#it has never felt less like christmas in my entire life but c’est la vie

[rithmeres]

merry christmas ya filthy animals

[samsegrist]

Twin Peaks Time Capsule

By Sam Segrist

May 21, 2017

Tonight, in less than half a day, I’ll be seeing something I never thought I’d see: a new episode of Twin Peaks. For fifteen years, there’s been an ache in my heart at the lack of resolution to the season two finale, which—for my money—is television’s greatest unresolved cliffhanger. Perhaps this is why I’ve grown fond of making a semi-annual vacation to this strange and beautiful mountain town which reminds me of my own home, Scottsbluff: a place of weird, desperate, flawed, good people. Repeated viewings never fail to allow me to savor the bittersweet quality of this enigmatic narrative puzzle, a 29-episode loop which compels viewers who fall under its spell to return to the scene of the crime, always just outside of the Martells’ estate, by the lake and the big rock, where millions of people can find, over and over again, the plastic-wrapped bouquet of Laura Palmer’s body.

Over the years, if there’s one thing I’ve discovered, it is that everyone who loves Twin Peaks has a story about when, where, why, and how they fell in love with the show. Mine was back in 2002, when I was working overnights as a telephone switchboard operator for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I was a college student, spinning my wheels academically while finding out that working from midnight until 7 AM, while good for my grades, was not so good for my social life.

This job entailed sitting in front of a computer, with one other operator in the elevated cubicle behind me, waiting for an emergency call to come in or (usually) a false fire alarm. Most nights, nothing happened in the quiet call center of Nebraska Hall. I worked with two other nerdy, but nice enough, guys: a middle-aged David with a mustache who looked like Van Dyke Parks, and a guy named Clay, who resembled a much less creepy Jacque Renault.

There was a television in the upper corner of the call center that was always on. Back then on boring nights, we’d flip through channels to find something, ANYTHING, to watch that was remotely good. We found out Bravo broadcast two back-to-back reruns of Twin Peaks between the hours of three and five A.M. (Before this exposure, I had seen Dune, Blue Velvet, and Lost Highway, and, while they disturbed me, they didn’t hook me with the same fascination as Twin Peaks.) I can’t remember what my first episode was, but I do remember the odd magnetism of the show, how it pulled me out of the sterile cubicle environment and into its dream-world.

Going to work often meant leaving house parties-in-progress or Halo marathons with my roommates, but I looked forward to this mid-shift excursion when I hoped no calls or flashing lights would break the dream reality of the show. (“Through the darkness of future’s past/One magician longs to see/One chants out between two worlds/Fire alarm don’t interrupt me…”) The one-two punch of weirdness which I viewed every shift was compounded by the fact that I missed several episodes on my nights off. Over the course of several months, I saw every episode, but never in consecutive order. A few nights ago I was relating this to my friends Chelsea and Dylan (pronounced Dye-lan), and the realization struck me that I saw Episode 29 several times before realizing the finale, with Dale and the toothpaste and the cracked mirror, was the end of the show! I remember being somewhat mystified when I would show up for work on the next night only to be right smack back at the beginning with the pilot episode. My lack of context regarding the show’s history only added to the mystery and the yearning for resolution.

So, every two weeks, the show would start over, and I would tune in. Both David and Clay seemed to enjoy revisiting the show. I distinctly remember Clay exclaiming “Coop! I love that guy!” when Kyle MacLachlan first showed up on screen.

I eventually lost that overnight switchboard job because I realized I was missing out on too much college life while living at the Blue House. (I had called in sick so I could go on a date with a beautiful girl named Sarah. ((I remember us grilling shish kabobs at my drummer’s house.)) Someone at work somehow knew about this, squealed on me, and my boss figured they’d give me the benefit of the doubt, give me the chance to explain myself, but I was a no-call no-show the next night. D’oh! I guess I was so lovestruck I didn’t care about the consequences. No worries, though, it all worked out: my next job at Blockbuster was to be a much more significant place of employment, but that’s a subject for another entry…)

One thing which initially appealed to me about Sarah was her love of similar things dark and quirky, things like David Lynch. It was at one of the infamous Blue House parties where our conversation led us down this path. I figured any girl who was into Twin Peaks was all right in my book. I later found out her mother was a big fan from back in the day and had programmed her VCR to record the episodes. That’s dedication to truly can’t-miss-television back in the day! As the years go by, Sarah reminds me more and more of Norma, which I suppose makes me more and more like Big Ed. C’est la vie for sweethearts of the past…  

