Favorite Twin Peaks Podcasts

I had originally hoped to put up about 1 post per week.  It looks like maybe 1 per month might be more accurate for the time being.

I work in a cubicle (and if that sounds like a bad thing, you have never worked retail).  The main advantage (other than no contact with customers) is that I have almost unlimited time to listen to podcasts.  And I love podcasts. (You might say that I am a recovering talk-radio listener.)  I have around 50 podcasts in my feed.  Two of which are Twin Peaks podcasts.

SPARKWOOD and 21

This is the first Twin Peaks podcast that resonated with me.  I think I discovered it about halfway through their run of covering the episodes.  It didn't take me long to catch up and since that point my day is always made when a new Sparkwood and 21 shows up in my feed.

Since they have now covered most Twin Peaks related topics (episodes, Fire Walk With Me, Laura's diary etc.) the frequency of new episodes has dropped off for the time being.  That's completely understandable as they have covered just about everything to date.  Recently they covered the great Lynch film Lost Highway.  (I'm hoping for some Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet coverage soon.  Hint. Hint.)

Sparkwood is not their only podcast and it shows.  Em and Steve clearly know what they are doing.  The pacing is perfect and they have a subtle sense of humor that has had me laughing out loud more than once.  Many novice podcasters quickly go to constant laughter - something that annoys me to no end.  That is not a concern here.

Finally they always manage to pick up on things that I have missed during my countless viewings of the series.  I've been a fan and thinking about the show since the day the pilot first aired, yet they are always able to give me more to consider.  Listener correspondence is a big part of their show.  They have several really smart fans that contribute amazing letters full of more great and original thoughts.

The rumor is that they also cover Penny Dreadful and Vikings.  I will at some point watch those shows mainly so I can listen to their podcasts.

Not to be missed

DIANE

This newer podcast comes from the UK.  I just discovered this one a couple of weeks ago and I'm nearly caught up.  Like Sparkwood and 21 this is a well-paced podcast with a good deal of sophisticated humor.  The three hosts have an uncanny ability to pick up on the underlying theme of each episode.  From there they pull out different layers of meaning and nuance from the scenes discussed.  Again, they are constantly making points that have eluded me during my 25 years with the show.

A good example of this is Nadine's drapes.  I have always just considered this to be a funny idea dreamed up by Lynch and Frost to convey Nadine's unsettled state of mind.  It has never occured to me (and I'm not sure anyone else) that this could be a reference to the drapes in the Black Lodge.  And it's her attempt to silence that knawing sense of dread that comes with a visit to the Lodge.  (Even if she doesn't remember it as such.)  The lodges seem to be tied to the physical place of Twin Peaks in some wierd way so it would stand to reason that several of the shows characters have been there at one time or another.

That's just one example; there are many others.  I can't wait to listen to their Fire Walk With Me podcast(s).  It's always nice to learn more about that movie!


I am embarrased to admit that I have yet to leave an iTunes review of either of these podcasts.  That would be far more helpful to them than this blog post which may never be read by anyone other than me.  (I'm nothing if not realistic.)  I am beyond excited to listen to their coverage of the new episodes.  (New episodes!  Still can't believe it's happening.)

Remembering the Pilot

The Friday before the pilot was the first time I had heard anything about Twin Peaks.  I was a freshman in college and that consumed most of my attention.  Most of my time was spent studying...I was not popular.  So that Friday afternoon I found myself heading home for the weekend, as I was doing every weekend by that point.  A friend from high school lived in the city (Indianapolis) and I decided to stop by his apartment for a quick visit.

I did not know that that visit would in many ways change my life.

He had MTV on and they had a brief segment about a new show premiering that Sunday night.  They showed the clip where Agent Cooper extracted the "R" from under Laura Palmer's fingernail.  

"What is this?" I asked.

"A new show on ABC.  It's supposed to be unlike anything ever aired on TV".

Of course many shows had made this claim before, but it always turned out to be more of the same.  So I did not have high hopes.  But I decided to watch anyway.

A little background...

I was 19 years old and had never heard of David Lynch.  I considered myself bookish and looked down my nose at television. (Maybe it was not unreasonable to condescend to television in 1990; I'm not sure.) In short, I did not expect to like it.

But then that opening credit sequence.  And the music. Wow, I was hooked immediately.  I won't waste your time with a scene by scene account, but I will mention one scene that really stuck out to me: Sarah Palmer discovers Laura is not home and then soon learns that she is dead.  I remember how clever it seemed to me that the audience was shown what happened to Laura and then we see the reaction of the parents and other characters.  So the structure of the show itself impressed me.

But back to the scene.

I remember being creeped out by the now iconic shot of the ceiling fan.  Of course I didn't know why I was creeped out.  The shot didn't even really make sense to me, but it made an impression.  And then of course Sarah's endless screams as the camera pans down the phone cord to the soaring music.

The next day...

Scott Ryan of the Red Room Podcast tells the story of going to school the next day at a college in Ohio (I think).  He describes how everyone was talking about the show and how subsequent episodes became big viewing events.  His experience is how I expected mine to be.

It wasn't.

I remember thinking this was my big chance to fit in.  Everybody would be discussing this amazing show and I had watched it too!  I would be in on the conversation.  I went to school that Monday with great excitement and...

...NOBODY was talking about it.  Nobody.  (Of course I wasn't privy to every conversation, but you get the idea.)  I couldn't believe it.  And when I say nobody that's exactly what I mean.  I could not find anybody who had seen it.  So much for fitting in.

Twin Peaks briefly became a national sensation, but that was not my experience at all.  While I eventually got a couple of friends into the show, I for the most part always felt like it was just me watching.  I'm sure a lot of fans felt that way mid-season two, but that was my season one experience!!