Hiking Twin Peaks: An Experimental!? Guide Introduction
Inspiration and Creation
February 4th, 2017, I finished watching episode 22, “Beyond Life and Death,” of the second season. On February 5th, I looked at the previous day’s page of the permanent calendar that I had just been gifted, and that moment struck most fortuitously. Such luck sent surging ecstasy: February 4th’s quotation was from David Lynch: “We are all light bulbs. If bliss starts growing inside you, it’s like a light; it affects the environment.” A synchronicity of highest proportions burst— joy flooded my mind and face as this “meaningful coincidence” of Jung uplifted my entire body. What a great combination of forces and energies at work! What energies are at work in Twin Peaks?
Indulge in Twin Peaks, hahahaha. If you dare, will and can…
That’s what I did, and here we are hiking. I watched Twin Peaks once through in just over 8 days during Autumn of 2014. It was my first binge watching experience!?: falling into another world so deeply, romantically and intensely that Twin Peaks as an Energized Screen [ES] burns your Reality Screen [RS] until Its Afterimage Darkens [AD] into a Potent Paradigm Forever Filtering [PPFF].
Program [(ES*RS) = ADΔPPFF = PPFF+RS]. [To easily remember any code, always have the introduction open and then return here or try a “Find” or “Search” function.]
Prior to surfing the series in 2014, I had, methinks, watched some of Fire Walk with Me or the pilot episode in college as well as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Dune. My film-following, cultural explorations!? and meme stream had pointed me to this viewing [Following the references seems a game to play!?]. Plentiful parallels prompted me to leap to a significantly connected series; I watched and wrote about all 202 original episodes of The X-Files and its 2 movies from which evolved this style, this foolish form [Twin Peaks’ trickster whistles.]. TheX-Files [Seminal television countercultural experience!? of youth.] and my writing about them dominantly inhabit this work.
For a long time now, since I’ve had the privilege of getting older, I have been a lover of nonfiction books, documentaries and podcasts, but in Twin Peaks I found fictional television that launched me on an equally powerful quest to understand and honor this fascinating world and its weird and wonderful people, places, powers, beliefs, myths, legends, folktales, monsters, ghosts, aliens…[List of lore continues ad infinitum.]. The allegorical and archetypal elements of some television shows these odd days seem to have energies that meaningfully charge imaginations in 21st century minds gifted the powers to watch a season in a day.
How to Read Hiking Twin Peaks while Watching Twin Peaks
If you have already watched Twin Peaks in its entirety, I would recommend reading the pilot episode immediately, visualizing each image, and counting how many times a flashed tableau or scene lights your Reality Screen [RS] on the inside of your eye lids, illuminated across by the Creative Abyss [CA] that projects these photographically-manifesting memories. You can also count each new view on the show. Each new insight. Each tidbit from the word hoard [Alternative Subtitle: A Peripatetic Treasure Hunt [Momentary [Meta] Musings]]. You choose your adventure here [The Quest chooses You.], for any show can be read after rewatching or read before rewatching an episode. At any time you can read an episode to remember that moment or catch that line that burned as the Afterimage Darkens [AD], the more It can be easily relit again. Either Way, Twin Peaks will entrance you again, cast Its spell again [“Hear the softly spoken magic spell” -Pink Floyd chanted over “Time”].
If you have never seen the show before, you are lucky. Many viewers will ever see cinema more scintillatingly, and while I love rewatching the shows, I also oddly fondly remember its initial impact cryptically as a strange beauty with dark edge and mystical might. To enter into Twin Peaks and then successfully view Normal Television [NT] and effectively wield your Reality Screen [RS] again [NT<RS], you must first In[e]ternalize the Epiphanies [IE] and Sublimate the Initiations [SI] from your Encounter with the Dual Mountains [EDM]. Program [EDM/(RS+(IE*SI)) = PPFF].
