch as a voice on creativity and artistry, a creative guru of sorts. Sharing posts about or of Lynch necessarily ties the poster to Lynch, letting them display their taste and affinity for the director to those in the know, and ties their personal tastes, perspectives, and humor to the entertaining presentation and aphorisms that the director offers. And doing all of this sees the poster contributing to the ongoing shaping and reshaping of the director’s public profile and reputation while cultivating a broader community around his creative advice, disposition, and passion.

In Catching the Big Fish, Lynch’s published thoughts on creativity and Transcendental Meditation, the director describes cinema as “devising a world, an experience” for viewers (Lynch, 2016, p. 17). Lynch’s films, shorts, commercials, paintings, and YouTube videos will persist, serving as tangible markers of the director’s life, work, and impact. But his person and personality are already experiencing another, distinct form of persistence in the sharing of these clips and moments, which—if my experience is indicative of anything—are being encountered more frequently, and in ways that are more common, direct, and casual than a dedicated time viewing any of Lynch’s films or extended television work. The director’s voice, words, and mantras on social media are doing active work in devising a world around the director, which cultivates an experience of his words and work for audiences who might sense in them a familiarity, if not a full awareness of his peculiar sensibilities and art. Social media and the spread of his advice and beliefs are doing important work in codifying and solidifying Lynch’s reputation in the worlds of cinema and fine art. They are actively shaping understandings of the man in both subtle and obvious ways. The accumulation of posts about Lynch’s creativity and creative advice reinforces public understandings of who he was and what he stood for, in a manner that can be read as sacred. His creative advice and koans are transformed from answers to interview questions into preaching of a sort, proverbial and even prophetic in nature. No one searches for evidence of miracles that Lynch performed in the way that the Catholic Church seeks evidence for candidates for canonization, but his art stands as evidence of the countless creative miracles necessary for any of it to exist in the first place; the way it resonates as others make art because of Lynch, or remix his art, or even just repost and recontextualize it, testifies to the miraculous possibilities of art, creativity, and creation.

Taken together, these factors contribute to an ongoing process of remembering Lynch in a way that transcends his body of work, transforming the man himself into something more, akin to a modern creative, artistic saint. Such language is easy to apply in a situation like this and seems descriptive in a way that feels relatively obvious. For those who love him and his work, it is not surprising to see Lynch elevated to such a role in death, and it is no shock to see his visage and the fuel of his creative words posted and reposted on social media. The reality of such appearances, though, does raise questions about what he might think of this, and what such behaviors portend for his continuing reputation or that of his artistic output. To proceed with this line of thought, even in a conjectural fashion, requires first turning to the man himself, to his own “faith” and expressions of spirituality—an often-overlooked facet of his life, career, and art.

“When I Started Meditating, the Anger Went Away” – The Spiritual Lynch

A handful of scholars and critics have identified a religious impulse at the core of Lynch’s creative work. From “Zoroastrian” notions of good and evil (Johnson, 2015) to a hybrid Manichean/postmodern sensibility (Alexander, 1993; Carroll, 1993), one interpretive move has been to see in Lynch’s vision an expression of American mythological religious tendencies, most connected to or filtered through varied strains of Christianity. These are admirable, even productive lenses through which to engage his work. At the same time, they replicate a broader tendency in Lynch scholarship to at least downplay if not outright ignore the man’s own expressions of religious or spiritual belief.

Like most American children raised in the 1950s, Lynch was raised in the church. In his own words, he came to believe that there was a God or “something kind of running the thing,” but he nonetheless left institutional religion behind as a teenager, convinced that he “wasn’t getting the real thing” (Lynch and McKenna, 2018, p. 50). Consequently, Lynch would get closer to the “real thing” in dedicating himself to “the art life,” making art at all times, in any medium, at any available opportunity. Still, though, it seemed that something was missing. Real fulfillment and change for Lynch would come when his sister introduced him to the Spiritual Regeneration Movement center and the writings of His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1970s. As Lynch describes it:

Everything in me changed when I started meditating. Within two weeks of starting, Peggy comes to me and says, “What’s going on?” I said, “What are you talking about?” because she could’ve been referring to any number of things. And she says, “Your anger. Where did it go?” …I was not happy in those days and I took it out on her…When I started meditating, the anger went away. (Lynch and McKenna, 2018, p. 131)

Thus, would begin a lifelong dedication to the disciplines of Transcendental Meditation, or TM, a set of practices designed to hone an individual’s intentions and understandings of the world.

