Twin Peeks

“If we are to manage the havoc—ocean acidification, corporate malfeasance and government corruption, endless war—we have to reimagine what it means to live lives that matter, or we will only continue to push on with the unwarranted hope that things will work out. We need to step into a deeper conversation about enchantment and agape, and to actively explore a greater capacity to love other humans. The old ideas—the crushing immorality of maintaining the nation-state, the life-destroying belief that to care for others is to be weak, and that to be generous is to be foolish—can have no future with us.”—Barry Lopez, Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World

That is from Sabrina Imbler’s newsletter, which is particularly useful for nature-lovers in the NYC area, as they include dozens of upcoming events in each update. The latest update has a link to a great article about animals that eat poop, so have at it. More entertaining to me was this short piece on death-feigning snakes. I knew about this behavior in Eastern Hognose Snakes from Reddit, as owners of that species call them “drama noodles” for their penchant of playing dead at the slightest perturbation.

I haven’t seen any snakes in a while, due to the cold. The last reptile I spotted was a small turtle that braved the snow. The last few days have warmed up, and rain washed the snow away, so I have a weekend of bike riding and waterfowl spotting planned. Last weekend I rode in the snow until I was exhausted. I didn’t see any wildlife, but I heard plenty of woodpeckers yelling at me, and I found fox prints on the ice at Black Run:

The backyard birds are quite happy with the warmer weather, and bathed in a puddle of melted snow that briefly pooled on the patio. A House Finch and a Dark-eyed Junco, I believe. The Junco was really splashing around! The third photo is from the BirdBuddy feeder, two Starlings caught mid-fight.

When inside, I’ve been reading, and watching Twin Peaks. I never watched any of it during its time, and David Lynch’s death made me revisit it. I tried to watch the first season during the Covid pandemic but only made it a few episodes; this time I was able to binge both of the ‘90s-era seasons and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. A great portrayal of trauma and how it is perceived by others, and also a time capsule of the culture of roadside Americana that faded into corporate homogeny shortly thereafter. Sometimes you still find a place like Hap’s or the Double R Diner, but even in New Jersey, once the diner stronghold, they are becoming rare.

I think this weekend, I will stop by a diner that I’ve been meaning to check out, and see if they have good pie and a damn fine cup of coffee. What I enjoyed about David Lynch was that he was earnest but also embraced the surreal, and that he could love the candy-colored shell of Hollywood or Americana while also showing the ugliness that used it as cover. Blue Velvet and Lost Highway are my favorites, though I also like Wild at Heart. I haven’t watched Mulholland Drive enough to have it really sink in, I haven’t seen Inland Empire yet, and watching Eraserhead once was more than enough. I’ll probably watch Mulholland again this weekend, because I remember appreciating it, but I was working night shifts with a bad case of sleep apnea at the time, and there are holes in my memory.

Lost Highway introduced me to Rammstein; the ‘90s was a great time for movie soundtracks. I’m trying to remember the last movie I saw where I wanted to go to a record store and buy the soundtrack immediately after; probably Kill Bill. In the ‘90s, I picked up the soundtracks for Pulp Fiction, Go, Natural Born Killers, Cool World, The Crow, Lost Highway, Sliver, Get Shorty, The Big Lebowski, The Doom Generation… if I flipped through my vinyl, I might find one from the past two decades; Sorry to Bother You has an amazing soundtrack, but it was directed by a musician. And I love a lot of new music!

I’ll talk more about music on Wednesday. There’s an old band that my friend Rob introduced me to, who composed music for the East Berlin Olympic team, who are just amazing; Japanese Breakfast have a new album coming out in March.

On Saturday, I made good on my plan to bike ride near Edwin Forsyth Wildlife Refuge, and then take Wildlife Drive to watch waterfowl. Next week I’ll share photographs from that trip.