It’s common knowledge that in December, you might see someone carrying a freshly cut fir tree to decorate with Christmas ornaments. You probably don’t question the logic or meaning behind this tradition. But today, if you spot someone walking down the street draped in a towel, especially one that says “Don’t Panic!”, you might find it either odd or exactly what you expected for this day. It all depends on whether you’ve read Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which has been celebrated worldwide on this date for more than two decades. Maybe you’re one of those people who will stroll around today with a towel over your shoulders, not as a fashion statement, but as a sign of taking part in a “ritual” that, at first glance, seems cheerfully absurd, and that’s precisely the point.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is often mistakenly dismissed as just a funny sci-fi story about aliens, incredible spaceships, and a man in a bathrobe. But reducing it to that misses the deeper philosophical emptiness Adams cleverly masked as comedy.
The universe Adams portrays isn’t kind or hostile; it’s indifferently bureaucratic. The destruction of Earth by the Vogons, a species obsessed with paperwork, to make way for a new hyperspace bypass isn’t an epic tragedy but more like a cosmic shrug, a reminder that the big stories we cling to are often just background noise in an absurd galactic farce.
Throughout the book, you meet Arthur Dent, an anti-hero in every sense, a man in pajamas whose greatest hope is a cup of hot tea amidst universal chaos. His quiet bewilderment is something you can’t help but relate to; it reflects humanity’s desperate search for meaning in an indifferent cosmos. And amid all that chaos, a simple towel emerges as the most profound symbol of the entire novel.
In a universe that defies all expectations and explanations, the towel becomes both an essential survival tool and a symbol of existential readiness. It literally says, “I might not understand everything that’s happening, but I’m ready and able to handle it”. More than just practicality, the towel represents a mindset; it mocks our human need to appear in control in a world that stubbornly refuses to fit into any neat order.
When you carry a towel, you’re laughing at chaos and arming yourself with absurdity. You grasp its meaning and message about identity, resilience, and the theater of existence. The towel is both a shield and a performance, a bridge between the often shocking harshness of reality and the comedic response of those who truly understand. Wearing a towel means recognizing it as the most concrete, deeply human response in a world where the answer to life, the universe, and everything is “42”, even though no one really knows what the question is.
This isn’t just comedy, it’s a profound insight wrapped in terry cloth, a reminder that searching for meaning might be futile. Yet choosing not to panic, by embracing cosmic absurdity, as the calm words “Don’t Panic” on the Guide’s cover urge, is itself an everyday act of heroism.
Adams’s unreliable, somewhat cynical guide is his postmodern “holy book”. It doesn’t explain everything but celebrates confusion and, like the endless streams of data in the digital age, offers help that’s always partial, often flawed, yet endlessly comforting. The number 42 means nothing and everything at once, reminding us that sometimes the question matters more than the answer. Laughter is a shield, curiosity a compass, and absurdity the most honest way to face existence.
This article is also published as a weekend column in Antena M’s Culture section [HERE].
Four days before his 79th birthday, American filmmaker David Lynch passed away, leaving behind a legacy that cements him as a cinematic master. His name will forever grace the chronicles of filmmaking history, not only for his direction but also for his contributions to music and his role in shaping the themes that defined his works. Yet Lynch was more than a director, actor in some of his projects, and composer. He was also a painter whose significant contributions to the visual arts may not be as widely recognized, as the towering shadow of his cinematic genius often eclipses his other artistic endeavors. Art history, which often clings to conventional classifications, sometimes struggles to embrace creators like Lynch who defy easy categorization.
Lynch’s artistic journey encompassed a labyrinthine narrative of experimentation across various formats, blending film, painting, and other creative pursuits into a singular, captivating oeuvre. This synthesis resists simple labels, as his legacy – marked by films that evoke profound emotions, enigmatic paintings, and incisive cultural critiques – reveals a mind constantly pushing the boundaries of form and meaning.
The Fusion of Film, Art, and Identity
Lynch’s late-career resurgence in film elicited mixed reactions from audiences. The much-anticipated return of “Twin Peaks” in 2017 divided critics and fans alike, as it grappled with recapturing the enigmatic magic of the original 1990-91 series. His last feature-length film, “Inland Empire” (2006), baffled viewers with its surreal structure, signaling a creative exhaustion with his once-celebrated cinematic language. Similarly, Lynch’s 2017 short film “What Did Jack Do?”, a noir-style interrogation of a monkey, leaned more toward absurdist experimentation than profound expression. These diversions reflected his restless search for fresh creative equivalents to his inner turbulence.
Turning away from the film, Lynch returned to his first love – painting. This shift also coincided with his engagement in other activities, such as coffee production and transcendental meditation, a practice he credited with transforming his emotional life and extinguishing his innate anger. Lynch’s autobiography “Room to Dream” co-written with Kristine McKenna, offers a glimpse into the man behind the mystery, documenting his journey through a meditative reflection on personal and artistic evolution.
