Last night I went to see Eraserhead for the umpteenth time. It was being projected inside a tunnel under the disused train track (I believe the idea is to extend the brief rail park through here at some point) a block from where David Lynch used to live in Philly. The area is now lovingly referred to as "The Eraserhood," in reference to the influence the neighborhood had on the film and I believe some of the footage in the film being shot there. I thought the entire thing was shot in Philly, using his enormous home (which I believe he said was robbed 20-some times), but I've since seen footage of him and Jack Nance recollecting shooting the opening scene at a tunnel in LA. I'm also fairly certain he was enrolled at AFI in LA when shooting, so, I'm not sure. I believe all of his earlier shorts were at least shot at his Philly home.

This is a shorter walk than most, mostly because I got bored of just eves dropping on peoples' conversations as I walked to the next bar. After the film I waited in line at the Trestle Inn for the Eraserhood Forever afterparty. I spoke to ambitious 24-year-old who had driven out from Downintown. He had also attended alone. He had only first seen the film a year or two prior, seemed to have an excited and limited knowledge of Godard and Verhoeven (though my knowledge on the latter is even more limited). He had grand plans of quitting his software engineer job in DC, which he remotes into from his parents' place, living in an artists' loft and making movies. He has the money, so he keeps buying all the equipment to get it done. I hope he doesn't watch too much before making his second feature--it'd be more interesting to see a young, hungry, and pure perspective than another idiot like me trying to ape the new wave masters again.

I found a couple of interesting sounds on this walk. I was specifically looking for organic, industrial noises to compliment the film. I stood next to an air vent for a few seconds before you hear a couple open the door to the fancy condominium lobby and stare at me. Then I started hearing this eerie high pitched hum emanating from one of the few remaining factories. I couldn't decipher whether it was abandoned, there was all sorts of strange vegetation breaking the concrete around it. Either way, I walked the circumference of the block trying to pinpoint where the sound was emanating from but had no luck. You hear bits of it here. The most fun was the sewer grates hissing steam, a homeless person's closed carefully laid over them. I never noticed that these grates actually have the word "STEAM" engraved in the middle.