Twin Peaks Usenet Archive
Subject: TP: Freqently Answered Questions
From: swsh@ellis.uchicago.edu (Janet M. Swisher)
Date: 1990-12-28, 12:58
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks,rec.arts.tv
There's no information in this post that hasn't been in previous ones.
In fact, I deleted a few questions that no longer seem like such
burning issues (time will tell if that was a mistake). However, since
someone's brought up "How big is Twin Peaks?" again, it seemed time
for a re-post.
-----------------
TWIN PEAKS
FREQUENTLY ANSWERED QUESTIONS
Last revision: 12/28/90
(Many of these concern what various people said. Many thanks to Bart
J. Geraci, the man with the closed caption decoder.)
WARNING: This article may contain references to any episode up to and
including the most recent one shown in the U.S.
1. What's this "secret diary" that everybody keeps referring to?
-- _The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer_ was written by Jennifer Lynch
(David's daughter), and is published in the U.S by Pocket
Books, and in the U.K. Penguin Books. It's supposed to be the
text of the diary that was discovered in the second season of
the show.
2. a) What language was the little boy with the creamed corn speaking?
-- French
b) What did he say?
-- J'ai une ame solitaire: I have a solitary soul. (This is according
to the closed captions, so we don't want to know what your
friend who had three years of French thought it was.)
c) Didn't he look an awful lot like David Lynch?
-- Yes, that's because he's Austin Jack Lynch, David Lynch's son.
(For handy reference, look at Gordon Cole (Cooper's boss): he's played
by David Lynch.)
3. What was that ditty Leland was singing, and what does it mean?
-- The full lyrics of the song are:
Mairzy doats and dozy doats
and little lambzy divy.
A kiddly divy, too, wooden shoe?
Now if the words sounds queer,
and funny to your ear,
a little bit jumbled and jivy,
Sing:
Mares eat oats and does eats oats
and little lambs eat ivy.
A kid'll eat ivy, too, wouldn't you?
If necessary, go look up "mare," "doe" and "kid" in the dictionary.
4. Wasn't the Giant also on Star Trek: The Next Generation?
-- Yes, he is Carel Struycken, who played Mr. Homm. No, he did not
play Lurch on the Adams Family (although it has been reported
that he will play Lurch in an upcoming AF movie).
5. Who was standing outside the window while Josie was seducing Harry?
-- The majority of posters believe it was the Mysterious Asian
Gentleman, also known as "Jonathan", Josie's "cousin" from
Hong Kong. Those who have suggested other people are pushing it.
6. What were the three predictions that the giant made to Cooper?
-- a man in a smiling bag
the owls are not what they seem
without chemicals, he points
The giant also said something about "Leo locked in a hungry horse,"
and that there was a clue at Leo's house. However, these were
not the "predictions" which will be fulfilled before Cooper
gets his ring back. The former refers to the fact that Leo
was in jail in Hungry Horse, Montana when Theresa Banks was
killed, and the latter refers to the Circle Brand boots that
were found with the cocaine at Leo's house.
7. Has anybody mentioned the possible connection between:
* BOB and J. R. "Bob" Dobbs of the Church of the Subgenius?
* All the donuts they eat on Twin Peaks, and JFK's "Ich bin ein
Berliner" speech? What he literally said was "I am a jelly
donut."
* Agent Dale Cooper and D.B. Cooper, the guy who hijacked a plane
and then parachuted over Washington State with a whole bunch
of money and was never found?
* Ben and Jerry Horne and Ben and Jerry's brand ice cream (in one
scene the brothers Horne are even shown eating ice cream)?
* Sarah's vision of a white horse and Mr. Ed?
* " " " " " " " Laura' pony, Troy?
* " " " " " " " Death, which "rides a pale
horse"?
* " " " " " " " heroin, also known as "white
horse" (maybe Leland/BOB shot
her up with heroin)?
-- Yes for all of the above.
8. What was the poem that "Mike" recited in Cooper's dream, and later
at the police station?
-- "Through the darkness of future past
the magician longs to see
one chants out between two worlds
'Fire walk with me.'"
