A visit to where pies go when they die
Hiya, long time no blog post. I don't have any interesting preamble about what's kept me from blogging; haven't felt like I had anything interesting to say, especially amidst watching my family's homeland get colonized in real time. Before I get to anything else I ask that you please donate to either on-the-ground mutual aid efforts in Lebanon or to the Lebanese Red Cross.
Anyway. This has been the year of the backlog for me, with me setting myself a list of movies, shows, books, and games to finally get through. It's a lot of stuff that I've been treating like fine china; stuff that I was saving for a special occasion, namely a time where I would be in the correct headspace to properly engage with the themes of a piece of art I knew would change me in some way. But waiting to be less depressed/more open to be inspiration didn't do me any favors. It led to me watching an ungodly amount of Survivor in 2024, which, while fun, didn't really contribute anything to my artistic efforts. It's hard to produce anything of quality if all you eat is cotton candy. So it's the year of eating my vegetables.
One such family of vegetables is David Lynch's body of work. I've lived in Washington state for almost 4 years now, and will be returning to the East Coast this summer. Despite literally having visited Snoqualmie falls with my mom a few years ago, I have never watched any David Lynch works. Ever. One of my friends from college, upon hearing this, said verbatim "YOU SURVIVED NOT ONLY ART SCHOOL BUT 3 YEARS IN THE PNW AND NO TWIN PEAKS IS CRAZY" (caps lock courtesy of the text he sent, not a personal stylistic choice). Using my move date this summer as my deadline, I resolved to finally watch Twin Peaks.
So, me being me, the first thing I did was read Catching the Big Fish, his hybrid autobiography, notes on meditation, and insight into the creative process. Maybe a backwards place to start, but I was more interested in attempting to glean some insight on how to generate ideas for writing. While it very nearly sold me on attending an educational session on transcendental meditation, I think it informed me more about David Lynch's own philosophies on writing and dreams more than anything. I found that to be pretty helpful for encouraging me to approach Twin Peaks with a certain kind of flexibility I've lacked in the past. Being more open to vagueness and uncertainty in storytelling is a personal goal of mine; that being said, however, I actually found Twin Peaks pretty direct in its theming and its messaging. Surreal, sure, but it holds its own internal logic that, if you're willing to play ball, isn't very hard to pick up on.
Knowing how much David Lynch himself valued the power of dreams and the subconscious mind made it easier for me to go along with Dale Cooper's own quirks, and understand how much of that dream philosophy was the driving ethos of the series. Being open to the kind of liminality I was told to expect from Lynch's work helped my Twin Peaks experience for the better, I think. I don't feel inclined to assert what I think the show was about or presume I know what Lynch's intentions were; I think it's a work that benefits from quiet digestion over time. I really loved the show, and Fire Walk With Me made me want to start chain-smoking (positively).
That said, I was still taken very off guard by instances of a character faking her death and reappearing both in drag and yellow-face, and by a random town vixen character at the tail end of season 2 who seemed to occupy no real role other than a walking pair of boobs for all the men in Twin Peaks to ogle over. She even participated in the town beauty contest in a wildly Orientalist "exotic dancer" outfit, which gave me no small amount of psychic damage. It's jarring for a few reasons. I got whiplash from how the show is simultaneously very good at presenting the kind of horror inherent to being a woman— a girl— a daughter— in the nuclear family structure while also throwing misogynistic or racist curveballs when you least expect 'em.
Anyway, the other deadline I set for myself was the visit of a friend from college. She's a huge Twin Peaks fan and I told her to come visit me so we could go to North Bend together before I moved. So she flew out at the end of April, and on to North Bend we went.
Visiting North Bend
We started with a visit to the location where the sign from the title sequence was filmed. It was marked on the map but unfortunately the sign hasn't been there for a long time, so it was mostly symbolic more than anything. A beautiful drive, though.
After that, we went to Twede's Diner. Claire ordered cherry pie and a coffee (of course) from which I stole a few bites, and I got a breakfast plate with eggs and hashbrowns. The diner interior was largely identical to how it had been restored for the reboot, plus a few additional instances of merchandise being sold and collectibles displayed. There was a binder absolutely stuffed with letters, drawings, and photographs people left in tribute to David Lynch after he died. Lots of notes written on the back of diner receipts, and many letters thanking him for all of the art he made that influenced them.
We stopped at Snoqualmie Falls last. As we were waiting for a car ahead of us to park in the lot, an older man got out of the car to help his wife park and make sure she didn't hit the neighboring cars. He made eye contact with us and started dancing, which made us laugh. After we parked nearby, he asked us to wait while he pulled something from his bag of tricks (his hoodie pocket). He ended up handing us two extremely small neon pink rubber ducks that had printed on them in white text "Jesus Loves You," which generally soured the interaction for us.
Aside from that, the falls were beautiful. The water fell with such force that it became powdery mist by the time it made impact with the river. A lot of mist remained in the air even after falling, almost looking like white smoke rising from the point of impact. It was a beautiful day to visit the falls.
Afterwards (+ cat tax)
The week after I finished Twin Peaks, I watched Mulholland Drive, which might be an all timer for me. I really, really enjoyed it. While Claire was in town, we watched two movies together as well— Saving Face (2004) and Under The Skin (2013). Both were very fun watches for very different reasons.
Claire was only here for a weekend, but it was really nice to see her and show her around the area that's been my home for the last few years. The Seattle area is gorgeous in the spring, with the kind of weather and natural beauty that makes it very hard to leave. But I know I'll be back someday.