The director himself came off as almost performatively normal. Masterpieces like “Eraserhead” and “Mulholland Drive” said otherwise.

I learned about David Lynch's passing in the most David Lynch possible way: doing jury duty. A fellow potential juror told me the news as we waited in the stark, Kafka-esque halls of L.A.'s Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice building.

In his later life, Lynch charged into the digital frontier in his typically singular fashion. He used grainy digital video cameras to shoot the bizarre California epic Inland Empire mostly on his own dime;

Lynch’s weather reports attracted a dedicated following in themselves, becoming such a part of the fabric of Los Angeles — his adopted home for many years, and a lifelong fascination of his he often transmuted on film — that his forecasts were later broadcast on NPR affiliate KCRW.

Reactions from Hollywood were swift and heartfelt. Kyle MacLachlan, who became a star when Lynch cast him as Paul Atreides in 1984's Dune, Blue Velvet (1986), and the TV series Twin Peaks, described the director as "the most authentically alive person I'd ever met":