Three Days of David Lynch

I am not sure what effect three days inhabiting the Lynchian universe can do to one's brain, but I'm about to find out. As soon as the opening credits of Blue Velvet popped and crackled, slightly out of focus, onto the tiny screen at the Tate Modern, it all came rushing back: for you see, David Lynch changed my life.

When I was about 16, I discovered Mr Lynch. I worked my way from Eraserhead (taped on worn VHS cassettes from late night showings on Australia's excellent public broadcasters) through Elephant Man and eventually to Twin Peaks, via a lot of academic textbooks on Lynchian symbolism and a hearty crush on Kyle MacLachlan circa 1986 (a crush which, after this evening's viewing, I wholeheartedly endorse). Unfortunately for me, I discovered Twin Peaks just as I was about to graduate from high school. Not only did this seriously threaten the likelihood that I would actually graduate, it meant that while most of our contemporaries spent their post-graduation vacation recovering from horrendous hangovers -- (Schoolies Week, it's euphemistically called in Australia, basically a two week cycle of binge drinking and sunbathing) -- my friends and I spent ours recovering from horrendous hangovers, while watching cassette tape after cassette tape of Twin Peaks. This was of course washed down with coffee - black as midnight on a moonless night, no less; doughnuts and cherry pie (my friend Amy even managed to learn how to tie a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue, a la Audrey Horne, earning the respect of many a drunken university student who attempted to gatecrash our parties).

I am not sure what this did to our impressionable young minds, plied as they were with whatever horrendous cocktails we had managed to invent from stockpiled cheap sparkling wine and Malibu, but for me it sparked a lifelong devotion to film and photography and appreciating when accidents spark something interesting and looking for the mystery in everything. (It also set me up pretty well for getting through the next four years of university). One friend even used to declare his religion as "Lynchian" and bought me a Dennis Hopper tshirt for my 18th birthday. It said something like "Don't you fuckin' look at me" on it. Mum wasn't impressed.

Sadly, I am going to this three day Lynchfest at the Tate Modern alone. My cherry-pie eating friends are far flung, and I miss them more than ever today. Tomorrow I will spend an entire day surrounded by academics discussing the symbolism of ears and eyes and undulating velvet curtains. Maybe a dubious enterprise. But my friend Kat in New York assures me, "If anyone is qualified to deal with the possibly disastrous fallout from such a venture it's you".