#SaveTwinPeaks

I feel your frustration.

On October 3rd, David Lynch and Mark Frost sent simultaneous tweets about chewing gum, "#damngoodcoffee." Despite years of speculation, denial, and hope that Twin Peaks would return to television, true fans of the show knew exactly what this meant. The "Twin Tweets" were a not-so-subtle nod from the co-creators that this was, in fact, real. 

The show was deeply rooted in the dualities of human (and not quite human) nature, and its two year run was riddled with parallels right down to its title. But to those who've obsessed over the show since it left the airwaves in 1991, and the silver screen a year later, the pair's messages weren't necessary. After all, in 1990, Laura Palmer told us we'd see her again, and she told us exactly when: now.

On October 6th, Showtime announced it would be picking up nine episodes for a third season. Not picking up where it left off, not rebooting the series with new actors, but with its original cast in tact exactly twenty-five years later, just like Laura (or perhaps her doppleganger) promised.

You don't even need to be an ardent fan of David Lynch to understand how Lynchian the entire situation is. It's not hard to imagine David Lynch, and Frost as well, biding their time throughout the past two and a half decades, dropping hints and toying with their fans, as if this was their exact plan all along. 

Constantly delving into new, unique, and bizarre medium, Lynch's twenty-five year hiatus has fostered the allure of an already-obsessed audience, transforming Twin Peaks' cult following into a collective real-world exposition. We are Twin Peaks.

But things fell apart this month, or so it would seem. It would be redundant to say something strange is happening in Twin Peaks, the show or the town, but what's taking place truly is unique. It's unfortunate, but also somewhat innovative and beautiful. The disappointment began in March when David Lynch expressed concerns regarding his deal with Showtime. Earlier this month he confirmed that budgetary constraints from the premium cable network had terminated his involvement.

Sad, yes, then something unheard of happened when the show's original cast took to the internet. They not only rallied the support of their fans, they invited us into the dressing room. Sherilyn Fenn who played the naughty-and-nice Audrey Horn has been working with the Official Twin Peaks Cast run site on Facebook, diligently answering nearly every question, concern, and comment posted to the page.

Fenn, along with Madchen Amick (Shelley Johnson), Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs), and Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer) have made this Facebook page an astoundingly personable experience.

Given the show's fan base, its surprising that the site has just roughly 17,000 "likes." But perhaps it's the infamy of both the show and its stars that sets the site apart from other "official" Facebook pages. The show isn't ordinary, and we aren't ordinary fans.

Littering social media with #SaveTwinPeaks, Sheriyn Fenn has proven herself as large a fan of her own show as any of us. Amick joined Fenn in a passionate quest to save a Lynch-backed Twin Peaks by posting a collection of videos with her costars expressing what the show would be like without Lynch at the helm. Sheryl Lee espoused, it would be "like a girl without a secret." 


Despite the large cast's resistance to a Lynch-less Twin Peaks, two of the show's notable cast members, Kyle McLaughlin (Agent Dale Cooper) and Lara Flynn Boyle (Donna Hayward), have said little to nothing. Although it's hard to imagine a Twin Peaks without Agent Cooper, the show's prequel, Fire Walk With Me, managed to succeed with his minimal involvement as well as a recast Donna Hayward.

While some fans have simply thrown their hands up for the last time, it's hard not to wonder if this is all part of a larger plan. With Fenn, Amick, Lee, and others pulling their fans into the town of Twin Peaks, and into the Red Room, the show is getting its third season right now. Lynch casts actors as unique as their characters, and across the internet and social media, the original cast of Twin Peaks is exceeding any expectations a hardened Lynchian holds, the same unexpected and unreal realties that follow the release of any of David Lynch's works of art. 

As I sit on my stoop in Philadelphia enjoying some damn good coffee, wedged in the duality between the grimy neighborhood that gave Lynch his nightmarish inspirations and the beautiful Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where he learned his craft, I can't help but revel in my own personal place within David Lynch's twenty-five year running masterpiece. 

We are all Twin Peaks.

