DEFER YOUR ENTHUSIASM (15)
By:
May 24, 2025
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… late-breaking obsessions, avoided discoveries, and devotions delayed! Series edited by Adam McGovern.
I read Dune age 9. Shortly after, a little brother’s birthday happened in Zululand. He was turning 7 — same as my little brother. As an older film-watching sibling, I was tasked with choosing the video. The kids would watch this selection while the parents barbequed. Having been excited by the posters and Sting’s outfit (which I coveted), I chose Dune. I had no idea what to expect. I mean I was 9. It started off well. Some fearful silence around the Navigator. But it was when the Baron started fondling his aide and squashing little creatures for juice that the kids started getting freaked out. When the heart plug came out and blood was gushing everywhere, one of the children started screaming. The others followed suit, pointing accusatorily at me. I was also a bit shocked by what I had seen, though fascinated. Everything in that film was weird and new. My Mom and Dad didn’t care what I watched but I got in trouble with the other parents for exposing their kids to “such filth.” I laughed it off but quietly memorised the director’s name. Who was this weirdo? I hired The Elephant Man next, but it was too depressing (for a 9-year-old). Maybe everybody was right about this David Lynch character? So, I gave up on him for a few years. Later, now well into my early teens, I found myself scouring the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street for treasure. Just out was a VHS movie — by that guy David Lynch. Something called Twin Peaks. I bought it immediately and devoured it that night — sad that it ended so abruptly (there is an alternate ending on the first version of the pilot, which was released on video as a feature, prior to airing of the show). Next year, I went into a boarding school in a pine forest, with logging trucks and characters the same age as the Twin Peaks principals. Suddenly Twin Peaks was back — four-dimensionally. In my real life and magically as a series, airing late on Wednesdays. Being at boarding school, it was impossible to watch. But my Mom taped every episode on strict instructions and I would gorge myself on these when I came home for the holidays. I already had a Dictaphone — which I would record sci-fi radio plays on, often dragging in my entire class. Blue Velvet followed, infused with the same bizarre four-dimensional déjà vu. The town was very similar to mine. There were rumours amongst the kids at school about a sex dungeon in the woods called Leather Heaven. Again, all this logging. Lynch remained a secret obsession though. After all, everybody else I asked just thought he was plain WEIRD. Well, everyone except this cool girl Alex at the all girls boarding school down the road. We were in the same play once. She wore disallowed sunglasses and masturbated with carrots. Twin Peaks was clearly just for cool kids.
DEFER YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Adam McGovern | Mandy Keifetz on FAITH | Heather Quinlan on THE GRATEFUL DEAD | Carlo Rotella on SMOOTHER GROOVES | Art Wallace on MICHIGAN | Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons on TAYLOR SWIFT | Josh Glenn on ART | James Scott Maloy on BE-BOP DELUXE | Jake Zucker on LIGHT SLEEPER | Gabriela Pedranti on THE BIG BANG THEORY | Adam McGovern on DOGS | Tana Sirois on COLLABORATIVE EVOLUTION | Rani Som on LED ZEP | Holly Interlandi on HOT SAUCE | Jeff Lewonczyk on TWIN PEAKS | Nikhil Singh on PRE-TEEN DAVID LYNCH PROBLEMS | Christopher Rashee Stevenson on O’NEILL & THE SEA | Fran Pado on SHARKS | Juan Recondo on BEN GRIMM’S INNER LIFE | Miranda Mellis on KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD | Mimi Lipson on SOBRIETY | William Nericcio on ELYSIUM | Crockett Doob on SLEATER-KINNEY | Marlon Stern Lopez on PAT THE BUNNY | Crystal Durant on SEX AND THE CITY | Wendy Chin-Tanner on MY PARENTS’ ART STORE.
JACK KIRBY PANELS | CAPTAIN KIRK SCENES | OLD-SCHOOL HIP HOP | TYPEFACES | NEW WAVE | SQUADS | PUNK | NEO-NOIR MOVIES | COMICS | SCI-FI MOVIES | SIDEKICKS | CARTOONS | TV DEATHS | COUNTRY | PROTO-PUNK | METAL | & more enthusiasms!