David does Berlin

November 21, 2007 7:54 PM

David Lynch talks about invincible Germany in Berlin. Why Mr. Lynch should learn german.
posted by namagomi (32 comments total)

batshitinsane tag, please.
posted by dhammond at 8:01 PM on November 21, 2007

You know who else wanted a --

Oh, wait. Never mind. I guess you do.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:08 PM on November 21, 2007 [2 favorites]

The photo is priceless. The magnificent penis building.
posted by 45moore45 at 8:11 PM on November 21, 2007

OHhh boy.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 8:12 PM on November 21, 2007

"We are all one. Bliss is our nature ... But somehow tonight this beautiful gift has gotten perverted. Let's march boldly toward a bright and shining future!"

This guy...this is not my kind of guy.
posted by dhammond at 8:14 PM on November 21, 2007 [2 favorites]

Too much overt deference to Lynch in that audience methinks. He is a charlatan, too.
posted by dydecker at 8:14 PM on November 21, 2007

OHhh boy.


(I say that as being a quote from David Lynch right after Scott Bakula was transported into Mr. Lynch's mind, moments before the "we want an invicible Germany!" interchange. HOW WILL IT ALL END? Maybe Al will show up and sing Roy.)
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 8:15 PM on November 21, 2007 [2 favorites]

I'm suddenly seeing parallels between Lynch and Heidegger. Truly brilliant, revolutionary, and humane artist/thinkers paired/burdened with equally massive egos -- and, to make matters worse, incredibly naive comprehensions of the worlds around them.
posted by treepour at 8:42 PM on November 21, 2007

That's too bad. Lynch only means well, and I have nothing but respect and gratitude for the man, his art, and his efforts to popularize TM, but evidently, he needs to be more careful whou he associates with. I can't quite make out if this Raja is a fascist or just a fool, but this is not pretty. FWIW, I wrote a little bit about my experience with Lynch and Transcendental Meditation.
posted by muckster at 9:12 PM on November 21, 2007 [3 favorites]

Holy shit. This Schiffgens is a nutcase for sure. Using language like "invincinble" in this context is... is... hell, I dunno, it's either bizarrely (and inexcusably) naive or he's some sort of insane fascist. Weirdness for sure, either way. Did you catch him actually trying to get everyone in the hall to chant in unison, "Invincible Germany, Invincible Germany!"? Bonkers.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:59 PM on November 21, 2007

David Lynch is a jelly doughnut.
posted by fuse theorem at 10:42 PM on November 21, 2007 [4 favorites]

A "suitably Lynchian" evening my ass! Where were the one-legged woman with the monkey and the lumberjack?
posted by Bromius at 10:57 PM on November 21, 2007

I can't think of a situation where, giving a public speech in Germany, the best response to someone yelling "Adolf Hitler wanted that too!" would be "Yes, but he didn't succeed!".
posted by Sangermaine at 11:24 PM on November 21, 2007 [3 favorites]

Transcendental Meditation, which started as a fairly humble and focused effort to spread the technique, has turned up the crazy over the years. As its popularity and mind share have decreased, the wackiness of its ambitions have increased. The well-known people who've gotten involved with it have usually supported it vocally, and that was probably all that the organization would want from them back in the 70's, but more recently some of them get rather far out about it. John Hagelin, for instance, was a highly noted physicist before he squandered everything to advocate for TM and do pseudoscientific research in their support. The magician Doug Henning spent the last 15 years of his life working to create the $1 billion (wait for it) "Maharishi Veda Land" amusement park. There are probably others.

Like anything in the area of religion, it gives people a certain type of intense experience, and they believe the explanations of the group. (It's only the latter part that's bad here; see). What I don't get as much is why they lose all sense of what would make sense or appeal to the public, which celebrities are good at almost by definition. (See also: Battlefield Earth, Dylan's gospel period--not that he ever made sense.)
posted by abcde at 11:48 PM on November 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

I can't think of a situation where, giving a public speech in Germany, the best response to someone yelling "Adolf Hitler wanted that too!" would be "Yes, but he didn't succeed!".

How about the unveiling of a true People's Car?
posted by davejay at 12:07 AM on November 22, 2007

David Lynch and Donovan talking about TM on BBC Radio 4 [realplayer link, sorry]. Completely batshitinsane.
posted by chrispy at 12:08 AM on November 22, 2007

So, which state must I move to in order to get "Yogic Flying can be learned over a period of six months" on a vanity plate?

