Only The Lonely: Meditations on David Lynch’s Twin Peaks
Erin Bradfield
In this essay, I explore the ideas of loneliness and masks presented by Olivia Laing in Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone and apply them to David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks. From the moment she is discovered by Pete Martel in the premiere, a spectral figure “wrapped in plastic,” Laura Palmer haunts the show as an agonizing present-absence. While many community members wonder who killed her, few stop to ponder who Laura really was and how she became “a woman in trouble.”* Fewer still tried to help her. I argue that Laura is a profoundly lonely figure who is isolated due to the various traumas she endures and the secrets she keeps about them. Laura masks her pain and presents a much-admired image as homecoming queen; Meals On Wheels volunteer; and tutor to a special needs student. But Laura is dual, like everything in Twin Peaks. Along with this shining public persona, she privately struggles to cope with incest, drug addiction, infidelity, and sex work. I argue that Laura’s inability to open up about her harrowing experiences leads to a bifurcation of her personality. Her trauma generates a corresponding loneliness that proves irresolvable throughout Twin Peaks.
* This is the tagline for Inland Empire, but it is a fitting description for many David Lynch projects.
Read Erin’s bio
The Gift of David Lynch’s Dream Logic
Kelly Bulkeley
David Lynch’s works are often said to display a kind of “dream logic.” What does that phrase mean, and why is it so naturally applied to him? This presentation will take a literal approach to the idea of a distinctively Lynchian dream logic by bringing his works into conversation with classic perspectives on dreaming from William Shakespeare and C.G. Jung. This will not be a reductive analysis that turns Lynch’s art into something else. Rather, by exploring his dream logic as a genuine logic of dreaming, we can recognize dimensions of his art as they appear within the unconscious of everyone, which I believe was one of his main aesthetic goals. Lynch wanted us to find these incredible powers of dreaming insight within ourselves, and that is the ultimate and enduring gift of his art.
Read Kelly’s bio
This Synopsis Left Intentionally Blank
J.F. Martel
To prepare for his upcoming Blindfold Match with Phil Ford, J.F. has retreated to a concrete bunker overlooking Cape Chigneto with his topic in hand but his iPhone left behind. We’ve tried reaching him both through a Ouija board and a detuned Realistic Chronomatic 260 clock radio, but haven’t been able to get through. Service out there can be spotty this time of year.
In the meantime, tune into J.F.’s wavelength by reading his bio.
This Is Not a Synopsis. This is not the Synopsis You’re Looking For.
Phil Ford
Phil has been busy embroidering the hood of his satin boxing robe with the logo of his most recent athletic endorsement. He says he’ll write his synopsis soon, but “Chickering & Sons Piano Manufacturers” is one hell of a logo to commit to needle and thread. For a sure thing, come to his Blindfold Match with J. F. Martel and hear his topic first-hand.
Phil’s topic may be a secret, but his bio is available to all. Read it here.
Walking Through the Fire: The Return, Episode 8 as Prophecy
Eric Wargo
Episode 8 of Twin Peaks: The Return has been called one of the best hours of television in the history of the medium. It was also uncharacteristically explanatory for a Lynch work, seemingly clarifying the nature of the “fire” that had been alluded to throughout the decades-spanning series: the nuclear fire of the Trinity test in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. But in this presentation, Eric Wargo argues that Episode 8 was also a filmic premonition of Lynch’s emphysema death that was likely hastened by the LA fires of January 2025. Wargo contextualizes this premonition with readings of other artist-prophets, including Andrei Tarkovsky, whose films Stalker and The Sacrifice contained a premonition of the director’s cancer death, and Michael Rolando Richards, whose uncanny sculptures seemingly prophesied his death on 9/11.
Read Eric’s bio
Clandestine Catalysts Twin Peaks as a Tale Enabled by Absent Female Bodies
Stella Castelli
As Laura Palmer’s deceased body is found naked, flushed ashore and wrapped in transparent plastic within the opening sequence Twin Peaks, the immediate tonality that is evoked is that of the sublime, combining both awe and horror. Inscribed with tragedy, Laura Palmer’s absence becomes a trigger of narratological productivity as the discovery of her corpse marks the cornerstone of the entire series that subsequently unfolds. Fallen to her untimely demise, the sudden non-existence of Laura Palmer becomes the center around which a grief-stricken community begins to revolve and, by extension, around which the narrative begins to develop. It is her death that allows not only for the story to be told but further, for there to be a story to tell. The teller of the tale we find in FBI Agent Dale Cooper, the voice of law enforcement and jurisdiction, who arrives in Twin Peaks to solve the case and in doing so, obtains a form of authorial agency. By means of an absent Laura Palmer, Cooper is enabled to become the metaphorical biographer and author of the narrative, piecing together the case and recounting the tragedy of Twin Peaks.
