I still remember discussing the cancellation of Twin Peaks in one of my English or Political Science classes with a fellow student; I can recall his face, but not his name. I remember, too, watching some of the episodes over at Tony Longworth`s place with other members of the University of Alberta Star Trek Club. And I remember watching the entire run of the show all over again on the then-new Bravo! channel shortly after graduation. But after that, the show slowly faded into dreamlike memories, and I lamented its passing.
At the time, it felt like Twin Peaks opened up the true nature of reality: a maelstrom of madness and decency, the uncanny woven into the fabric of the mundane, with good and wondrous people doing their best to lift us away from horror and suffering. I thought it was magical.
But can David Lynch and Mark Frost recapture that magic, over a quarter of a century later? I don't know. But I'll be watching.
I had no idea the new Twin Peaks was so close! Between this and the new Samurai Jack, it's like our lives in the interim meant as much as the bit just after the apes meeting the monolith and just before Heywood Floyd reaches the space station.
ReplyDeleteLast week, I had to return my half-read copy of Cloud Atlas to the library because some needy plebian with a working knowledge of the holds system wanted it before I was done. In desperation for something to tide me over until I could re-hold the book and resolve Timothy Cavendish, I picked up The Secret History Of Twin Peaks by Mark Snow.
It's not the worst read ever. It reads like Mark Snow making a show bible in 2016, which is what I presume he did. It does connect in a string of pearls everything from the first Europeans to the Pacific North West (Lewis and Clark) through to native legends, Freemasonry, Illuminati, owls, UFO's, Yeti's, gold, timber, fire, and the first families of Twin Peaks (the feud between the Packards and the Martells), Chinese Tongs, the Bookhouse Boys, psychiatric review, Killer BOB and all the way up to Agent Cooper's first encounter with Major Briggs.
It reads a lot like one of those episodes of The X-Files that explains everything but it does leave the biggest questions unanswered. I really hope the new show does not go that route, though. The book is an interesting revisit of Twin Peaks after the age of Agent Mulder, but that kind of storytelling I hope we have left interred with the demise of The X-Files.