(There has been much debate over whether the second-to-last line is
"one chants out" or "one chance out". The closed captions
indicate "chants".)
9. How were the funny voices in the dream sequence done?
-- Before shooting the scene, the actors were recorded reading their
lines. The recording was then played to them backwards, and
they memorized how to imitate it. Each shot in the scene was
acted in reverse order, with the actors saying their
"backwards" lines. The film was then reversed so that the
actions came out in the right order, and the words came out
double-reversed. Unfortunately, the words weren't very
intelligible, so subtitles were added.
10. What year is the show set in?
-- References in the first season placed it in 1989. However, _The
Secret Diary of Laura Palmer_ places the action in 1990.
Sources on the production team (i.e., Scott Frost) indicate
that it's been sort of miraculously moved up to 1990.
Apparently, the producers and directors have trouble keeping
track of what day it's supposed to be in Twin Peaks, never
mind what year.
11. Maddy notices a burning smell just before she's attacked by
Leland/BOB. Didn't Jacoby say he smelled burned oil in the
hospital when Jacques was killed? Does this mean that Leland
was BOB when he killed Jacques?
-- No. Later, under hypnosis, Jacoby corrected himself and said that
he smelled the burned smell just before he was attacked at the
gazebo, but not at the hospital. However, this does leave
open the possibility that Jacoby was attacked by BOB.
12. a) Where is Twin Peaks supposed to be?
-- It's in the State of Washington, but where exactly is not clear.
In Cooper's initial monolog to Diane as he's driving into
town, he states that it's five miles south of the Canadian
border and twelve miles west of the state line. That would
seem to place it in the northeast corner of the state.
However the surrounding geography is like that of the Cascade
Mountains in western WA. References to cities such as Seattle
and Tacoma, but not Spokane, also seem to place it in western
WA. The show's creators seem to have smooshed the state so
that it all fits west of the Cascades.
Many of the outdoor shots were filmed in Squanalomie, WA,
which is in the Cascades, not too far from Seattle. The
waterfall is there; the Great Northern Hotel is really the
Salish Lodge; and the RR Diner is really the Mar-T Diner,
which really does have heavenly cherry pies.
b) How big a town is Twin Peaks?
-- Again, that's not exactly clear. The population sign that's shown
at station breaks and on the Twin Peaks sound track indicates
51,201. However cues in the show seem to indicate that it's
much much smaller than that. For instance, it doesn't have a
resident circuit court judge, which any town of 51K+ in the
U.S. would; it has a sheriff's department but no police
department. On the other hand, it does have its own hospital,
a fancy department store, and a large hotel. It seems the
creators haven't worried too much about being consistent on
this point.
13. Has anybody noticed that Julee Cruise's "Floating Into The Night"
album gives special thanks to, among other people, Bob (no
last name)?
-- Yes.
14. Is the first season two-hour pilot considered the first episode,
or is the first one-hour show the first episode? Do the
episodes have names? What the best way of referring to
episodes?
-- The episodes are not named. Whether it's the best way or not,
Lynch/Frost number the episodes with four-digit numbers, where
the first digit is the season number, and the others are the
order within that season. This system was apparently adopted
after the pilot was produced, so the pilot is 1000, the first
one-hour episode is 1001, and so on. However for the second
season, the two-hour season premiere is 2001.
15. Can a person's hair really turn white "over night" like Leland's
did between the first and second seasons?
--Generally, only folklore supports this ("it happened to a friend of
a friend of mine"). Since hair above the scalp is dead
matter, it can't change color without dyes or bleaches. It's
possible that a person with mixed gray and dark hair could
lose all their older, darker hair over a short period of time
(a few days or weeks) due to a physical or psychological
trauma, which would leave them with just gray hair. Or a
dark-haired person might lose all their dark hairs and grow in
gray ones over a similar span of time, but "over night" seems
physically implausible.
--
Janet Swisher Internet: swsh@midway.uchicago.edu
University of Chicago Phone: (312) 702-7608
Academic and Public Computing P-mail: 1155 E. 60th St. Chicago IL 60637, USA
"This whole world's wild at heart and weird on top." -- Lula
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