It was sometime after that in the middle-aughts that a couple named Nick and Sara Arling invited me to their apartment for a biweekly Twin Peaks viewing. It’s funny, but I don’t remember meeting these two wonderful people at all; all I remember is how fun it was to go to their house in the Near South of Lincoln every other Sunday evening to watch three episodes with a group of people. This was how I also met a great young couple named Justin and Noel (pronounced No-elle). Years later, they would invite me to a Halloween party at their house where I met a stunning brunette named Stacy. I was dressed as a chocolate shake. She was dressed as Audrey Hepburn’s character from Breakfast at and was impressed when I complimented her on her Holly Golightly costume. (Any other schmoe could have just said “Nice Audrey Hepburn outfit.”) It was only later on, I realized how striking of a resemblance she had to Sherilynn Fenn BKA Audrey Horne. Funny how the love of a show can lead to love in real life.

One final thing about this Sunday Night Twin Peaks Club is that it was the first time I saw the entire series in chronological order with the Log Lady intros. The entire series was not yet available on DVD, so seeing the show in its grainy VHS was probably the closest I’d ever get to seeing the show the way it was originally seen.

To augment my love of the story, I hunted down the out-of-print books The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent: Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes and The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. Besides being good reads, they were inspirations for how to write an epistolary story for my master’s thesis and first book.

In the spring of 2005 (or 2006?), I drove to Fairfield, Iowa to attend a weekend conference on Transcendental Meditation at the Maharishi University of Management to hear David Lynch speak. It was like getting to spend a weekend with an eccentric and groovy uncle, but perhaps the best thing that came out of it was I was able to ask him two questions during a Q & A which I then put on YouTube. You can check it at this URL (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1E5SJaXc30&t=87s) or by searching for “David Lynch Q & A on Season 3 of Twin Peaks “ to see what he has to say about my idea finishing Twin Peaks. Keep in mind, I never thought they’d ever actually make another season though!

One sticky point of contention, I’ve only ever seen Fire Walk With Me once. I was one of many fans who was disappointed that Lynch didn’t use the movie as an opportunity to finish the story. The cinematography is gorgeous, but it veers too far in tone from the delightful mix of the television show. I also find it way too disturbing, obscene, and unnecessary to actually see the rape scenes. Now that the new show is almost upon us, I worry the R-rated freedom Lynch will have will mean these new episodes will also be more darkness than light. Say what you will about censorship, but I think Lynch thrived under the limitations of broadcast television because there was a line he could press up against, but not cross. When there is no line, some creators don’t know when to stop…

Fast-forward to 2007-2008 and I was a first-year teacher in Omaha. I was so excited that the Gold Box, the complete edition of Twin Peaks was coming out on DVD that I spent more money than I should have at the Borders at 72nd & Dodge (R.I.P.) and watched them all with my girlfriend Rachel in my little one-bedroom apartment in the Old Market. That was a really hard year for both of us. I was woefully unprepared to teach children of poverty and she was trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life after graduating from St. Andrews College in Scotland. Though there was much tension and drama, I do believe we helped each other get through that year. One of the many things I love about this show is sharing it with people who’ve never seen it before, to see their reactions.

The last girlfriend I would ever watch it with was Abby in the fall/winter of 2008. Things were not going well with our whirlwind of a romance, and I remember sensing things were darkening and souring between us. As we neared the end of the show, there was a sense of an ending brewing. She didn’t know about the cliffhanger finale, and I remember her wondering aloud how the show could possibly wrap up all its threads in the last episode, but as soon as Episode 29 ended, it was like she felt like it was okay to end the relationship because we had concluded the business of our mutual vacation in Twin Peaks. It wasn’t meant to be, and that’s okay.  

Fast-forward to Christmas 2014. My brother and I have an annual tradition which we picked up from our grandmother Betty where we send each other a list of potential gifts we’d like to get, not knowing which one will actually be chosen. This way we always get something we’re sure to enjoy, but there’s still an element of surprise. That Christmas was one of the best ever because my dear brother Mark got me the Complete Mystery box-set on Blu-Ray. (Hint, if you ever want to feel creepy, just run your finger over the front of the set and you’ll be able to feel the contour of Laura’s eyeballs through the blue eyelids. Who thought of that? Who greenlit that icky detail? I want to know.)

