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Twin Peaks Rewatch 3: Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer

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Still haven't quite gotten over that commercial for Lynch signature blend coffee.

 

Also:

 

The first time I lay actual eyes on the real David Lynch on the set of his movie, he's peeing on a tree. This is on 8 January in L.A.'s Griffith Park, where some of Lost Highway's exteriors and driving scenes are being shot. He is standing in the bristly underbrush off the dirt road between the base camp's trailers and the set, peeing on a stunted pine. Mr. David Lynch, a prodigious coffee drinker, apparently pees hard and often, and neither he nor the production can afford the time it'd take to run down the base camp's long line of trailers to the trailer where the bathrooms are every time he needs to pee. So my first (and generally representative) sight of Lynch is from the back, and (understandably) from a distance. Lost Highway's cast and crew pretty much ignore Lynch's urinating in public, (though I never did see anybody else relieving themselves on the set again, Lynch really was exponentially busier than everybody else.) and they ignore it in a relaxed rather than a tense or uncomfortable way, sort of the way you'd ignore a child's alfresco peeing.

 

From David Foster Wallace's excellent essay on David Lynch* which is sprinkled with funny tidbits, interesting observations and some really good meditation on the Lynch brand of sick and evil.

 

* Rather than read the essay on that mess of a site, just buy A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. You won't regret it. At the very least copy-paste that text somewhere else.

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Still haven't quite gotten over that commercial for Lynch signature blend coffee.

 

Also:

 

 

From David Foster Wallace's excellent essay on David Lynch* which is sprinkled with funny tidbits, interesting observations and some really good meditation on the Lynch brand of sick and evil.

 

* Rather than read the essay on that mess of a site, just buy A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. You won't regret it. At the very least copy-paste that text somewhere else.

 

That is a really good essay. I had to copy and paste it elsewhere to get through it when I first read it. Reading white text on black backgrounds then looking away is exactly what a migraine feels like when it is starting.

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"I'd have coffee, sometimes six cups, along with the shake, and I'd have sugar in my coffee. By then I would be pretty jazzed up, and I'd start writing down ideas. Many, many things came out of Bob's."

 

"I like cappuccino, actually. But even a bad cup of coffee is better than no coffee at all. New York has great water for coffee. Water varies all around. We've got to drink something. Do you just drink water, sometimes? It's very good for you."

I read that rapidly, as one sentence and it certainly resembles the way a coffee enthusiast speaks.

 

I love the observations about coffee:noir relationship deconstruction, mostly because even the thought of it awes me that somebody would even thing to reapproach the trope from that direction, whether intentionally or not.

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I read that rapidly, as one sentence and it certainly resembles the way a coffee enthusiast speaks.

 

I love the observations about coffee:noir relationship deconstruction, mostly because even the thought of it awes me that somebody would even thing to reapproach the trope from that direction, whether intentionally or not.

 

Yeah, the coffee being a thing that most people are forced to drink is something I hadn't thought about until CLWheeljack brought it up. Someone else mentioned Dale Cooper's trench coat. The coffee and the trench coat together kind of clench the idea that both things are being "redeemed" in some way from the noir stereotype. The trench coat has been appropriated so much that it actually has a trope of its own called the trenchcoat brigade. I love Constantine (the Reeves movie; haven't read the graphic novels), but it stands in contrast to Dale's pressed and starched version. Disheveled trench coats and bad coffee in styro foam cups are the realm of stakeouts (think Columbo).

 

As to whether it was intentionally redeeming. I don't know. I have no read on that. Could have been that Agent Cooper needs to say positive optimistic things and the end result arrives at starch and damn fine coffee.

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The metaphor of starch being a method to inject optimism into clothing is something that'll dominate my thoughts for the next few hours, I'm sure.

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Guest LostInTheMovies

I was wondering what David Lynch's process for coming up with all the sounds was for his films, because, at some point, you actually have to think, when an article tells of the importance of sound to David Lynch, okay, so, is David Lynch the Sound Designer?

Although it's pretty rare for a director to actually create (as opposed to supervise - if that!) the soundscape of their own movies, Lynch is the exception to the rule. He is actually the credited Sound Designer on all of his films from Fire Walk With Me on (as well as The Elephant Man even earlier).

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Does Mrs. Horne ever show up again after this episode?

 

She was never in another script, but Lynch added her to the final episode anyway. He also added in the similarly unscripted - and unseen for many episodes - Ronette, Leland Palmer, Sarah Palmer, and even Heidi the giggling waitress from the pilot who repeats the same dialogue with Bobby and Shelly. Although the season 2 finale was written to be a cliffhanger not a conclusion, Lynch directs it with a certain sense of full-circle finality.

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I was doing a little research on the statue in the Red Room (I think we are still calling it this at this point, because I don't know that it has been named, yet.) It took me a while to find the specific statue because I have intentionally been staying away from fan pages until I am finished with watching everything up to the missing pieces.

 

I am the first person to admit that David Lynch has a love of the inscrutable. In other words, deconstructing his work tends to lead down a rabbit hole which detracts from admiring the emotional force of the imagery. Basically, you don't have to "get it" to love it. However, it is worth mentioning that the statue we see in this episode is Venus de Medici (not Venus de Milo.) They are two different works.

