David Lynch has left us, but he'll never leave us. His work has made an indelible mark on culture in a way that few others have. We could go into a lot of that, but instead we'll consider his brief 2006 autobiography and self-help guide, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity.

When Lynch talks about his life, his art, and how he relates to people, Catching the Big Fish sparkles. It kind of loses it when Lynch talks about his grandiose ideas about the power of meditation, and the tenth anniversary edition is padded out with two largely content-free interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr about meditation. It's interesting on a personal level, but you can pretty much write off the "Consciousness-Based Education" chapter.

There is an optimistic chapter on the "Future of Cinema". Lynch worries about how "[a] tiny little picture, instead of a giant big picture, is going to be how people see films," and counterbalances that with the optimism: "at least people will have their headphones." He was half right; one has to wonder if he ever got out amongst the hell of people watching videos, but perhaps it's best to think he was spared.

Catching the Big Fish is the work of moments, but its brevity makes it, yes, meditative. If you want a more comprehensive view of David Lynch in his own words, you can always do 2018's Room to Dream. But in this very brief window of having just lost him, Catching the Big Fish still provides a valuable glimpse of the elusive figure himself.