“Our daily lives have been mangled beyond recognition. There have been deaths, there has been destruction, everybody, everywhere, nobody is keeping score, it’s all bad and it all requires a resilience that was on full, powerful display everywhere last week, including in my little burned-out block.”

If you haven’t read my colleague Bill Plaschke’s column about his journey back to his Altadena home and the complicated survivor’s guilt he’s feeling right now, try to find the time. It’s powerful, just one of so many outstanding pieces that Times writers have produced about the L.A.-area fires in the last couple of weeks. And the work of our photographers, often putting themselves in harm’s way, has been astonishing.

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope’s Monday newsletter, ready to exhale.

Long live Lynch

The man at the hotel bar slid off his stool and turned, offering his hand.

“I’m David Lynch. Pleased to meet you.”

We were close enough that I could smell the pomade coming off that immaculate pompadour. Lavender? Nah. Can’t be … can it? You’d figure Lynch to be old school when it comes to grooming products.

I’d just finished having lunch with Richard Farnsworth, the unlikely star of the most unlikely David Lynch movie, “The Straight Story,” a G-rated gem about an old-timer who, after hearing that his estranged brother is dying, hops on a tractor lawnmower to see him one last time. It was released by Disney, an implausible partner for a filmmaker known for haunting, surrealistic and often deeply disturbing movies. No one ever thought of Mickey Mouse when hearing the cinematic classification “Lynchian.”

“Human beings are capable of doing many types of things, so I don’t think this is surprising at all,” Lynch told me as we started talking about the film.

Lynch, whose family announced his death at age 78 on Thursday, lived that ethos. Whenever I spoke with him, he was unfailingly polite, the embodiment of a Boy Scout upbringing that he’d sometimes embrace, maybe to mess with people, maybe not. When promoting his 1990 movie “Wild at Heart,” his bio simply read: “Eagle Scout. Missoula, Montana.” This was the man who went to the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank every afternoon for years, ordering a chocolate milkshake and coffee, hoping that the caffeine and sugar cocktail would inspire an idea or two.

After news broke about Lynch’s passing, I remembered the occasions I had to meet him and talk a bit. His reticence was a work of art in itself. Times film critic Amy Nicholson wrote an appreciation with the headline: “Long live the wizard David Lynch,” taking in the ways his movies shaped us. I’ll be watching those films for the rest of my life.

David Lynch, a master of dreamy, unnerving cinema.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Oscar nominations will (probably) arrive this week

The fires have pushed back many awards-season-related events, including the nominations for the 97th Oscars, which have been postponed twice. The announcement is now set for Thursday morning, and my predictions for the nominees will likely be on The Times’ website Tuesday. Expect good news for “Emilia Pérez,” “The Brutalist” and “Conclave,” the films I suspect will lead the field.

My old friend Mary McNamara got confirmation from Academy Chief Executive Bill Kramer that the Oscars will indeed go on as scheduled on March 2. And she makes the case that the show must go on and that we need to “always celebrate the work that unites and defines us, makes us laugh, cry, think and aspire. Especially in the midst of tragedy.”

I’m not going to argue, though I’m a little skeptical about the ability of an awards show — even the Oscars, the biggest of all awards shows — to bring people together in these fragmented, divisive times. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the show’s producers and host Conan O’Brien will be able to deliver a ceremony that both celebrates the art and mourns our deep loss. That’s a tightrope walk. Good luck.

Part of the production crew, Christian Rosso, rolls one of several Oscar statues into place onstage in the Dolby Theatre ahead of the 2019 Academy Awards.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)