Posted a half day ago by Walter Kirn:

“Many years ago the New York Times paid all my expenses and held out a nice check on the simple condition that I hang out for a few days with David Lynch and write up the experience.

“I did the hanging-out part, but it didn’t really amount to an experience. I couldn’t get a grip on him, at all. Because there was nothing to grip.

“I’m not saying he was shallow, more that he was truly elusive, meaning the ‘self’ that was in there, supposedly, was simply that of an artist in his off hours. Which is like the self of a vaccum cleaner in its off hours. Meaning it just sits there.

“In Lynch’s case, he smoked and drank coffee while he just sat there. And sometimes he said something. Nothing memorable.

“Anyway, the assignment completely defeated me in a way that no other magazine assignment ever has. I think I’ll write about this at greater length soon, this non-experience I had with someone so eccentric he didn’t even come off as an eccentric, but suffice it to say I’m sorry to hear he’s gone. He kept alive in the minds of millions the figure of the artist, the artist as individual, useless to society at large and therefore invaluable to all.”