The art of David Lynch made a lasting impression on me. In tribute to his life, which ended a year ago, I decided to jot down some personal recollections of his work. This is the third part of how I remember Twin Peaks.

Twin Peaks had a very distinct way of storytelling. It was captivating unlike any other show: wide-angled cinematic shots against somewhat soft-focused imagery, cameras literally flying over one scene and into the next, long uninterrupted panning shots during conversations. As much was happening in the background as in the foreground, making scenes feel as if they were constantly in motion. Often there was an undercurrent of music gracefully pacing the scenes forward. And most of it was just so gloriously slow — you’d notice that many of the earliest episodes started in the early morning and came to a conclusion at night on the same day. It all contributed to a somewhat dreamlike and ethereal appearance. There was a concealed meaning behind Twin Peaks’ symbolism, where things like fire and water (at rest or in the shape of a thundering waterfall) had an influence on the story. A half moon in the sky, wind in the trees, traffic lights changing, buzzing electricity. At the time, of course, this wasn’t something that I could articulate.

The Netherlands had its very own esteemed Twin Peaks expert group called “Ninetyblue”. Following the example set by their American counterparts, Ninetyblue ran the Dutch Twin Peaks hotline (06-35026090), a mostly whimsical operation that nonetheless received numerous calls about the show every week. The trailblazer of this bunch, Rob van Erkelens, always reminded me of Twin Peaks’ reclusive inhabitant Harold Smith. But besides running this Twin Peaks knowledge base of sorts, Rob van Erkelens also had the quite exceptional privilege of introducing each new episode to the Dutch audience. As a matter of fact, I believe it might have been a re-run exclusive, meaning that only the very few people who witnessed Twin Peaks’ first re-run in the Netherlands ever saw these introductions.

I have no idea whose twisted mind came up with this idea, but for me these introductions were invaluable. While most articles about the show never went anywhere far beyond its mannerisms — the coffee and cherry pie — Van Erkelens’ introductions provided some necessary interpretation and insight to ignorant 16-year-olds such as myself. Associations were made, visual trickery explained, off-screen romances hinted at. When a llama entered the scene and snorted at Cooper, or Maddy left her Cherry Coke untouched, it was Van Erkelens who hinted at its meaning. I fondly remember those introductions as somewhat weirdly paced, surreal pieces of playacting — in the spirit of Twin Peaks itself — although I read they weren’t entirely appreciated, even by a rather open-minded audience. No one ever took the effort to archive them away somewhere, and by the law of the barely existent World Wide Web, these strange preambles have since disappeared into the Big Nothing. No more than a couple of handfuls were recorded, after which Van Erkelens made an exit both highly dramatic and hilarious: as a nod to the grumpy and bullheaded audience, in his last contribution — an animation of a beating heart projected onto his chest — he was shot to death mid-sentence.

Right after the show was over and done with in the Netherlands, Ninetyblue published one of the very few insightful books on Twin Peaks at the time. Part of it was goofballing, as was Twin Peaks itself: rubbing the cover gave off the scent of Douglas firs. But most of it consisted of fascinating observations and meaningful insights that still hold water to this day, and exhibit a profound affection for the show and its characters.

More to come in the next part

The art of David Lynch made a lasting impression on me. In tribute to his life, which ended a year ago, I decided to jot down some personal recollections of his work. This is the second part of how I remember Twin Peaks.

Even though my interest was sparked years before, I approached Twin Peaks rather impassively when I first had the chance to see it. Most of the hype surrounding the show had passed me by unnoticed, so I didn't exactly know what to expect. I wasn't familiar with the previous work of either Mark Frost or David Lynch. I had no clue about any of Twin Peaks' storylines. When I started watching, the whole world knew exactly who killed Laura Palmer — it had been scrutinized, analyzed, opinions were formed. Had I been more careless in the years prior, chances are I would have ruined it all before I even started watching. But miraculously, for a whopping three and a half years after it initially aired, I knew practically nothing about the show.

I vividly remember first seeing the opening credits — especially the sudden shift in sensation I felt from reserved, somewhat aloof, see-what-happens, to a heightened sense of wonder in a matter of seconds. A single guitar pluck, a bird perched on a branch, smoke billowing from some distant chimney stacks. And then, the sharpening of a saw blade that sent sparks flying and drive belts shuddering. In real life, this little scene would have meant a thunderous, ear-shattering noise. In Twin Peaks’ opening credits, it meant bewildering serenity. The feeling crept in that I was watching something very different from what I was used to. And when the music swelled and the title faded in across those machines of death and destruction, I was mesmerized. These few minutes of music and moving images made an impression that is still with me to this day.

Twin Peaks' very first episode set the stage for the most devastating sadness the world of TV had ever seen. This too was something I wasn’t used to experiencing: in most shows, grief was kind of dispensable, easily overcome. In the first few scenes of Twin Peaks, the sadness was almost unbearable: a phone call from your distressed wife, when at the same time a policeman, urgency beaming from his face, turns his head to look straight at you. The sudden pang of fear when seeing the chair at school that wasn’t supposed to be empty. And when there's nothing else left to conclude, trying to hold on to yourself, before giving in, gasping for breath, shoulders shaking, the sheer uncontrollable ugly sobbing, the rivers and rivers of tears. TV I knew always avoided strong emotions like these.

