For my dose of Friday the Thirteenth nostalgia, I'm watching Eraserhead. It's a 1977 film I hadn't seen in many years, and I forgot how genuinely weird and inventive it is.

The baby:

At the centre of this mechanical world is Henry (Jack Nance), one of Lynch's many alter egos, who is a mixture of innocence and dark desires. Henry is forced to look after his deformed baby who constantly traps and enslaves him in the automated world of death-like existence. In this world, the baby, resembling an overgrown penis, both represents male sexuality and symbolises Henry's own sexuality. Similar to uncontrollable sexual urges, the baby-penis constantly demands attention from Henry who becomes its slave. Henry realises that he must kill the baby-penis in an act of self-castration to rid himself of his loathed sexuality. The baby-penis is the centre of the world created by unnatural sexuality, hence its destruction obliterates the world of Eraserhead.

Then there's In heaven:

"In heaven, everything is fine,
In heaven, everything is fine.
You've got your good things and I've got mine."

A little like Dali -- pushing the limits of reality.

Here's one reviewer:

Eraserhead is truly the most bizarre movie I've ever seen (and I love bizarre). It pushes psychological buttons that I never knew were there. It's extremely hard to watch all the way through. If you do see it, remember that many of us used to watch it under the influence of hallucinogens.

....in later years whenever an interviewer would ask Lynch what was the main influence or inspiration for Eraserhead he almost immediately reply, Philadelphia. Lynch and his first wife, Peggy had lived in the city from 1966 to 1970, buying a 12-room house for $3,500 in an industrial district across from an old city morgue. Lynch experienced first hand the feeling of urban decay and the evil nature that man was capable of as violence, danger, and fear surrounded him on a daily basis. Their house was broken into three times, twice when he and Peggy were at home. Lynch remembers one such eye opening event that stayed with him for some time, an event that led to him writing and filming Eraserhead.

"And a large family was going to a christening of this small baby. And a gang came swooping down on the other side of the street, and attacked the family. And in the family there was a teenage son who tried to defend the whole bunch, and they beat him down, and they shot him in the back of the head" (Breskin 57).

For all of its negative aspects, Philadelphia was a positive experience for Lynch. "I never had an original idea until I came to Philadelphia" (Heller 7D). His stay there marked an intellectual awakening of sorts. Lynch became even more fascinated and in tune with the philosophy of light and dark, good vs. evil that would later become the focal point of his films.

Pleasant dreams!