Roman Catholic Expansion

I was just gushing about the recent improvements and proposals for Vine Street, namely the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' decision to embrace one of the street's least desirable lots for a residential high-rise. 

Others are following suit. What's ever better, the development will replace yet another surface lot that scars the cityscape leaving Vine Street a hostile avenue for pedestrians.

Roman High (quite possibly the most badass named high school in the country, with a building to match) has acquired a neighboring lot, and has released preliminary plans to build a much-needed gymnasium. It also purchased another parking lot on north 13th Street that currently stores U-Haul trucks, for the school's fine arts expansion. A fitting location considering this lot was once home to Eraserhood's own, the renowned creator of Twin Peaks and the neighborhood's namesake, Eraserhead, David Lynch.

I'm not sure how the Catholic church feels about Lynch's creepy and deliberately offsetting creations - or nightmares - but maybe the school could dedicate a dark corner or a janitorial closet for a Lynch Museum. 

Laura Palmer's House is for Sale

I loved the 1990s. People recycled, music meant something, and you could smoke at Starbucks. But around the time I was practicing five speed on my dad's "Farm Use Only" Ford Ranger, I discovered the most 90s thing of all time: Twin Peaks.

Dated for sure - right down to Audrey's saddle shoes and Laura's hair - the show that had all of America asking "Who Killed Laura Palmer" was decades ahead of its time. In fact, given the uncompromising weirdness that is the show's co-creator, David Lynch, Twin Peaks may have not simply been ahead of it's time, but out of this world.

Now for about $550,000 you can own the house where it all began. Used in the pilot and the prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the Palmer "home" in Everett, WA is for sale. 

The house is largely unchanged. The pink carpet and dated wallpaper are gone, but the wicker chair where Laura sat to write torrid secrets in her infamous diary remains in its place more than twenty years later.

Considering the notoriety this prime time drama received and the cult following it has since amassed, perhaps a fan will do what Brian Jones did with The Christmas Story house. At more than half a million dollars, it's a little pricy for a movie museum, but I hope the new owners decide to reinstall the ceiling fan that haunted Sarah Palmer's waking nightmares.

Fueled by internet speculation, rumors of David Lynch and Mark Frost revisiting Twin Peaks routinely come and go from time to time. Unfortunately it seems that long time fans of a show that lasted only two short seasons are left with endless questions and disturbing images burned into our minds. Exactly how Lynch wants it.

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David Lynch studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts on North Broad Street in the late 1960s. He lived in a house on 13th and Wood, diagonally across from the morgue, now part of Roman High School.

He described Philadelphia as "decaying but...fantastically beautiful, filled with violence, hate and filth," crediting the city for the inspiration to make his first film, Eraserhead. Prior to PAFA's upcoming David Lynch exhibit, he returned to the city in 2012. He said, "I remember when the city was gray and dirty and deteriorated and ugly and a real mess and had real character, and now it’s all bright and shiny just like every other city."

His former neighborhood, dubbed Eraserhood by many, is now an odd mix of pricy lofts, an expanding Chinatown, sprinkled with abandoned warehouses, older row homes, and the defunct Reading Viaduct. 

As plans solidify to convert the viaduct into an elevated park, so does the neighborhood's prominence. But like Laura's wicker chair that still adorns the Palmer residence, David Lynch's soul is still in Philadelphia, a city that evoked nightmares in the modest Montanan, ever present in his haunting works of art.

Hanover North Broad

With speculations around Girard Square, Kmart's planned closure at the Gallery at Market East, and the proposed Market8 Casino at the Disney Hole, it's hard to forget that Market East isn't the only aging city planning disaster to plague a major Center City thoroughfare.

Lined with parking lots, North Broad Street hosts the scars of massive midcentury demolition and looks a lot like Detroit's Woodward Avenue.

The Parkway Corporation owns the two major parking lots at Broad and Callowhill. With the Hanover Design Collective, Parkway plans to develop the lots with Hanover North Broad, a large mix-use project.