Born in 1946 in a modest family in Missoula, Montana, Lynch’s upbringing offered no indication of the dark, violent, and surreal worlds he would later depict. His childhood, marked by frequent moves due to his father’s career, painted a picture of suburban normalcy that he would later deconstruct in films like “Blue Velvet” and the series “Twin Peaks”, yet his metaphysical perspective on identity and creativity, as described in his autobiography, suggests that much of who we are is shaped before birth, embedded in the cycles of existence.
Painting as a Parallel Universe
Lynch’s visual art offers a compelling counterpoint to his film work, embracing greater ambiguity and abstraction. The 2014 exhibition “David Lynch: The Unified Field” at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) showcased nearly 90 pieces, providing a rare glimpse into the breadth of his artistic expression. The exhibition revealed not only the depth of his creative oeuvre but also his ongoing dialogue with art history and contemporary visual culture.
His paintings are often surreal, violent, and darkly humorous, mirroring the tone of his films while maintaining their own independent identity. Works such as “Boy Lights Fire” (2010) and “I Didn’t Know Gun Was Loaded, Sorry” (2005) possess a childlike yet potent quality, reflecting an instinctive and emotional approach to creativity. These pieces reject the polish and narrative structure often associated with a film, thriving instead on raw emotion, textural clashes, and the unexpected interplay of text and image.
One increasingly evident aspect of Lynch’s visual art is his distinctive integration of text, a feature that adds layers of meaning while disrupting the viewer’s sense of coherence. In the piece “My Head is Disconnected” (1994–96), the juxtaposition of a human form with a camera in place of a head and the inclusion of cryptic phrases evoke Magritte’s “The Treachery of Images”. This destabilization of language and imagery reflects Lynch’s broader fascination with how we construct meaning in an inherently chaotic world. His frequent assertion that he views a film as a “moving painting” underscores the profound interconnectedness of his artistic pursuits.
Themes of Gender and Violence
Central to Lynch’s body of work – both in film and visual art – is his preoccupation with gender, passion, and violence. His films often critique normative gender roles, exposing their raw, sometimes grotesque underpinnings. They depict wounded male sexuality descending into psychosis, while female characters frequently bear the brunt of male aggression. These dynamics are explored not to glorify them but to lay bare the violence embedded in cultural and familial structures.
In contrast, Lynch’s paintings address these themes more subtly and ambiguously, devoid of the soundscapes and narrative arcs of his films. His visual art focuses on primitive scenes of destruction and danger, as seen in recurring motifs like fire (Boy Lights Fire) and morbid figures that evoke chaos and uncontrolled vigor. Gender remains a central concern, with many works examining male aggression and the objectification of women. Yet, the static nature of these pieces invites a more contemplative engagement with these themes, allowing viewers to explore their interpretations rather than being guided by a cinematic narrative.
The Painter in Context
Lynch’s early work as a painter, such as “Drawing for Eraserhead” (1965–68), reveals a direct connection between his visual art and his filmmaking, even though he insists on separating the two. His ability to construct dream-like worlds and unsettling images in film stems from the same artistic instincts that shape his paintings.
His artwork carries a raw, unembellished quality that provides an unfiltered glimpse into the subconscious. Unlike his films, which are the result of careful planning, his visual works remain isolated, spontaneous acts of creation. It is precisely this freedom to distinguish creative processes that allowed him to approach his chosen themes in an unconstrained manner. His works often depict distorted human figures, disturbing landscapes, and recurring motifs such as fire, machinery, and deformed creatures – elements that come together to create a grotesque beauty that is both repellent and fascinating, reflecting the emotional intensity found in his films.
Lynch’s combination of techniques further enhances the tactile quality of his images, as he uses materials like cardboard, plaster, and found objects, adding depth and texture to his works, thus blurring the boundaries between painting and sculpture. This tactile quality gives his works a physical presence, enabling viewers to confront the materiality of the images alongside their symbolic meaning.
Text as a narrative tool
One of the most intriguing aspects of Lynch’s paintings is his frequent use of text. Rather than clarifying the images, his handwritten expressions often deepen their ambiguity. Some phrases create a sense of narrative tension, leaving the story unfinished. The words written on his drawings function as fragments of dreams whose meaning is hinted at but never fully revealed.
This interaction between text and image most often evokes a sense of unease, as though the viewer is being drawn into a private, incomprehensible world. Lynch’s ability to combine the banal with the terrifying reflects his fascination with the duality of human existence. This tension, present in most of his works, underscores his belief that beauty and fear are inextricably linked.
Although Lynch’s paintings have not achieved anywhere near the level of fame as his films, their influence on contemporary art is undeniable. His work resists direct comparisons with other artists in the realms of film and painting, as it embodies a unique style and exhibitions like “The Unified Field” (2014) have helped place his paintings within the broader context of modern art, highlighting their contribution to the dialogue between abstraction and figuration.
Lynch’s persistence in pursuing painting alongside filmmaking reveals his unwavering dedication to exploring the depths of the imagination, regardless of the medium. In both his films and paintings, he invites the audience to embrace discomfort, confront the surreal, and find meaning in chaos. By creating according to the original principle that the more something is unknown, the more beautiful it is, he affirms this belief through both his films and his paintings, ensuring that his legacy endures, no matter the form of artistic expression.
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