David Rockwell Quotes

there's a part in the essay that kind of does this academic "Let's unpack the idea of Lynchian and what Lynchian means is something about the unbelievably grotesque existing in a kind of union with the unbelievably banal," and then it gives a series of scenarios about what -- what is and what isn't Lynchian. Jeffrey Dahmer was borderline Lynchian...what was Lynchian was having the actual food products next to the disembodied bits of the corpse. I guess the big one is, you know, a regular domestic murder is not Lynchian. But if the man -- if the police come to the scene and see the man standing over the body and the woman -- let's see, the woman's '50s bouffant is undisturbed and the man and the cops have this conversation about the fact that the man killed the woman because she persistently refused to buy, say, for instance, Jif peanut butter rather than Skippy, and how very, very important that is, and if the cops found themselves somehow agreeing that there were major differences between the brands and that a wife who didn't recognize those differences was deficient in her wifely duties, that would be Lynchian -- this weird confluence of very dark, surreal, violent stuff and absolute, almost Norman Rockwell, banal, American stuff, which is terrain he's been working for quite a while -- I mean, at least since -- at least since "Blue Velvet.

But the cat—the cat represents all vices of human nature. The cat is selfish, greedy, vain; the most a cat will do for its master is allow you to pet it. Not that a cat thinks of man as its master, no sir, it’s the other way around. Why a cat wouldn’t lift a paw in defense of its home and hearth but would likely as not sup on your flesh after the vagabonds killed you and violated your wife and daughter. Cats ain’t ever earned their keep but what they wanted to do on their own anyhow. I’ve seen too many mousers got to rot soon as they get even a hint of table scraps,” said Porter, with some venom. “Cats, bah!

Ah, New England. An amalgam of picket fences and crumbling bricks; Ivy League schools and dropped Rs; social tolerance and the Salem witch trials, Henry David Thoreau and Stephen King, P-town rainbows and mill-town rust; Norman Rockwell and Aerosmith; lobster and Moxie; plus the simmering aromas of a million melting pot cuisines originally brought here by immigrants from everywhere else searching for new ways to live. It’s a place where rapidly-growing progressive cities full of the ‘wicked smaaht’ coexist alongside blight-inflicted Industrial Revolution landscapes full of the ‘wicked poor’. A place of forested mountains, roaring rivers, crystalline lakes, urban sprawl, and a trillion dollar stores. A place of seasonal tourism beach towns where the wild, rank scent of squishy seaweed casts its cryptic spell along the vast and spindrift-misted seacoast, while the polished yachts of the elite glisten like rare jewels on the horizon, just out of reach. Where there are fiery autumn hues and leaves that need raking. Powder snow ski slopes and icy windshields that need scraping. Crisp daffodil mornings and mud season. Beach cottage bliss and endless miles of soul-sucking summer traffic . Perceived together, the dissonant nuances of New England stir the imagination in compelling and chromatic whorls.

Still, it was hard not to be impressed by the names who would be involved. Present in the room that day were William Pedersen, co-founder of the high-rise titans Kohn Pedersen Fox; David Childs, partner at the juggernaut Skidmore Owings and Merrill, who had designed Time Warner Center; Elizabeth Diller, from the “cerebral boutique” Diller Scofidio + Renfro, whose visions had informed the High Line; David Rockwell, a “virtuoso of showbiz and restaurant design”; Howard Elkus, from the high-end shopping-center specialists Elkus Manfredi; and landscape architect Thomas Woltz.

You told me the Utes were gonna kill you for it. And how would the Cotterell’s know anything bout it? And come looking for you?” “Because Runs-With-Scissors was drunk and told everyone at the Crescent Junction tavern, that’s why.

Porter watched his breath steam into the freezing dark. Stars winked overhead and morning couldn’t come soon enough. Somewhere a lonely wolf howled as frost formed like creeping death. *** Porter

Once on top, Porter looked back at the two of them bound and gagged together and laughed to himself. They still twisted and muttered. In the dark it almost looked like they were yet in the middle of an unguarded and passionate embrace. Clumsy lovers, stuck together to the end.  

Awww, horse chips,” swore Porter,

That’s Thin-Man Johnson. They say he’s fast as lighting and too narrow to get hit by anyone,” said Ferdie, his voice going hoarse. “Shut