Just as the excessive crying was something I'd never seen before, so were singing Icelanders, a dreamt-up dwarf bringing some very good news about chewing gum, a llama in the vet's waiting room, an FBI agent hanging upside down talking into a memo recorder, a lady carrying a log. Every scene seemed to evolve into something utterly, completely and wholly new. Hardly a few episodes into the show, in walks a black-haired Laura Palmer — wasn’t she supposed to be dead? Which cable network would ever approve a mouthful-of-food conversation like the one between the Horne brothers? What idiot of a protagonist finds out who the murderer is, only to forget it the next morning? What is a "smiling bag" supposed to mean? Why did Hawk need to wear the oven mitts? How on earth did the fish get in the percolator? In most crime procedurals the murder and its resolution were neatly wrapped into one single episode. Not so in Twin Peaks: we weren't a single step closer to solving the murder when after seven episodes the main investigator was shot down — spawning a second investigation when the first one wasn't even concluded.

Out of all the scenes that left you wondering what the hell you were watching, there’s a scene that might be cast aside as mildly amusing, maybe somewhat annoying, but mostly just pointless: in what might be the what-the-fuckest of moments ever on TV, James, Donna and Maddy happen to be sitting at home, on the floor, singing a song. It's a scene dear to my heart. And of course Twin Peaks would never rush a point across, so instead of a quick flash of amusement, this scene easily spans several minutes.

Little scenes like this and many others unveiled a show that could almost be felt, as if Twin Peaks possessed some sort of radiating glow within that made it feel magical. But it also had a way of shifting the balance so suddenly it could completely take you off guard: seconds after the cute singalong ended in an argument between Donna and James, the killer revealed himself to Maddy, abandoned in the living room, in a hallucination so devastating it left you gasping for breath.

More to come in the next part

The art of David Lynch made a lasting impression on me. In memory of his life, that ended exactly a year ago, I decided to jot down some personal recollections I have of his work — the first being Twin Peaks.

September 1st 1991 was the first time Twin Peaks was broadcast on Dutch television. All 30 episodes of the series had been finished in the United States a couple months earlier; before long, cable TV station RTL4 owned the rights to broadcasting the show in the Netherlands, and could have started any damn time they pleased. While they decided to sit on it until the whole thing was finished, early birds were already tuned into the BBC, and could pace along with just a couple weeks worth of delay. The rest had to wait it out, so as was to be expected, all the initial hype surrounding Twin Peaks blew past the Netherlands mostly unnoticed. 

Not that it made any difference for me personally. Up until halfway 1993, the tiny little village I grew up in didn’t have cable television anyway. The ginormous TV antenna in our yard sure was impressive, but only reaching as far as Belgium and Germany — the BBC was clear out of range — the only things it delivered into our home were easily digestible serial shows, mostly Dutch and British comedies, and German crime procedurals. I didn’t know there was anything more. But much like teaching me there was more to be found in music beyond the confines of traditional radio, music magazine OOR caught up early on the unexpected hype surrounding Twin Peaks in the States. As early as 1990, the magazine covered everything about Twin Peaks before the second season was even finished. Memory is an elusive thing, and although I don’t think Twin Peaks caught my immediate attention at the time, at the very least my brain must have filed away some tiny fragment of information about this mysterious TV show.

When September 1991 came rolling by, and Twin Peaks launched in the Netherlands for real, OOR devoted another two articles to the show, its characters and its creators, trying to drum up a hype of its own. In hindsight it’s quite funny: RTL4 were so late to the party that by the time Twin Peaks launched and some hype was being manufactured, in the United States the show was so dead and buried it was like it never even existed. The ratings waned dramatically as the second season progressed, so much that most of the interest in the series ending or the prequel movie dried up completely.

Late 1993, in what felt like the very last goddamn village in the whole of the nation, sturdy men finally started digging trenches and laying cables, bestowing upon us the divine gift of MTV. I remember my parents being reluctant about getting a subscription, and it might have taken some persuasion from their children to convince them it was better to just give in.

With all interest in the show gone and the misconceived prequel movie a dud, Twin Peaks’ first re-run in the Netherlands was an event of little spectacle. Freshly launched RTL5, aimed at “youth, men, and intellect” and boasting shows like Miami Vice and Beverly Hills 90201, included Twin Peaks in the wee hours of Saturday night by nothing more than legal obligation — they had to do a re-run within two years of its first airing. I don’t remember if seeing the first episode of Twin Peaks was something I planned in advance, clearing my schedule so to speak, or if it might have been sheer luck: a Saturday night on which I just had no plans, leafing through the TV guide, coming across some insignificant little announcement — when suddenly it dawned on me that this time around, this mystifying show was something I myself could experience.

More to come in the next part