Roman Catholic Expansion

I was just gushing about the recent improvements and proposals for Vine Street, namely the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' decision to embrace one of the street's least desirable lots for a residential high-rise. 

Others are following suit. What's ever better, the development will replace yet another surface lot that scars the cityscape leaving Vine Street a hostile avenue for pedestrians.

Roman High (quite possibly the most badass named high school in the country, with a building to match) has acquired a neighboring lot, and has released preliminary plans to build a much-needed gymnasium. It also purchased another parking lot on north 13th Street that currently stores U-Haul trucks, for the school's fine arts expansion. A fitting location considering this lot was once home to Eraserhood's own, the renowned creator of Twin Peaks and the neighborhood's namesake, Eraserhead, David Lynch.

I'm not sure how the Catholic church feels about Lynch's creepy and deliberately offsetting creations - or nightmares - but maybe the school could dedicate a dark corner or a janitorial closet for a Lynch Museum. 

Laura Palmer's House is for Sale

I loved the 1990s. People recycled, music meant something, and you could smoke at Starbucks. But around the time I was practicing five speed on my dad's "Farm Use Only" Ford Ranger, I discovered the most 90s thing of all time: Twin Peaks.

Dated for sure - right down to Audrey's saddle shoes and Laura's hair - the show that had all of America asking "Who Killed Laura Palmer" was decades ahead of its time. In fact, given the uncompromising weirdness that is the show's co-creator, David Lynch, Twin Peaks may have not simply been ahead of it's time, but out of this world.

Now for about $550,000 you can own the house where it all began. Used in the pilot and the prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the Palmer "home" in Everett, WA is for sale. 

The house is largely unchanged. The pink carpet and dated wallpaper are gone, but the wicker chair where Laura sat to write torrid secrets in her infamous diary remains in its place more than twenty years later.

Considering the notoriety this prime time drama received and the cult following it has since amassed, perhaps a fan will do what Brian Jones did with The Christmas Story house. At more than half a million dollars, it's a little pricy for a movie museum, but I hope the new owners decide to reinstall the ceiling fan that haunted Sarah Palmer's waking nightmares.

Fueled by internet speculation, rumors of David Lynch and Mark Frost revisiting Twin Peaks routinely come and go from time to time. Unfortunately it seems that long time fans of a show that lasted only two short seasons are left with endless questions and disturbing images burned into our minds. Exactly how Lynch wants it.

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David Lynch studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts on North Broad Street in the late 1960s. He lived in a house on 13th and Wood, diagonally across from the morgue, now part of Roman High School.

He described Philadelphia as "decaying but...fantastically beautiful, filled with violence, hate and filth," crediting the city for the inspiration to make his first film, Eraserhead. Prior to PAFA's upcoming David Lynch exhibit, he returned to the city in 2012. He said, "I remember when the city was gray and dirty and deteriorated and ugly and a real mess and had real character, and now it’s all bright and shiny just like every other city."

His former neighborhood, dubbed Eraserhood by many, is now an odd mix of pricy lofts, an expanding Chinatown, sprinkled with abandoned warehouses, older row homes, and the defunct Reading Viaduct. 

As plans solidify to convert the viaduct into an elevated park, so does the neighborhood's prominence. But like Laura's wicker chair that still adorns the Palmer residence, David Lynch's soul is still in Philadelphia, a city that evoked nightmares in the modest Montanan, ever present in his haunting works of art.

Welcome to the Black Lodge

Light a cigarette, pour yourself a damn fine cup of coffee, and get ready for a trip to the Black Lodge. Twin Peaks is back.

Unfortunately we're not getting a third season twenty five years later. No, I'm talking fashion. Suckers Apparel has released a line of Twin Peaks inspired fashion. Pricy, Suckers' colorful duds pay homage to everything from the patterned floor of the Black Lodge to Laura Palmer's corpse wrapped in plastic.

It's hard to say if the hipsters have really embraced the early 90s cult classic for anything more than irony, but the line is sold out so someone's wearing it.

Twin Peaks has only a small link to Philadelphia, Agent Dale Cooper was from here. However David Lynch has a profound connection to the city, particularly its gritty, dangerous past.

Lynch studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, living in the Callowhill neighborhood in the late 60s. At a time when the neighborhood was still largely industrial and trains still carried commuters atop the Reading Viaduct, Callowhill was another world, one Lynch blames for his dark and disturbing stories.

Twin Peaks was clearly his most tame and most structured work. Usually consisting of short scenes and bizarre images loosely woven together, Lynch's films are more art than movie.

If you like Lynch, you're not sure why. No one can deny he's interesting.

Lynch left Philadelphia for Los Angeles in 1970. He didn't return to the city that haunted his dreams and his artwork for four decades. In March of 2012, Lynch was in town to assist the PAFA with an upcoming David Lynch exhibit and a documentary.

Homecomings can be bittersweet for many reasons. When you're a kid, places feel bigger, wilder, scarier. But those places also change. Of today's Philadelphia Lynch said, "it’s all bright and shiny just like every other city....I preferred it the way it was."

Lynch, quiet and composed, still shies from publicity. With many dubbing his Callowhill neighborhood "Eraserhood," an homage to his first major film, Eraserhead, it's hard to say how he'd feel about the recognition, particularly considering the posh lofts that have erased the character that once inspired him.

As for a Twin Peaks homecoming, not a chance. Rumors have buzzed for years, rumors Lynch repeatedly denies. Perhaps ABC can turn to Twin Peaks' co-creator Mark Frost. After all Lynch didn't direct every episode, but admittedly the best episodes.

Many shows have drawn inspiration from Twin Peaks, such as the cancelled Happy Town and the successful The Killing. Though it's going to be a while before a vision as unique as Lynch's is going to find its way to network television. Perhaps a movie?

Eraserhead

It seems like everyone has been catching David Lynch's cult classic, Eraserhead, On Demand. After hearing that this neighborhood was often referred to as the Eraserhood because of Lynch's residing here in the 60s and 70s, and as a Twin Peaks fan, I figured I'd see what all the fuss was about.

Like a lot of his stuff, it seemed weird for the sake of being weird. A lot of very interesting and eerie stills that might make better photography than cinema, and a story that probably only makes sense to him, if even.

Still, like most of David Lynch's more avante garde films, it's unusual visuals make for good conversation. It's an interesting bit of local flavor too. Lynch has stated that the movie was inspired by his nights in the Callowhill neighborhood in the 60s and 70s.

I would love to see the Callowhill Neighborhood Association organize a public showing of this, perhaps in one of the vacant lots or parking lots around the neighborhood. Maybe even up against the locked entrance to the viaduct.

So many Callowhill residents are always talking about the hidden potential in the Reading Viaduct, but in the mean time rarely go outside. Even if the neighborhood association wasn't interested, I can't imagine it would be that difficult to clean up a lot and power up a projector.

The entrance to the viaduct is used for nothing more than a dog park and could easily be cleaned up for an outdoor mixer. It would be a great way to get people out to meet each other. Most Callowhill residents seem to drive straight to their parking space, go home, and lock the door.

Even if one wouldn't be interested in David Lynch's nightmares, wandering out in the evening and opening their doors to migle with their neighbors would be a welcome change to a neighborhood that's been hiding in its own shadows since long before David Lynch ever set foot here.