This notion of productive authorship by means of absent female bodies is further reinforced if we consider that Cooper is recounting the tale of Twin Peaks by means of disembodied ‘Diane’, his assistant for whom he is recording his findings, only ever present in the form of a voice recorder. As a passive outsider listening exclusively to Cooper’s account of what has happened, Diane remains pure canvas for Cooper’s narrative. In a similar manner as the absent Laura Palmer, Diane thus becomes a clandestine catalyst for Coopers agency through her absence rather than her presence. In the original Twin Peaks, then, agency – on a narratological as well as diegetic level – hinges on the absence of female bodies, which both produce the story and serve as a congruous canvas thereof.
Read Stella’s bio
AXX°N N. —>
The Longest Running Great Liberation Through Watching in the Bardo
Nathan Seckinger
David Lynch’s Inland Empire can be understood as a distinctly 21st-century expression of a very ancient literary genre: a style of esoteric, mystical textuality which presents reality as a layered metaphysical domain that can only be navigated by means of indirect or hidden routes. To take this premise seriously is to approach the film not merely as an object of symbolic interpretation, but as a constructed, performative system in which identity, agency, and reality are fundamentally reconfigured through a polysemic method and single elements operate simultaneously across cinematic, spatial, psychological, and cosmological registers. What follows from this is a set of questions the film itself appears to pose. What becomes of agency when identity is dispersed across multiple embodiments, when actors, characters, and even entire movies can no longer be cleanly distinguished, and when perception folds back upon itself? And what are we to make of a world in which the breakdown of perceived continuity is not incoherence, but rather the visible trace of a system that can be entered, followed, and—at least in principle—traversed?
Read Nathan’s bio
“That Gum You Like”: Twin Peaks, Fandom and Transmedia Storytelling
Andreas Halskov
“When you see me again, it won’t be me.” Thus said The Man from Another Place (Michael J. Anderson) in the original Twin Peaks when it aired on ABC in 1990-1991. And he was right, not only because Michael J. Anderson was replaced by an electric tree (!) when Showtime revived Twin Peaks in 2017, but also because the series, itself, came back in a new and different iteration. If the original Twin Peaks was an example of snowball transmedia—an unexpected hit that gradually expanded across various media and productions—then Showtime’s continuation could be described as a more strategic type of transmedia franchise. The original series was a surprising success and spawned a host of tie-in books, prequels and paratexts, but already when launching their continuation, it was evident that Showtime were strategic and deft in the way they involved various media and engaged the fans who had taken an active part in trying to prolong and resurrect the series. In that sense, the new Twin Peaks was not just a ‘return’ but also a transformation, and Showtime tapped into popular tendencies of nostalgia, fangagement and transmedia storytelling.
In my talk, I will explore Twin Peaks as a fascinating example of transmedia storytelling—and how the world of Twin Peaks engages a growing and active fanbase.
Read Andreas’ bio
“That Gum You Like”: Twin Peaks, Fandom and Transmedia Storytelling
Andreas Halskov
“When you see me again, it won’t be me.” Thus said The Man from Another Place (Michael J. Anderson) in the original Twin Peaks when it aired on ABC in 1990-1991. And he was right, not only because Michael J. Anderson was replaced by an electric tree (!) when Showtime revived Twin Peaks in 2017, but also because the series, itself, came back in a new and different iteration. If the original Twin Peaks was an example of snowball transmedia—an unexpected hit that gradually expanded across various media and productions—then Showtime’s continuation could be described as a more strategic type of transmedia franchise. The original series was a surprising success and spawned a host of tie-in books, prequels and paratexts, but already when launching their continuation, it was evident that Showtime were strategic and deft in the way they involved various media and engaged the fans who had taken an active part in trying to prolong and resurrect the series. In that sense, the new Twin Peaks was not just a ‘return’ but also a transformation, and Showtime tapped into popular tendencies of nostalgia, fangagement and transmedia storytelling.
In my talk, I will explore Twin Peaks as a fascinating example of transmedia storytelling—and how the world of Twin Peaks engages a growing and active fanbase.
Read Andreas’ bio