Twin Peaks Day: A Found Weekend
Day 1
We have arrived in Seattle. It’s colder than where we came from. We flew over a snowstorm that is countrywide and even threatens Southern California with blizzard conditions that haven’t happened in decades. But it’s not cold enough to prevent us from traveling from sea level to the mountains of Washington State, where the glacier runoff creates torrents of river water that flow back down to the sea.
There is a place in these mountains where water powers life. There is a beautiful hotel that sits next to one of these waterfalls in the sacred Snoqualmie Valley. I don’t use the word holy because someone once told me about it or because I read it in a book. I use that word because when I stood in front of it for the first time six years ago, I understood what it meant to be in the presence of something greater than myself.
It happened again in Scotland, but that’s another story.
This story is about a place that found a television show more than three decades ago and still draws thousands of visitors to this area.
We ate at Twede’s Diner because that’s what you do when you get here. It’s a gathering place for souls filled with kindness and reverence for art. It’s for people who share freely and ask nothing in return but a smile and a slice of damn good cherry pie.
Here are some photos from the backyard of the house we’re staying in. These are very Twin Peaks. More to come, so watch this channel.
Day 2
It takes a special kind of weirdo to fly across the country and hang out on public film sets for a show that first aired over 30 years ago. But when all those weirdos come together in the name of common art, something magical happens, and a community forms at that moment. Smiles and waves. Deep conversations, new friendships born, and some rivalries even diminish and fade in the light of genuine human connections instead of horseshit sniping at one another on social media.
In the fictional world of Twin Peaks, on February 24th, 1989, the body of a young Prom Queen was found wrapped in plastic, washed up on a rocky shore by a river so mighty that its kinetic motion alone provides the energy for humans to live together in the town of Twin Peaks.
In 2018, the cities of Snoqualmie/North Bend (where much of Twin Peaks was filmed) declared February 24th an annual Twin Peaks Day, welcoming visitors to celebrate art. In 2023, one part of America is cheering migrants being abducted and shipped North in cruel and inhuman stunts, while other humans are coming together to celebrate art that has experienced more trauma than nearly any other I can think of right now.
So, Happy Twin Peaks Day, everyone. Here are some photos from our adventures yesterday!
Day 3
Snoqualmie Falls
Snoqualmie Falls and the Salish Lodge & Spa have to be the most photographed locations in the great State of Washington. Any photographer who has trained their lens on this structure of hospitality that coexists with a barely controlled force of nature knows that the light plays wicked tricks on the lens—the filtration of sunlight reaching the river basin shifts with the clouds. The perfect shot becomes the shit shot in a second, like the risk of our lives, I suppose.
Ronette’s Bridge
This is the bridge that poor Ronette, assaulted, drugged, and left to die, had to walk across in a catatonic state before barely being rescued in the Twin Peaks Pilot. The actress Phoebe Augustine had to walk across this bridge in the freezing cold of winter, wearing wisps of a negligee, right around the time we took the photos below. It was cold as shit out here, and thinking of her doing this nearly froze me over twice.
Scott Ryan & John Thorne’s Book Signing & Reading
I honestly don’t know how I ended up creating two unique podcasts with these brilliant men, but I am grateful for it.
John read from his book Ominous Whoosh: A Wandering Mind Returns to Twin Peaks. He read a section of analysis from the scene where Bobby Briggs runs from the Double RR after a kid shot a gun into the diner after getting hold of it in the back seat of his parents’ van. It remains a wild scene, highly open to interpretation, and John gave us a scorcher's view of how some characters in The Return see their emotions manifest in the unfolding narrative around them. John Thorne is always compelling.
Scott Ryan read from his book Fire Walk With Me: Your Laura Disappeared. Scott is a comedian before he’s anything else, and he writes great jokes in his prose that carry over well into a public reading. I am always proud of his work. But this book isn’t Scott’s theory about FWWM; he interviews the key stakeholders who brought it to the screen (not Lynch, never Lynch) and infuses their technical narratives with his own experiences with the film over the past 30 years. It’s an emotional book and a must-read for all Twin Peaks and David Lynch fans.
BUY IT HERE to get the color version. Like Grease, it’s the one that you want.
Day 4
The Black Dog Runs At Night
Yesterday, we all gathered together at the Black Dog Cafe in Snoqualmie for three Twin Peaks panels.
Your Laura Disappeared with a Fist of Love
Scott Ryan was asked to read one of his poems by Emily Marinelli, host of The Twin Peaks Tattoo Podcast, during an interview with Scott about his books Fire Walk With Me: Your Laura Disappeared and his new book (available for preorder here) Lost Highway: Fist of Love.
Tattoo You
Scott Ryan then hosted nearly all the rest of the panels for the day. He kept the conversations lively around the room. The first panel he hosted featured Emily and three guests from the wonderful TPT podcast, who discussed the psychology of tattooing and why each chose the Twin Peaks tattoos that mattered most to them. It was a fantastic conversation. Look for it soon on Emily’s podcast.
In Our Red Room Now
If you can believe it, John Thorne and I have never met despite engaging with each other about Twin Peaks for nearly ten years now. This was a wonderful meeting, and we were able to bring our unique perspectives to approaching the analysis & appreciation of Twin Peaks: The Return.
Reflections on Real Twin Peaks Week 2023
"We Didn't Waste Our Shot"
We don’t talk much about that because it’s creative suffering impacting only the one making art.1 Nowadays, correcting color blindness in images is as easy as tapping a button and turning a couple of screen wheels. But I swear I stood in this spot and gained perspective through the old technology of lenses and light, combined with the new digital capture and storage technology that powers instant sharing of experiences worldwide. We live in sublime times, and every one of us is a marvel viewing a greater marvel.
Real Twin Peaks Week
There is a place in the mountains of the State of Washington in the United States of America, where for a week at the end of February, the small cities of Snoqualmie and North Bend open their arms to a particular kind of human being, one who would travel great distances to gather in the mountain air, sun, snow, and rain, because of a television show that will never come back and yet will never go away. We who know, then go, carry Twin Peaks in our hearts as gifts to give each other once a year on this week that I have come to call “Real Twin Peaks Week.” There are different names for what this was intended to be and will become, but it is primarily an experience of community through the appreciation of art. During my panel with John Thorne and Scott Ryan, I tried to convey what was in my heart, filtered through what was on my mind. What was in my heart was gratitude. What was on my mind was a spectrum of ideas and concepts, memories, and the joy and curiosity that can only come from listening to what others have to say without thinking of our following response. Real Twin Peaks Week is a time for patience, laughter, and sharing trauma wrapped in artistic metaphors common to the group. We speak in the language of Lynch & Frost, so we may talk in the language of our damaged hearts and tired minds. About 75-100 people consistently showed up in these cities and bought breakfast, lunch, & dinner. We purchased sweatshirts, art, ornaments, and jewelry. We rented cars and houses. We bought beers and bourbon. We shook hands, hugged, cried, and mostly laughed together. And we took pictures of it all. We shared it on our dumb social media, like pouring liquor on a grave and water in the desert. Twin Peaks fans will not change or save the world from greedy hearts that feed on destruction and misery. But for one week every year, some of us will come together to light a torch of art and pass it to the youth. Thank you to all the local heroes who made this week happen. Thank you to all the fans, actors, and artisans who showed up to honor each other. It was a great marvel to behold and now cherish.