Simply, decide how you want to experience!? the series, or that episode. Do you want to read an episode and then have a pair of glasses to idiosyncratically admire Twin Peaks? Would you rather watch with your own mind and then put on a pair of glasses to see what you remember and think, or what one remembered and thought? I recommend the latter, for seeing your own view helps seeing Your Self [YS].
Grammar and Structure of the Hike
Let me clarify [Don’t you wish you had an explanation!? sometimes!?] how I worked and how this works.
I wrote HikingTwin Peaks as I watched the series the second time in 2016 and 17. Occasional pauses and rewinds enabled review during that viewing, so the writing you are about to read that is not in [Brackets] was written while I watched or relatively briefly paused each episode. My goal was to write continuously as much as possible unless I had to more accurately know a perspicacious word, uncanny line, or whether what flashed across the screen might have been an owl or an otter.
This original text is edited for spelling, grammar and punctuation. I also abbreviated names like LP for Laura Palmer and DC for Dale Cooper. Sometimes these names have been remixed for style. Since I watched Twin Peaks on Netflix, I knew titles and summaries of each episode before I watched and wrote, so that knowledge must be considered as a filter through which I analyzed with all that “I” have and “I” have not synthesized added to all that my brain has trained and what has trained my brain [PPFF]. After each episode’s title, I included my own complementary programming in [Brackets] to balance the programming of the title thought with this experience!?
For the [Bracketed Commentary] that is separated with [Brackets], it means that I wrote it after the initial viewing and may have rewatched portions of episodes of the show to do so. The [Bracketed Commentary] contains reflections, analysis, references, clarifications, riddles and [Brackets] to analyze Twin Peaks and meta-self-referentially analyze the [Bracketed Commentary]. To slip into certain places of the mind’s faces, I use [Brackets] for thoughts within thoughts and thoughts about thoughts [Expanded!? without Limit [EL]]. In this Way, revision is sharply separated from the magick of momentary experience!? documented with a frenzy of pace necessary to grasp while watching all that you can of Twin Peaks’ Weird and Wizardly Ways [WWW].
Why the [Bracket] and not the (parentheses)? I claim the [Bracket] for its self-aware and meta-invoking qualities like the (parentheses), but I also appreciate how the [Bracket] breaks the brain a bit more than the curvaceous nature of many letters. Hit a wall and rise to a higher level to get over the [Bracket], whereas you can slide around a (parentheses) more easily on its rounded side and conventional use. Here parentheses enable me to play with words as they play with my mind, for the letter(s) replace the letter(s) or morph the base word form into its dual mountain [Its Gemini, Doppelganger, Shadow, Cain, Twin Peak]. I’ll also take the [Bracket]’s programming applications, for the mind as computer can be reprogrammed [Upload the programming to understand the program [UPUP [PPFF]].].
I morphed ellipses… to periods when complete thoughts were indicated in the dialogue. Otherwise the ellipses…indicate the pauses in thinking as I wrote. Envision the ellipses…as the steps of your journey through Hiking Twin Peaks, which is my journey hiking Twin Peaks, so each ellipses…is a step, and between steps we see, and what we see forms a movie of the dialogue of the mind, and this mindtale is what was filtered and what is filtering [PPFF] here.
My technique for punctuating the dialogue due to uncertainty amplifies universal application. Pronouncements become principles. What struck was what was meaningful. I grasped what I could on the hike. Because I cannot from memory accurately know which character said which word, I punctuate snippets of dialogue as simply separate. When I noted speakers originally, I document who said what or put that information in [Brackets] after I find it. Ultimately the words have meaning on their own, and in the spirit of catching what you can as you hike, this is what I am giving. Treasure hunt words and who said them. I wrote them, so they are “write.” If it’s quotable, it’s quotable!?
For the paragraphs after the initial trailer, there are breaks between scenes, or if the scenes need to be broken up, my dividing strategy focused on balance and coherence. Many first paragraphs of every episode contemplate iterations of the indelibly surreal title sequence. I created paragraphs where scenes ended and typically noted endings as a “fade to black” of some form, punctuated in such a Way as to drop you off into It.