Initial renderings show a sensibly scaled design that looks a lot like University City's Domus and will go before the City Planning Commission. As it is, it won't bring a lot of architectural drama to North Broad Street, although its practicality will probably help it breeze through the approval process.

The success of Tower Place and the proposed conversion of the Inquirer Building, along with the emerging Callowhill/Loft District/Eraserhood neighborhood, North Broad and dare I say North Philadelphia, may soon be part of a whole new city. Now if someone would take on North Broad's most tragic lady in wait, the divine Divine Lorraine.

Welcome to the Black Lodge

Light a cigarette, pour yourself a damn fine cup of coffee, and get ready for a trip to the Black Lodge. Twin Peaks is back.

Unfortunately we're not getting a third season twenty five years later. No, I'm talking fashion. Suckers Apparel has released a line of Twin Peaks inspired fashion. Pricy, Suckers' colorful duds pay homage to everything from the patterned floor of the Black Lodge to Laura Palmer's corpse wrapped in plastic.

It's hard to say if the hipsters have really embraced the early 90s cult classic for anything more than irony, but the line is sold out so someone's wearing it.

Twin Peaks has only a small link to Philadelphia, Agent Dale Cooper was from here. However David Lynch has a profound connection to the city, particularly its gritty, dangerous past.

Lynch studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, living in the Callowhill neighborhood in the late 60s. At a time when the neighborhood was still largely industrial and trains still carried commuters atop the Reading Viaduct, Callowhill was another world, one Lynch blames for his dark and disturbing stories.

Twin Peaks was clearly his most tame and most structured work. Usually consisting of short scenes and bizarre images loosely woven together, Lynch's films are more art than movie.

If you like Lynch, you're not sure why. No one can deny he's interesting.

Lynch left Philadelphia for Los Angeles in 1970. He didn't return to the city that haunted his dreams and his artwork for four decades. In March of 2012, Lynch was in town to assist the PAFA with an upcoming David Lynch exhibit and a documentary.

Homecomings can be bittersweet for many reasons. When you're a kid, places feel bigger, wilder, scarier. But those places also change. Of today's Philadelphia Lynch said, "it’s all bright and shiny just like every other city....I preferred it the way it was."

Lynch, quiet and composed, still shies from publicity. With many dubbing his Callowhill neighborhood "Eraserhood," an homage to his first major film, Eraserhead, it's hard to say how he'd feel about the recognition, particularly considering the posh lofts that have erased the character that once inspired him.

As for a Twin Peaks homecoming, not a chance. Rumors have buzzed for years, rumors Lynch repeatedly denies. Perhaps ABC can turn to Twin Peaks' co-creator Mark Frost. After all Lynch didn't direct every episode, but admittedly the best episodes.

Many shows have drawn inspiration from Twin Peaks, such as the cancelled Happy Town and the successful The Killing. Though it's going to be a while before a vision as unique as Lynch's is going to find its way to network television. Perhaps a movie?

Post Brothers Apartments

While a handful of protesters continue to picket the rehabilitation of the infamous "Graffiti Building" at 12th and Wood, Post Brothers has unveiled a sign of their own.


Today, a giant banner hung from one of the top floors of the long neglected warehouse read "Post Brothers Apartments," signifying development is moving full steam ahead unphased by Philadelphia's Union Muscle.


For months, a rotating collection of Colorform laden signage spouted accusations that Post Brothers were "destroying community standards" to commuters along 12th Street.


I'd personally like to say thank you Post Brothers for investing in MY community's standards.

Eraserhead

It seems like everyone has been catching David Lynch's cult classic, Eraserhead, On Demand. After hearing that this neighborhood was often referred to as the Eraserhood because of Lynch's residing here in the 60s and 70s, and as a Twin Peaks fan, I figured I'd see what all the fuss was about.

Like a lot of his stuff, it seemed weird for the sake of being weird. A lot of very interesting and eerie stills that might make better photography than cinema, and a story that probably only makes sense to him, if even.

Still, like most of David Lynch's more avante garde films, it's unusual visuals make for good conversation. It's an interesting bit of local flavor too. Lynch has stated that the movie was inspired by his nights in the Callowhill neighborhood in the 60s and 70s.