Not a traditional religion with a defined theology or systematic hierarchy, TM draws on concepts and traditions from an array of Eastern religions with an underlying drive toward the attainment of world peace through individual meditation and fulfillment (See Forem, 1973; Lutes, 1967). In time, Lynch would see the practice of TM as crucial to his own creativity. He would share it with others, in his life and on his projects. Sherilynn Fenn noted that he basically required it of her on set, and other actors and celebrity disciples as diverse as Michael Cera and Questlove have all praised Lynch for introducing them to the practice (O’Neal, 2017).  He founded the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace in 2005 to advocate for the teaching of TM in schools, wrote the book Catching the Big Fish (Lynch, 2016) as a guide to TM and creativity, and publicly maintained that he continued to engage TM’s core practice of meditation “twice a day, every day” (“Message from David Lynch,” n.d.). TM was not merely some fad or curiosity in Lynch’s life. Rather, it was a core component of Lynch’s identity and public profile. He wore his adherence to TM on his sleeve like the enthusiastic practitioner of any other form of religiosity or spirituality, becoming a public and artistic evangelist for its tenets and values.

Even in clips or moments when he is not talking about TM, Lynch represents TM in the same way that a practicing Christian carries that faith’s values, priorities, and beliefs within them whenever they speak, so that their words and deeds become consubstantial, tacit representations of that faith through their behaviors. If practitioners of traditional faiths can be seen to represent their core beliefs in everything they do, so too can Lynch be seen as an advocate for TM even when talking exclusively about filmmaking, or painting, or art in general. And given his public association with the movement and his public advocacy for its practices and ideals, it is hard to think that Lynch would disagree with such a sentiment. Nevertheless, it is still worthwhile to inquire what that means, given the popularity of Lynch and the distribution of his words and work on social media. What does TM want? What does it say or believe or set out to accomplish? And what does any of that matter, or how does it connect with the continued presence of his art and persona online?

In helping individuals to hone their understandings of the world, TM has no less a goal than attaining world peace. Focusing on helping people achieve a state of “pure consciousness,” an all-encompassing understanding of and integration with all living creatures and aspects of existence, TM helps drive individuals towards feeling at peace with themselves and their place in the world (Yogi, 1967). Experiencing this, that individual will be motivated to share the possibilities of peace and the techniques for attaining it with others. Enabling individuals to feel at peace with the universe and with each other will, in time and with effort, spur a worldwide outbreak of peace as people, communities, and then broader societies seek, with renewed intentionality, to avoid confrontation and discord (Forem, 1973, pp. 235-6). The point of the movement is so simple as to be absurd, something Lynch himself acknowledges: “People are so convinced we can’t have peace that it’s a joke now” (Lynch, 2016, p. 175). Yet, Lynch persists in his convictions around the possibility that TM will make this kind of difference: “In the world, the result of enlivening unity by a peace-creating group would be real peace on earth” (p. 176). Lynch believes in the possibility of peace, and wants others to, too.

Most of Lynch’s public quotation does not center on direct advocacy or instruction in the ways of TM. As previously noted, most clips, quotes, and images that people share are focused on creativity, beauty, and art. But if we acknowledge the significance of Lynch’s personal spirituality—and really, there is no reason not to—then these messages take on newfound importance as expressions of that deeply held belief in and passion for TM and its message of personal and communal peace. Without preaching overtly about the practices and techniques of TM, Lynch nevertheless advocates for its core values. Be creative, he says, explore that creativity, make art, and all of this will make you fulfilled, satisfied: it will bring peace. If more people can do that (make art that speaks to others but mostly satisfies themselves), then the same end goal of world peace can be accomplished. TM is not art, but art can be TM.