Twin Peaks strikes one immediately as abnormal, and that is one of the reasons it seems wonderful. Any of my comments describing an element of the show as “odd,” “weird,” “strange,” or any other “disturbing” word should be interpreted as a positive descriptor. You don’t climb all of Twin Peaks if you are not willing to Enter the Eldritch!? [EE!?]
Philosophy as Angle(el)s of Analysis and Wisdom
HikingTwin Peaks primarily contains spontaneous analysis concerning some of the following areas of interest: themes [Psychological, Spiritual, Philosophical, Ecological, Elemental, Pop Cultural, Paranormal, Counter-cultural, and Native American], motifs, colors [Red and blue, primarily], references, places, music, idioms, symbolism, characterization, plot devices, figurative language, comedy [Physical, witty, and dark], body language, gestures, quotable spokables, episodic manifestations of their titles and filming techniques [Camera shots, panning in, blurriness of front imagery, background distractions, point of view shots noted as “POV,” fades and effects]. Here a theme indicates points, meanings, and lessons, which includes the effects of motifs. Motifs indicate colors, references, imagery, style, symbolism and cinematography.
Here will themes and their programmable symbolic abbreviations [PSA] be defined and updated regularly. If reading this introduction for the very first time, you may want to skip these until the strange ease of a lyrical breeze and meaning tease will swing you here by Twin Peaks’ Trapeze. I created and named these motifs and themes while watching the show and during the revision process; some arrived with insight, foresight and hindsight [PPFF]. They are paths that the show led me on. They are not the only paths, but they are the ones I now track. The style of [bracketing] and abbrv. the motifs and themes arose while crafting this Introduction.
Motifs [M]
Birds = Included with Animals.
(Windy) Trees [Douglas Firs and Pines [Evergreens]] = [WTM]
Chessboard = [CBM]
Flowers = [FLM]
(Power) Tools and Hands = [PTHM]
Idiom = [IM]
Animal = [AM]
Dramatic Irony = [DI]
Native American = [NAM]
Spiral = [SM]
Reflection shot = [RM]
Food = [FM]
Zoom Shot= [ZM]
Fire = [FRM]
Picture is Portal Shot = [PPM]
Shakespeare = [SHM]
Themes [T]
Hiking Quest as Separation, Initiation(s), and Return of Joseph Campbell= [HQT]
Dual Mountain for duality, Jungian shadow side, harmony of opposites as Tao = [DMT]
Game [Rules, Gains, Gambles, Strategies [RGGS].] = [GT]
Fire = [FRT]
Learning = [LT]
Art = [AT]
Metanarrative = [MNT]
*Principles = [Principle]
*Weird Real(m) Quest(ion)s
Why is it important to know what I wrote at that time compared to what I wrote in reflection? The moment has magick. What is done in the moment rings as a Nepalese singing bowl with the “eternal now” of Watts, or the “present power” of Eckhardt Tolle, or another equally “true” perspective pointing to Bruce Lee’s Moon of the “Absolute.” The realities of memory reflection and future projection do not carry the authenticity of the moment. Yes, they are useful. Yes, they can be informative and true. However, this style of writing, edited only slightly without content alteration, offers the spontaneous craft of consciousness entering through the Potent Paradigm Forever Filtering [PPFF] as it associates, connects, follows patterns, creates patterns, formulates hypotheses, answers questions, proves hypotheses, experiments!? with phrasing…punctuation…
Write and run with how your mind flows through typing while the show went where it went and you transcribed the energies that hit you most strongly, or interestingly, or however you consider the possibilities and reasons for your attention focusing on one aspect compared to every other [Certainly not comprehensive. Experience!? over Exactitude!?]. How many of these objects are intentional symbols compared to intentional style [PPFF]?
As an artist, I prefer freestyle writing, singing, and drawing. In this way, I wrote this work as and after I climbed Twin Peaks and as I would any trail. To take pictures to enrapture with notables I spotted, I listened, sighted, and sensed as I watched and I wrote what I could. I let my mind freely associate with the scenes, the sounds, the symbols, the senses, all that I could feel and think, think and feel. We can wonder as we wander the writing of Hiking Twin Peaks seeking the sights of Twin Peaks.
