Ask any cinephile what their favorite David Lynch moment is, and odds are they’ll have at least one—if not a revolving door of competing answers. His daily weather reports; his famed “get real!” comment on cell phone film-viewing; or his 10-city tour in early 2007 with a live cow in promotion of “Inland Empire.” I myself am quite fond of his enthusiastic one-word response to a public question regarding his favorite Werner Herzog film—“Stroszek! Hmhmhmhmhm!” Whatever your preferred Lynch moment happens to be, odds are, it may very well not even be a moment from one of his films.

By no means a slight against the enduring surrealist, the fact that Lynch’s legacy is in large part defined in the modern day (thanks to the wonders of the internet and meme culture) by his eccentricities outside the art he crafted is a testimony to just how alluring...