A week or so ago, I saw a post on social media that alarmed me - Luis Vasquez, the singular voice of The Soft Moon, died a year ago! I had no idea...
It also makes sense that I never saw the short film "Stupid Child," a kind of tense noise interstitial for one of the tracks from Exister. This is possibly the most harrowing thing Vasquez had a hand in - the video to "Needs" is pretty fucked up, but I'd say this tops that easily.
Glad I got to see The Soft Moon live. Great band that had so much more in them. Fuckin' Fentanyl.
Watch:
K and I are currently rewatching Yellowjackets seasons one and two as prep for the new season starting on Valentine's Day. Rewatching, I realize there is so much of season two I somehow completely forgot.
K typically conks out earlier than I do, so after she falls asleep, I've been continuing my first rewatch of Twin Peaks: The Return since 2018.
I'd never watched The Return directly after the original series before, and honestly, I don't know that I'd do it this way again. There's such a marked difference between the two; every time I watch the original, I fall in love with it all over again, so to switch gears and jump headlong into the follow-up that is not really concerned with being a follow-up at all felt a bit jarring at first. In fact, after the first two episodes, I was starting to think I didn't like The Return. That feeling didn't last that long, though. By the time I got to episode three or four, my brain had caught up, and I had reemerged.
There's so much about The Return that I love, but first, I have to remind myself that this is 100% a creative vehicle for David Lynch - really his last large-scale vehicle - and he used it to shoot what many TP fans felt was idiosyncratic content that had nothing to do with the answers and resolutions they'd been hoping for since the second season finale aired on June 10, 1991. Lynch famously did things 100% on his own terms (except with Dune, and look how that turned out), and continuing what he'd started and begrudgingly lost control of nearly thirty years ago was definitely not on his "to do" list. I've definitely spent some time wondering what might have been had the show continued, and as usual, those contemplations only yield one result: Better to leave 'em wanting more than to overstay your welcome. Still...
So it took a bit to recalibrate myself coming into this rewatch of The Return, but now I'm 100% in. Friday night, I watched episodes seven and eight, and I was once again struck by (of course) episode eight's absolute grandeur. I woke up the next day wanting to read some critical writing on the series. Happily, I found some excellent articles.
First, this article HERE on the Wrong Answers blog, where Abigail Nussbaum makes some excellent points about what I have long felt is both the saddest and most remarkably compelling aspects of the series, namely how well it mirrors the disappointments of life. The lyrics to Eddie Vedder's contribution to The Return's soundtrack sums this up beautifully:
Next, Crypto-Kubrology's article on Medium reminded me of a theory I'd read about once before, shortly after the series aired. Namely, that episodes 17 and 18 may very well have been intended to be watched at the same time.
As a huge fan of The Flaming Lips' Zaireeka, this idea makes me giddy with anticipation, and while Zaireeka has become all but impossible for me to orchestrate listening to properly, 17 & 18 will simply require I muster the wherewithal to carry the tv in my office downstairs and set it up next to* the one in the living room. I have at least three Blu-Ray players, so no problem there.
White The Return may be unlike the original Twin Peaks in most ways, one thing the two series share is the ability to reward repeated viewings with ever more mystery.
*Although Cryto-Kubrology's screenshots make me wonder if the screens would be better served stacked as opposed to side-to-side, but I'll take what I can get.
Playlist:
The Veils - Asphodels
Frank Black - Teenager of the Year
Frank Black - Cult of Ray
Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues
Sleep - Dopesmoker
High On Fire - Blessed Black Wings
Various - Twin Peaks: Music from the Limited Event Series
Crime Weekly Podcast - Rey Rivera (part 2)
Laura Cannell - A Compendium of Beasts Vol. 1 EP
Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hot!
Amber Mark - 3:33am
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• VI The Lovers
• Six of Pentacles
• King of Pentacles
Surface reads are always something I avoid, almost to the fact that sometimes I feel like I tend to resist instances where the cards attempt to convey something simply. I'll not make that mistake today. The Lovers is an obvious nod to K and I celebrating out 9th anniversary this past Saturday. Six of Pentacles is a reminder of the stability I have now, a goal I set and accomplished with no small degree of Will. And King of Pentacles is both a nod to giving more attention to everyday Earthly matters (Malkuth), and that I need to listen to more Sabbath; kinda slacking off lately.
