Chpt 1 - Let’s go back to the video store
It was the kind of place you can’t easily find anymore. Which isn’t to say that it doesn’t exist. You have to look for it like a coin that slips down the back of the sofa. That was just the kind of place it was. The boy and the girl had been travelling many days across America. On reaching the city they made straight for the sign.
Chpt 2 - Big Tony is missing.
The man who rents videos is quite the expert. You seen Big Tony asks the boy. I’ve never met Big Tony. I’m David Lynch says David Lynch. No shit says the girl, only you died. Besides Big Tony told us he’d be here. Have you ever seen It’s a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra asks David Lynch. The classic video store is the bedrock of civilisations.
Chpt 3 - David Lynch says he’s running things now
After they leave he goes out back to his art studio. The smell of paint and glue soundproofs the scenery. I’m running things now says David Lynch. Big Tony had been planning on turning the video store into a nuclear shelter. Big Tony believed it was the end of days. I’m running things now says David Lynch squeezing lemon juice right in Big Tony’s eyes.
Chpt 4 - David Lynch reviews The Brother’s Karamazov
Now a quiet light steals over the cash register. Waiting for customers David Lynch likes to review the classics. I may be dead he thinks, but I still know a story when I see one. The brothers are a kind of secular trinity in an age whose art walks the crowd. Dostoevsky penetrates the barrier. Like strong black coffee.
Chpt 5 - David Lynch reviews the afterlife
It starts to look like your past, only it isn’t he smiles to himself. Republic matinee serials. Cliffhangers that make death look inescapable. The video store is what the afterlife turns your past into. The films you might have been. Like one day you may have been Chinatown and the next The Wizard of Oz. That’s what the world to come will look like.
Chpt 6 – Big Tony makes a run for it
David Lynch dozes half dreaming of the day he attended JFK’s inauguration. The L.A skies are full of dragon fire. Big Tony has learnt the error of his ways. He sees that the end of the world was where the old video store began to rent out hope in analogue. If aliens looked at the earth they would see dinosaurs. It really was that long ago.
Jonathan Jones lives and works in Rome where he teaches English and American literature at John Cabot University.