 And then it was 2015 and the internet found out the rumors were true and the show was coming back. I suspected at the time (and still think) the whole “David Lynch is walking away from the revival because they’re not going to give him enough money to do it right” was a publicity stunt to drum up a fervor online, to measure just how many people care about the show coming back. I remember thinking, Oh, the dispute was about money? And now they’ve doubled the number of episodes from 9 to 18? I wouldn’t rule it out in this day and age of innovative and unorthodox market research, but I digress…

Once I heard they were bringing back the show, I thought it’d be fun for my wife Maddie and I to watch the show together, but she can’t get past the quirky cheesiness or kitsch of it all. She just thinks it’s a bad show and rolls her eyes. I hope she gives it another shot in the future, otherwise our trip together to Snolqualmie, WA to see the locations of the show will not be as much fun! Haha!

[When I think of the Giant’s warning that “It is happening again” I just think that’s such a cryptic and terrifying statement. What is “it”? When did it last happen? What happened? What was the result? Wait a second, the verb “happen” is in the present progressive tense! It’s occurring right now! When will it stop?!? J I’ll likely write about this at greater length later on, but I believe there is a Holocaust subtext to Twin Peaks, and something about the dark return of this show somehow anticipates and foreshadows the rise of Trump. That’s all I’m going to write about that today…]

As the big date of the return has drawn nigh, I’ve enjoyed listening to the vinyl reissues of the soundtracks and reading the 33 & 3rd book about Angelo Badalamenti’s score. It’s also been a treat finding out that cool students of mine like Caitlyn are interested in the series. I’m an (old) millennial fan, which means I only got into the show AFTER Twin Peaks mania. It’s a strange feeling to become so fanatical about something that was once SOOO popular which then became a weird cult show. I wonder what it will be like to revisit Twin Peaks: The Return in 25 years.

My most recent reviewing of the show happened this spring. I had the joy of watching it all with my sister Katie. She got hooked on the show like crazy. I’m glad we were able to watch the show together because in about a month she is moving to Alabama, and we may not ever live in the same town again, but we’ll have had this brother-sister bonding experience.  

Anyhow, I’m cutting this real close, but the show will be live in about forty minutes! So I thought I’d wrap this up briefly outlining what some of my fears and desires and questions about the new show will be. I wonder how the show will maintain the atemporal vibe. Will there be cell phones and texting in Twin Peaks? How will they advance the story and resolve leftover mysteries from Season 2? I know Showtime probably wants the show in widescreen, but I feel like the 1.33 aspect ratio is practically a character or a force of nature in the show, forcing the director, cinematographer, and actors to compose every shot a certain way. I suppose what would be the best of both worlds would be if they stream/broadcast it in widescreen and then make a Blu-Ray collection where there is a full-frame option. I doubt that will occur, but you never know.

I know, I know it will never and can never be the same, but I am cautiously optimistic that Frost and Lynch will find a way to capture the magic again and transport millions of viewers to that sublime place we call Twin Peaks. In this age of Netflix-pioneered season dumps, I find it exciting that the Summer of 2017 will be ineffably tied to a weekly installment of this show, so that we’ll get the opportunity to watch each episode as they come out and then run to the Great Online Watercooler to converse with all the other fans. If the show is bad, I know I will not be able to unsee it, and I’ve been down this pop-cultural road before where long-awaited and unexpected returns/revivals/installments become bitter disappointments, which are sometimes so bad that they retroactively taint the way one thinks of the earlier work. (I’m looking at you, George Lucas.) It is for that reason I wanted to make this memory time capsule, documenting just how much this show has meant to me throughout these last fifteen years.

There’s less than half an hour until the new show starts. I was almost done when I got a call from my best buddy Zach. He recently watched all 29 episodes and didn’t know that the new season was about to start tonight. We’ve made plans to talk as soon as the premiere is over. I told him he’d be a part of this document. I like to think he and I have the kind of love for each other that FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper and Sheriff Harry Truman have for each other, and hey, we do!

So, now it’s getting dark and the trees are not stirring on this windless May night in Lincoln, Nebraska. All these words are now written down for posterity. They may not be wrapped in plastic, but they’re still beautiful. I know I will write about this show more in the future, but for now, I’ll just have to trust that I’ll see you in the trees.