[Play the games to play the Games you want to Play [Revelation of Work as a Game.]].
I write not to negatively criticize, but to positively observe and analyze. If I wanted to compare Twin Peaks to other critically acclaimed shows, I would have had to research them instead of focusing on the show itself and my findings. I wanted to capture a direct experience!? of the show with clearly indicated commentary complementing the original findings. I didn’t want to explicate!? for too long and disrupt the creative flow of the work—disturb the waters of rhythm too much, the dream state [Not the nightmare state.]. I am not inclined to rate this show or give it so many stars, for I know I love it, however strange it is and that is. You love it, and let’s love Twin Peaks together. Meaning has been made and we are riding the wave.
By not reading what others have written, I focused on my own views, however much one can claim ownership of their views [PPFF]. Culture bursts into your social media feed, so I was fed many articles and references, especially with the Third Season coming back after 25 years, but I avoided them. Have others written about Twin Peaks before? Surely thousands and I haven’t read them. Perhaps I will in the fullness of time, but for now I read a narrow path so that the thoughts here appear as an original interaction of My Realities [MR] reacting from consciousness and the universe having a daily dance of duality and unity [CUDDDU]. I took these gathered, synergized perspectives excluding!? existing!? criticism and wrote about Twin Peaks [Twin Peaks Speaks [To Me [To You]]][Original Phrasing? Punctuation?]
Why Hiking? I love hiking, and while hiking I like pointing what I see out to those I hike with, including one specific inner monologue, My Gratitude Log [MGL]. I like making points and observations and seeing which ones stick. As I journey through the Dual Mountains, I watch and I learn. I see, I see what I see, again [Metaloop.] So, just as I would describe the awesomeness of a tree’s structure, I wrote what I love and find interesting [Where is the interesting meter? Can we now wear a cap and see/hear what snaps?] about Twin Peaks. So many treasures to reach if you explore!? and analyze the entirety of the screen and the totality of Its dream. Maybe Twin Peaks shows you a door beyond a checkerboard floor that readily connects one to the collective unconscious.
There is a part of me, the same part of me that rarely reads fiction, that laughs at the time and energy I put into writing about Twin Peaks. Then I challenge my own Devil’s Absurdity Advocate and say to myself, winning the argument: “Self, there’s more to this writing than Twin Peaks, which is more than worthy of volumes. Style is form, and form may be emptiness and emptiness may be form, but a shift in form is style, which shifts perspective, expands!? possibilities, creates new realities, may disturb one infinitely” [No Nightmares from Twin Peaks please!?].
This is a work of starting thoughts and not necessarily ending them. The pattern(’)s seen/scene and the meanings drawn may be disproven by AIs scanning the text with algorithms to calculate truth. What they cannot necessarily create is what I thought and wrought on that spot through my reality tunnel [“Reality is a verb.” -Robert Anton Wilson [RAW]]. I let my mind stream. Of course, another stream rushed from that stream, but as Heraclitus would have pointed out about the opening of the show, “You can never step into the same river twice.” You can never hike the same mountain twice, especially Twin Peaks [Every time you remember a memory, you make a new memory [PPFF].]
I do not want to academically dig into the show to the detail of a doctoral thesis. When can we truly say we have understood Twin Peaks? Its mystery causes magick. I climbed Twin Peaks twice. Both times, I went on a quest—this time I endured separation, conquered initiations and I returned with this boon. I will return to Twin Peaks, but I will also take it with me while I explore!? other wonders. The world of Twin Peaks can positively transform you and may the Third Season do the same [Grow Bliss Inside Creative Abyss.]. Program [GBICA!?]. Thanks to Twin Peaks, Hiking Twin Peaks: An Experimental!? Guide should lead you to a mystic warrior’s glorious mountaintop view.