I would love to see the Callowhill Neighborhood Association organize a public showing of this, perhaps in one of the vacant lots or parking lots around the neighborhood. Maybe even up against the locked entrance to the viaduct.

So many Callowhill residents are always talking about the hidden potential in the Reading Viaduct, but in the mean time rarely go outside. Even if the neighborhood association wasn't interested, I can't imagine it would be that difficult to clean up a lot and power up a projector.

The entrance to the viaduct is used for nothing more than a dog park and could easily be cleaned up for an outdoor mixer. It would be a great way to get people out to meet each other. Most Callowhill residents seem to drive straight to their parking space, go home, and lock the door.

Even if one wouldn't be interested in David Lynch's nightmares, wandering out in the evening and opening their doors to migle with their neighbors would be a welcome change to a neighborhood that's been hiding in its own shadows since long before David Lynch ever set foot here.

Nightmares at 13th and Wood

Those who know me know of my fascination with the Philadelphia before my time. I don't mean Ben Franklin's quaint, Colonial Philadelphia, or the Industrial Revolution's Workshop of the World.

I mean the bleak and dreary Philadelphia that can be caught in the background of Rocky. It's the weird Philadelphia that hatched after suburban flight and before the urban renaissance. This is the Philadelphia I remember visiting as a child.

In a way, the city almost felt more alive. The streets were bustling with people, but not with boutique shoppers and dog walkers. They were bustling with harried employees in a thriving business district, and strange apocalyptic characters prophesying the end of the world.

I'm sure it felt this way because my experience with Philadelphia in the 80's was as a daytime tourist. And I'm sure my farm raised upbringing made every city feel like Manhattan.

Still, there was something unique about Philadelphia. There was a darker side of the city. The city I'd love to relive for just one night.

In 1970, writer and director David Lynch lived on the southeast corner of 13th and Wood, in what is often now pegged as The Loft District, while attending the Academy of the Arts.

13th and Wood, the site of David Lynch's home in 1970 during his time at the Academy of the Arts in Philadelphia.

The site is now a parking lot for the adjacent U-Haul facility, but twenty years ago it was the fantastic nightmare of the writer and director of Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, and Blue Velvet, and served as the inspiration for his first film, Eraserhead.

His former presence in what Lynch has described as "a very sick, twisted, violent, fear-ridden, decadent, decaying place" has led a number of residents to brand the neighborhood, The Eraserhood.

The Roman Catholic High School's annex was designed as the City Morgue by Philip Johnson in the 1920s. In the 1970's the morgue operated diagonally across from Lynch's home at 13th and Wood.

Although that name is as marketable to a realtor as The Gayborhood, it's also as uniquely Philadelphian. While Lynch, originally from Montana, has mostly negative things to say about Philadelphia and his former neighborhood, anyone who is familiar with his work knows that he finds beauty in the most disturbing images.

"It's decaying but it's fantastically beautiful, filled with violence, hate and filth," he has said of Philadelphia. He found an opening to another world in our city's decay, "it was fear...so magical, like a magnet, that your imagination was always sparking."

With the closure of the Reading Viaduct and the construction of the Vine Street Expressway, I'm sure the corner of 13th and Wood would now be a disappointment to a director known for his dark, sepia toned images of tortured souls and broken windows.

The Eraserhood is now gritty in a 21st Century way. Its soot stained masonry and small alleys are quickly becoming its charm, and it abandonment has become its parking. We may never see that world again, and perhaps that is a good thing.

While the unusual pocket between Broad and the Reading Viaduct, and Vine and Spring Garden may never again be part of Lynch's "sickest, most corrupt, decaying city filled with fear," its legacy will always find its place in his bizarre, dark, and beautiful films.

Why we don't need to save (all of) the Reading Viaduct

In a perfect city, the Pennsylvania Convention Center was built with respect for its neighborhood and lined with accommodating retail spaces catering to conventioneers.

