David Lynch Must Be Honored in Philadelphia with a Giant Monument to the Guy From Eraserhead. For Real.
This essay is by my friend, muse, and hero(ine), the irrepressible ******. She pitched it to any number of papers in Philadelphia and failed — as you’ll see in just a moment, it probably wasn’t her fault.
Philadelphia has a problem with its statuary: we build lavish monuments to to the wrong people while letting the right ones go unmarked.
We have statues of people who polarized us (Frank Rizzo), who could have cared less about us (Charles Dickens) or who never existed (Rocky Balboa). Meanwhile, we overlook people who logged real time here and did great things.
This problem has a solution: put a big-ass statue of the title character from the movie Eraserhead, directed by former Philadelphia resident David Lynch, at the corner of 13th and Wood.
That’s where Lynch lived for several years in the 1970s as an unhappy undergraduate at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. But if you’ve seen any of his films, particularly Eraserhead, it is obvious that the city deeply inspired him, which he recalls through “vivid images—plastic curtains held together with Band-Aids, rags stuffed in broken windows, walking through the morgue en-route to a hamburger joint.”
Philadelphia tends to catch people either before they’ve made it or when they are on their way down. For the former, see W.E.B. Dubois, author of the classic, The Philadelphia Negro. For the latter see Billie Holiday, whose tragic decline into opiate addiction coincided with her residency here.
And then there are the ones who we memorialize but get wrong, like Walt Whitman. All Whitman gets from us, besides a suspension bridge to New Jersey, is Leonard Baskin’s sculpture of the poet’s head atop what can only be described as a Pez dispenser, tastefully located in front of a Kmart.
Why David Lynch? Because in him, we still have a chance to do that classically Philadelphia thing where we celebrate someone who gave us a chance, went unrecognized and then moved on to another city with greater resources. Because David Lynch, unlike other former Philadelphians we’ve neglected, is still alive! Like DuBois he got his start and stoked his vision here, as Lynch has pricelessly described:
“Philadelphia, more than any filmmaker, influenced me. It’s the sickest, most corrupt, decaying, fear-ridden city imaginable. I was very poor and living in bad areas. I felt like I was constantly in danger. But it was so fantastic at the same time.”
A plaque at the base of the statue would say Philadelphia is where Lynch bought his first camera and made his first short film and that the city moved him to make his first feature film.
So let’s stop bickering with Baltimore over Edgar Allen Poe’s pickled corpse and get down to business! Eraserhead, rejected by Cannes and other film festivals, is now a classic of American cinema. There is no better symbol for Philadelphia in its drive to rise as high as Eraserhead’s hair, a goal we should pursue, like Lynch’s art, in our own weird way—starting with that statue.
July 30th, 2009 at 9:00 am
freaking awesome. And if Philedelphia only has a thing for making statues of dead or non-existent people, this would qualify – Jack Nance (the guy who played the guy from Eraserhead) is dead, and the guy from Eraserhead is a fictional character. This idea, therefore, has double merit!
July 30th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I would put up money for this. I think about that Lynch quote every time I feel sorry for myself for growing up in Philly. I also feel civic pride when watching Eraserhead — like, “my city inspired that… Jawn.”
July 30th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
just the opportunity of sculpting Jack Nance’s >hair< would make such a project fun and worthwhile!
But what kind of pose???
Holding aloft one of those bizarro cornish hens?
It’s been decades since I’ve seen the movie…
July 30th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
If I had a newspaper, I would publish this in a second. Not only is it true. but well-written. I wouldn’t expect less from the likes of Juliet Wayne. There should be a statue of her someday, at 46th and Locust. Or better yet, in front of Bucca di Beppo.
July 30th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Great idea- I would also nominate Larry Fine and W.C. Fields for statues!
July 30th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
it’s always surreal in philadelphia
July 31st, 2009 at 7:03 am
[...] David Lynch Must Be Honored in Philadelphia with a Giant Monument to the Guy From Eraserhead. For Re… [...]
July 31st, 2009 at 9:33 am
Wonderful idea! Maybe put it in alleyway looking out to the street or in front of a steam vent to give the illusion of that iconic shot in the movie where the eraser pieces are swirling behind him.
That “dumb” Rocky statue brings in the tourists and Philly could use some more of that tourist money right now.
July 31st, 2009 at 9:53 am
never said the rocky statue was dumb….far from it. I was thinking that if people don’t want to get their picture taken in front of rocky and run up the steps to “gonna fly now” they could get there pic in from of jack and run down some alleys listening to industrial cacophany.
many possibilities….
August 4th, 2009 at 3:30 am
[...] David Lynch Must Be Honored in Philadelphia with a Giant Monument to the Guy From Eraserhead. For Re… [...]
August 27th, 2009 at 5:44 am
The sculpture should be placed atop a graceful arch between the two civil war memorials at the entrance of the Parkway at Logan Circle. It would balance out the Benjamin Franklin squid sculpture that can be seen from 676. It should be pondrous and lumpen to pay ‘omage to the Quaker statues that used to stand outside the Youth Study Center which will now be the will busting Barnes Museum.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:25 am
I’d like the statue to be Jack Nance looking at a radiator across the street.
Even though 13th and Wood is much better than it used to be, go there at 2am and it is downright evil. The big boxy, empty, abandoned warehouses, industrial optimism and post industrial decline.
Stare at the skyline on acid and you’ll have Philadelphia in your blood forever.