Inland Empire

David Lynch was in town last week promoting his national best seller, Catching the Big Fish, which recently came out in paperback. The book is an autobiographical account of the creative benefits the 62-year-old auteur claims to have reaped over the past three decades from practicing Transcendental Meditation, the trademarked meditation technique that rock stars like the Beatles and Donovan championed back in the late 1960s, and which has been making something of a pop culture comeback thanks to celebrity adherents like Mr. Lynch, Howard Stern and Moby. Indeed, it seems like over the past few years Mr. Lynch, whose most recent film was 2006’s epic Inland Empire, has been generating more press for his spiritual beliefs than his surreal and nightmarish brand of cinema.

But fans of creepy dancing midgets and lovers of cherry pie need not worry: Mr. Lynch, who spoke with the Culture Czar recently in his Upper West Side hotel room -- he was wearing his trademark white shirt buttoned all the way to the top and well-coiffed silver hair -- still loves Twin Peaks and a good cup of coffee. (His own Signature Cup blend is on sale at the IFC Center.) He also has a new documentary in the works that he hopes will be in theaters by the fall. But before he gets around to making another of the bewildering films his fans have come to relish, he has a slightly loftier goal to check off his to-do list: world peace. Read on!  read more »