Amusingly, this read on Lynch’s creative aphorisms and messaging reinforces his reputation as a subversive creative figure. In the early 1980s, the concept of “lifestyle evangelism” entered the vocabulary of American evangelical Christianity (Aldrich, 1983). Instead of going out and preaching hell, damnation, or even salvation and heaven to the unsaved heathens of the world, Christians were encouraged to win people to the cause of Jesus Christ through “winsomeness,” by living exemplary lives of peace, love, joy, and honesty. Instead of huddling in enclaves of like-minded churchgoers, lifestyle evangelism encouraged Christians to make non-Christian friends, to go to the movies with them, do business with them, get to know their families, and so on. Evangelism as a way of convincing people of the truth and power of Christ would come naturally through the kind, even countercultural way that the Christian would treat non-Christians. The whole strategy was conversion through subtlety, if not subterfuge. Lynch’s koans and statements on the art life and the power of creation function similarly, albeit to a different end or in service of a different higher purpose. His goal of encouraging others to know themselves, to connect with the universe, and to achieve peace is unchanged; it is the same goal as the TM that he so faithfully practiced. His method, though, is subtler—lifestyle evangelism, artistic evangelism for the irreligious and irreverent.

Conclusion

I proposed this brief article under the name “Saint David,” but then, when I sat down to write it, I began to have doubts. The language of “saint” is inherently Christian, and David Lynch was on the record as not being a Christian. Further, as I have argued in several venues, there is often a tendency to overlook or ignore the man’s own expressed spiritual beliefs and commitments; Lynch practiced TM, a spirituality drawing primarily on Eastern religious influences and concepts. Maybe “Guru David” would have been more appropriate, or “His Holiness David” or “Maharishi David.” As I wrote, I consistently mulled these titles over, trying them on and ultimately discarding them.

What I realized is that I am not sure that such honorifics matter all that much to other TM practitioners, nor would it have mattered all that much to Lynch himself. Time and again in interviews and writings, Lynch made it clear he had no patience for, or great concern with, such formalities. The main thing—for him and for us—is that his message of art above all else carries on. And this, I think, is the interesting thing about how Lynch is shared, remembered, and sacralized in the present social media age.

Of note, too, is that Lynch is not alone—especially in the world of cinema—in being venerated this way. The long-awaited release and mixed reception of Megalopolis saw my feed clogged with the best interviews and craziest moments of Francis Ford Coppola’s life and career; my social media algorithms have gone through spurts of content quoting Akira Kurosawa and Bong Joon Ho, amongst others. Werner Herzog’s legendary voice, quotable observations, and curiously hopeful pessimism receive a similar treatment to Lynch, too. Our culture seems to do this with many of our most respected auteurs, from those that have passed to living legends.

The reality is that Lynch’s works may, in time, be forgotten, or at least diminished. There will likely always be a steady stable of appreciators, fans, and academics who keep a fire burning for him and his work. Purveyors of oddities, surrealism, and quirky content will always find their way to his art. But careful attention and extensive time with Lynch’s films, his paintings, or maybe especially his TV work is a luxury that some will simply never experience. Finding some of his work can be difficult. Knowing how to enter it, interpret it, and converse with it can be difficult, too. Lynch’s personality, though, the clarity of his passion and drive, requires minimal effort to understand or appreciate. Hence, the consistent appearance of these moments and messages on my Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky feeds. And a large part of me thinks that Lynch would not mind this turn of events. For all the passion and love he clearly poured into his own art, he frequently seemed less interested in people caring about his work and more about the work itself, and about other people doing that work for themselves. And that kind of message remains evergreen, like the Douglas firs that he and Agent Dale Cooper loved so much.

David Lynch was a celebrity, and many worshipped him as such. But he was more than the passing fad that most celebrities are. He was a saint, an exemplar of what being an artist can be, can mean, can do. And that will probably be his legacy above all else, for better or for worse.

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