Just awesome.

I hope he casts the Raja in his next wildly overrated movie.
posted by EatTheWeek at 12:27 AM on November 22, 2007

How about the unveiling of a true People's Car?

I dunno, I think I would just yell something like "WELL FUCK HITLER." I don't think it really needs to make any sense.
posted by delmoi at 12:59 AM on November 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

Extra irony points for aiming to build "Invinvible University" on Teufelsberg.
posted by Skeptic at 2:07 AM on November 22, 2007

Anyhow, at least David Lynch solves problems! (Youtube: one, two, three, and four)
posted by Henrik at 3:00 AM on November 22, 2007

Dammit. I love Lynch's work, and this stuff is just so depressing. I still come away from it, though, with the feeling that he's just a big old wide-eyed 60-something child in a man's body, one who is easily misled by charlatans. I don't think he's a charlatan himself.
posted by jbickers at 3:15 AM on November 22, 2007

I dream of an Invincible Metafilter: No more negativity. No more enmity.

But I think the crowd was having a bit more fun than is let on here.

When Lynch took to the podium a second time, after Roger loses the audience again, someone yells out "Auslaender raus!" which translates to "foreigners leave!" and is a common Neo-Nazi graffito/slogan.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:20 AM on November 22, 2007

So, which state must I move to in order to get "Yogic Flying can be learned over a period of six months" on a vanity plate?

Wales?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:39 AM on November 22, 2007

TM seems to work for him but I wish Lynch would just stick to making movies... building 'Ultimate Universities' with well weird crackpots can only lead to folly. Never trust a man who wears a dress and a hat made from what looks like cardboard and gold foil. Oh and says Hitler didn't go far enough.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:20 AM on November 22, 2007

My first thoughts about Lynch were extremely negative, but then I remembered P.G. Wodehouse giving jolly talks on Nazi radio—he was just a silly person with childish ideas about the real world, and I guess I'll be charitable and think the same about Lynch. But fuck "Raja Emanuel" and fuck TM.
posted by languagehat at 5:53 AM on November 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

I just saw INLAND EMPIRE last weekend (apparently it's supposed to be spelled in caps). I predicted the end five minutes into Weird Czech Lady's burbling at Laura Derne, and the rest was just Lynch failing to construct the movie I'd predicted correctly. Clumsy of him really, so I'm not surprised to hear this was also handled clumsily.
posted by Sparx at 5:59 AM on November 22, 2007

It was "clumsy" of Lynch to fail "...to construct the movie [you'd] predicted correctly."?

You must get disappointed a lot.
posted by Bear at 6:28 AM on November 22, 2007

Transcendental Buddhist Nazis?

"If enough of us just sit here and meditate on killing the Jews, maybe—just maybe—we will succeed. There's no harm in trying, right?"

Yeah, that made my brain explode. I was almost ROF I LOLled so hard.
posted by Eideteker at 6:54 AM on November 22, 2007

"COOP! I CAN'T HEAR WHAT THEY'RE SAYING! WHY ARE THEY BOOING, COOP?! CAN'T THEY SEE IT'S A NEW WORLD ORDER?"

Still laughing my fucking ass off. Oh, this racism is killing me inside!
posted by Eideteker at 7:04 AM on November 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

You must get disappointed a lot.

I had hoped that I was being just ridiculous enough to not be taken seriously. Clearly I was in error. Apologies, Mr Bear, to you and ursine.
posted by Sparx at 8:41 AM on November 22, 2007

Extra irony points for aiming to build "Invinvible University" on Teufelsberg.

Are you talking about the Nazi history or the fact that the phallic movement in architecture is already well-represented on the hill?

In either case I leave further analysis of the irony of these circumstances to professional Morrisette scholars.
posted by Anything at 9:44 AM on November 23, 2007

TM seems to work for him but I wish Lynch would just stick to making movies...

Yeah, but you liked Inland Empire.

Actually I kind of wish he'd stick to making super baroque space epics, but I'm kind of in a minority with my mad love for Dune. Actually if he nazied it up a bit he could go for an awesome Warhammer 40K vibe.
posted by Artw at 9:14 PM on November 23, 2007