Listicles seem to be all the craze this year. I have no idea what a listicle is, but if I had to make a stab at it, I’d say it’s a cross between a list and a popsicle — it looks like a very positive addition to your life, but when it’s done, that’s it, gone and forgotten.
What got me thinking about lists and listicles was our very recent visit to the fictional town of Twin Peaks here in Washington state. In my list(icle) of best television shows, somewhere between 24 and The Beverly Hillbillies is Twin Peaks. You’d really want to be a fan of the director David Lynch, who has a way of skewering norms when he tells a story, to be a fan of Twin Peaks, and I am. Lynch at his surreal best.
Being a fan, it only made sense to add “visit Twin Peaks” way down at the bottom of my bucket list(icle), just ahead of bungee jumping and right behind “visit the Clampett mansion and take a gander at their see-ment pond.” Things that were never going to happen, no matter the desire.
But my move to Washington made the impossible possible. Last Saturday was a travel day in baseball, so no game, and Dennis and I took the scenic, leaf-peeping route through the Washington countryside to Fall City, aka Twin Peaks, but first, lunch at Tweed’s Cafe, aka the Double R Diner, a few miles up the road in North Bend.
We followed in the footsteps of Twin Peaks’ hero, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Dale Cooper, who breathed in the smell of Douglas Firs as he drove into town to answer the question on everyone’s mind, Who killed Laura Palmer? But besides solving murders, he is on an eternal quest for a great cup of coffee, and side quest, a slice of cherry pie. He finds both at the Double R, and a cult is born.
I can attest that Cooper’s rating of the diner’s “damn fine cup of coffee” was that and more. And like Cooper, I had a slice of cherry pie, but unlike him, I did not order an additional two slices to go. There is cultish behavior and then there’s cultish behavior.
Back on the road after lunch, we returned to Fall City. A sign on the side of the road tells us we’re entering Twin Peaks, and the cornucopia of souvenir and tourist trap shops that line the main (only?) street in town tells us all we need to know about Fall City. We don’t remember Coop shopping for bobbles and tchotchkes, so we skipped the shops and stopped only briefly to look at the rusted out engines and train cars that answer the question, Where did Laura Palmer die? before moving on to Salish Lodge, aka The Great Northern Hotel, where Coop stayed while in town. We, as twits, hightailed it up to Room 315 (Coop’s room) for the obligatory photo, before the hotel staff kicked us out for loitering.
The hotel overlooks Snoqualmie Falls, which looked considerably more intense in the crane shot that runs behind the opening credits of each show. I know this, because immediately after I got home, I rented Season One from the library, and while I waited for it to arrive, I watched the first two episodes on Paramount+.
Another thing I noticed is one gets absolutely no sense from the first episode just how weird it’s going to get. And the other thing is how Peyton Place it is. The dead teenager Laura was dating football captain Bobby but on the side was seeing James, the nephew of Ed, who’s married to Nadine but is seeing the Double R’s owner, Norma, on the side. Bobby, unaware that Laura was cheating on him, is cheating on her with the married Shelly, a waitress at Norma’s diner. And James is now in love with Laura’s best friend Donna, who is dating Mike, Bobby’s best friend. And these are just the young ‘uns. Their parents are up to their own tricks.
I’m ready for every trick and twist and turn as the season progresses. It’s been 35 years since Twin Peaks first aired, so you can imagine I’ve forgotten more than I’ve remembered. Between the Blue Jays in the World Series and bingeing on Twin Peaks, my television viewing schedule is full.
Our musical interlude this week comes from Tom Waits …
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