 

The Venus de Medici wikipedia page is here

 

The wikipedia page for Aphrodite is here

 

You could spend a great deal of time analyzing the metaphors and whatnot from the mythology. I think the important parts are these (if we assume the statue is a comment on Laura Palmer):

 

  • Venus is the Roman name for the Greek god Aphrodite: the goddess of love.
  • "Aphrodite is consistently portrayed, in every image and story, as having had no childhood, and instead being born as a nubile, infinitely desirable adult." (Laura is sexualized from an early age and robbed of her childhood)
  • She is ordered to marry an ugly God.
  • She is unfaithful and has many lovers.

I am sure there are other things that can be said about this and would love to hear if anyone has any other stuff to say (I read spoilers).

 

I don't think it is an accident that they chose this statue. In other words, I think it has more to comment than just to say it is a statue added to make things more surreal. The reason I believe this:

 

Is because the other statue we see in the season finale is the Venus de Milo. The Venus de Medici is assumed to be emerging from the surf or a bath and covering herself. The Venus de Milo is associated with Judgement. See the section on the Judgement of Paris in the Wikipedia page about Aphrodite. She originally had an apple, I guess? Which is associated with a particular story. This spoiler section goes a little too far down the rabbit hole, but it is important to take away that both statues are famous works of Venus/Aphrodite.

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Huh, after listening to this podcast, and then starting to watch the show over again, there are actually half a dozen places where Cooper is seen working on his whistle whittling project through the series.  Thanks for pointing that out.  <3

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I was doing a little research on the statue in the Red Room (I think we are still calling it this at this point, because I don't know that it has been named, yet.) It took me a while to find the specific statue because I have intentionally been staying away from fan pages until I am finished with watching everything up to the missing pieces.

 

I am the first person to admit that David Lynch has a love of the inscrutable. In other words, deconstructing his work tends to lead down a rabbit hole which detracts from admiring the emotional force of the imagery. Basically, you don't have to "get it" to love it. However, it is worth mentioning that the statue we see in this episode is Venus de Medici (not Venus de Milo.) They are two different works.

 

The Venus de Medici wikipedia page is here

 

The wikipedia page for Aphrodite is here

 

You could spend a great deal of time analyzing the metaphors and whatnot from the mythology. I think the important parts are these (if we assume the statue is a comment on Laura Palmer):

 

  • Venus is the Roman name for the Greek god Aphrodite: the goddess of love.
  • "Aphrodite is consistently portrayed, in every image and story, as having had no childhood, and instead being born as a nubile, infinitely desirable adult." (Laura is sexualized from an early age and robbed of her childhood)
  • She is ordered to marry an ugly God.
  • She is unfaithful and has many lovers.

I am sure there are other things that can be said about this and would love to hear if anyone has any other stuff to say (I read spoilers).

 

I don't think it is an accident that they chose this statue. In other words, I think it has more to comment than just to say it is a statue added to make things more surreal. The reason I believe this:

 

Is because the other statue we see in the season finale is the Venus de Milo. The Venus de Medici is assumed to be emerging from the surf or a bath and covering herself. The Venus de Milo is associated with Judgement. See the section on the Judgement of Paris in the Wikipedia page about Aphrodite. She originally had an apple, I guess? Which is associated with a particular story. This spoiler section goes a little too far down the rabbit hole, but it is important to take away that both statues are famous works of Venus/Aphrodite.

 

Not sure if you're receiving updates (I shared this on dugpa.com too) but Christy Desmet's essay "The Canonization of Laura Palmer" has a really fascinating analysis of the two Venuses (spoilers in the link, obviously): https://books.google.com/books?id=m6mjuWXrqb8C&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=martyrdom+of+laura+palmer&source=bl&ots=0HBrFWP9in&sig=rIxpr7fBBw3wSDhQs8SVOybzW0k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xFGsVKCaObeSsQTTuoDYCg&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=venus&f=false (see the first sample, page 106).

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A little bit of info about the song "PEnnsylvania 6-5000."  The song title is in reference to a phone number (PE would be 73 so the number is 736-5000), a number in New York City in the Penn Station exchange.  The sound of the phone ringing in the scene where you hear the song is actually in the song itself.  

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So a special episode:  

 

some fun stuff I noticed. 

 

Cooper spits out coffee because it’s hot! (

Spoiler

Like dougie!)

 

Bobbie is really an interesting character his scarediness (in his eyes) to Leo is a huge contrast to how he chats about Leo when he’s talking to Shelly. 

 

2017 Cooper has blacker hair and less wrinkles than his 25 year on old dream version. 

 

I think cooper hears the name mike and bob (mike at least). 

 

Cooper’s toot toot on his whistle apropos of nothing is great comedy timing, his little

nose tweak on Truman and the way he grins when Albert (who’s a complete ass) gets dressed down by Cooper. 

And 

Also: Nadines entrepenurial spirit is met with skepticism by big ed (he’s also give the most on point descriptor by Nadine who calls him a big lug). 

 

James is so boring. 

 

It’s great to see Audrey in her own world mode 

Spoiler

Fenn nails the spirit of young Audrey in 2017. So good to see that  even if it’s a prelude to a tragic? Reveal.

And her cute moment with Donna.

 

(I think I read stories that Boyle was not pleased with Macachlan and Fenn in scenes together - perhaps worse as she got scenes with boring James as compensation). 

 

A butter and brie sandwich is a really really tasty thing even though it’s ridiculously simple. (And will probably kill you with heart disease in five minutes if you ate four a day). 

 

Andy is ridiculously adorable when he tries to guts out his bonk on the head with coopers (let’s) rock. 

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