Market East station moved passengers through its subway below high rise offices and apartments, and an integrated transit hub rose at 10th and Filbert as SEPTA's proud headquarters.

The Gallery Mall was surrounded by display windows and entrances below twin towers marking the gateway to Center City's north end entertainment district, the vibrant and lively Chinatown.

The Vine Expressway moved commuters and crosstown traffic under grand Vine Avenue, lined with tall oak trees and elite residences hosted by gleaming modern architecture and restored, historic landmarks.

Vine Street, before the construction of the Vine Street Expressway, could have capped the interstate and served as a grand, crosstown avenue.

At 11th Street, in the crosstown light rail that ran down the middle of Vine Avenue, you might be lucky enough to see the Culture Shuttle, a high speed train carrying tourists from Reading Terminal Station, through the Convention Center's rooftop garden, across Vine Avenue.

The bullet train would then weave its way through the Loft District, home to art galleries, film houses, and the city's non-profit art community.

The Culture Shuttle continued under Broad Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue after making stops at Philadelphia's nationally renowned art institutions, before carrying its guests to important Fairmount Park Stations and ultimately the Philadelphia Zoo and its historic Parkside Neighborhood to spend the twilight strolling through the manicured gardens of the newly restored Centennial Exposition Park.

Well, Philadelphians may know better than anyone that we don't live in Perfect.

The Pennsylvania Convention Center grazes on energy like a herd of pregnant cattle while turning its ass to its neighbors to the north.

Market East moves passengers out its station below undeveloped surface parking lots while Greyhound has usurped nearly a block of our blighted Chinatown to maneuver its buses.

The Gallery Mall is an isolated fortress with minimal respect to its pedestrians.

The Vine Street Expressway wedged a canyon between Vine Street, demolishing a number of architecturally significant structures important to the area's urban feel, resulting in a sea of parking lots that eat away at the remaining neighborhood.

The Vine Street Expressway Canyon, which divides the Loft District from Center City.

The Reading Viaduct is chopped off at Vine Street, leaving a few blocks of stone arches and a rusted, unused eyesore to weave its way through a decaying Loft District many residents jokingly call Eraserhood, paying homage to the David Lynch movie Eraserhead, which was inspired by the filth, violence, and decay he found while living amongst its squalor. According to David Lynch, Philadelphia was "the sickest, most corrupt, decaying city filled with fear I ever set foot in in my life."

A still from Eraserhead, inspired by David Lynch's home at 13th and Wood in the early 1970's.

The popular proposition is to convert the remains of the viaduct into an elevated park, like New York's High Line, and allow it to serve local residents. But I wonder, in our perfect city, would this really be the best option?

The Convention Center, the Gallery, and the Vine Street Expressway already cut through Center City isolating the Loft District from its urban brethren. Even as a park, the oppressive stone walls and metal ceilings of this minimally historic structure are, and would continue to serve, as just another visual barrier breaking up the urbanity of this area.

Reading Viaduct Today

Maybe we should let history be history. Developers routinely avoid this area specifically because of this white elephant. Perhaps portions of the stone supports and arches could be preserved for posterity, leaving behind the poetic ruins of an era of industry.

But converted into a park, much of the metal portion would be unimaginably expensive to maintain, not to mention it is just plain ugly. It is surrounded by surface parking and weed filled vacant lots. Until this area becomes so valuable that developers need to start designing buildings to fit the curvature of the viaduct, these undeveloped eyesores will be the view from any park atop the viaduct.

Reading Viaduct Today

The stone structure between Vine and Callowhill could serve some purpose, maybe even as an elevated park serving a newly renovated apartment building at 12th and Wood. The stone arches add a unique, and noninvasive element to the street scape.

But the metal bulk of the remaining viaduct is an invitation to blight. Its existence serving any purpose other than transportation is only arguably historic. Built around the same time, the Market Street Elevated is being renovated. Its steel constructed viaduct is being replaced with concrete. Removing most of the Reading Viaduct is no more an affront to its historic presence.

Not everything needs to be saved and reused. I'm ready to let this go. I'm curious to see a new vision for this area.