Author: videodansedubreuil

Finally!

It only took me something like 25 years or so, but I now believe I have a credible understanding of what the mysterious word “GARMONBOZIA” stands for. Of course, I’m aware of its meaning in the series and film (pain and sorrow) and of its appearance (creamed corn). But what I mean is the reason why it’s called Garmonbozia and not something else. Where does that word come from and how was it chosen?

I have suggested elsewhere that it might be linked to the Sanskrit language, knowing David Lynch’s interest in the Vedas. There is a certain musicality to the word that is reminiscent of the Indian diaspora. I also tried letter combinations, gematria, and multiple other methods of exploration and word play.

And then, I remembered that I had connected JUDY to Buenos Aires because of the letters one finds on a telephone dial. “J” stands for “5”, “U” for “8”, “D” for 3, and “Y” for 9″ – 58,39°W, the exact longitude of the Argentinian capital (“pure air”, from which the Lodge entities have descended).

What would happen if we apply the same method to the most cryptic word of all, “Garmonbozia” ? David Lynch’s interest in numerology and Mark Frost’s fascination for Ley lines are well established. So I looked on my telephone keypad and came up with the following series of figures: “42766626942”.

Based on the way the word is usually pronounced in Fire Walk with Me, I decided to split this number into three chunks/syllabes: “GAR/MON/BOZIA”, i.e. “427/666/26942”. This done, where was I supposed to look? Mirroring the process I had followed for JUDY and longitude, I turned the numbers into coordinates (42.7° / 66.6° / 26.942°) and looked for significant connections on a world map focused on the Americas, around which the series and film gravitate.

66.6° (666?) did not make much sense in terms of latitude, so I looked at the longitudes (East and West). Interestingly, the southernmost point of South America is exactly located at 66.6° West (south of the Tierra del Fuego / Land of Fire).

This by itself was a striking coincidence, but not enough to cry victory just yet. When I turned to North America, the numbers did not make sense: the northernmost point of the continent (if one excludes Greenland), is located above Canada at a latitude of 83° (but at the same longitude, 66.6°W).

What was the connection, then? Well, at this point, it was important to look at the latitude of the southernmost peak of the Americas: 56°. So, 83° in the northern hemisphere and 56° in the southern hemisphere – where was the middle point of that line on the 66.6°W longitude to be found?

At 83°N – 56°S = 27°N… i.e. at 26.942°N, the BOZIA in GARMONBOZIA!

I now had a line going from top to bottom of the American continents, split in its middle at 27°N by a point apparently devoid of meaning, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

This led me to draw a perpendicular line to the MON/666. I had already looked for significant points within the context of the show: too high for Hong Kong, too low for Tibet or the USA… The only thing I could think of was the Sahara desert, mentioned in part 3 of the return (Jade’s car), but the line was too low for most places of interest in Egypt, for instance. Then, being French, I suddenly remembered that France has conducted various civilian and military ballistic rockets launches from the vicinity of the town of Reggane until 1965, and had also conducted four nuclear tests there during the Algerian War in 1960 and 1961, before the country’s independence. Given the importance of nuclear bombs in Twin Peaks (see part 8), it was worth looking at the town’s latitude. As evident on the image below, Reggane is located at 27°N, the one bisecting the North / South axis of the Americas at 66.6°W.

Beyond the French nuclear tests, I believe this choice also leads to the works of authors such as William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, who wrote abundantly about the Sahara and its spirit, Ghoul. Links between the desert and evil entities are clear in part 8, and it is no surprise that a Sumerian demon such as an utukku (Judy) would be attracted to such a hostile location.

I now had four points on my map, which I completed with a fifth somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, on the line running from Reggane to the middle of the 66.6°W line, at a similar distance West from the line in question as Reggane is located to its East. Joining the various points, a huge parallelogram was now engulfing most of the American continents and a small portion of West Africa. Interestingly, this parallelogram was highly reminiscent of the motif of the owl cave / owl ring.

It also seems that, taking the point where the North/South and East/West lines meet, the direction of Twin Peaks lies approximately at an angle of… 27°! It would be interesting to measure this more precisely, but this number does indicate the general direction of the Northwest Pacific town…

After the MON and BOZIA elements of the words, remained the question of the GAR (42.7°). I remembered that Rio de Janeiro was located at 43.0° West (Remember: 430), and decided to look what a North/South line at these coordinates would look like. I added a second parallel line to the West of the North/South divide, located at 42.7° East of the westernmost point of the East/West line, i.e. at 90.4° West. So two new lines: one at 42.7°W and the other at 90.4°W (i.e. roughly by the Mississippi delta).

The interesting thing here is that when one traces a straight line from the point where the line between the Tierra del Fuego and Reggane meet the 42.7°W longitude, and extends it through the point where the 90.4°W line meets the East/West axis, the line drawn ends up pointing at Twin Peaks too. The map below needs some improvements, but it makes my point nonetheless clear. By adding the two 42.7° vertical lines to the parallelogram, it becomes possible to find out where Twin Peaks is located.

It is also possible to reach the same conclusion by drawing a line starting from the point where the 90.4°W line meets the East/West axis at an angle of 42.7° (GAR), as made apparent below:

GAR, MON, and BOZIA therefore are not first and foremost to be understood as carrying a linguistic meaning – they are coordinates on a treasure map.

And the gold is buried in Twin Peaks!

This new blog posts aims to underline how multiple elements from the first half of The Return (parts 1 to 9) are mirrored in its second half (parts 10 to 18). In order to explain how I have proceeded, I will focus on the way part 6 is mirrored in part 13 (the sixth from the end of the season).

To create these superimpositions, I have watched the first nine episodes, while then watching the last 9 episodes in reverse, in what might be likened to a mirroring process. Each time, I have only included the narrative segment of the episodes, starting after the end of the opening credits and before the beginning of the closing credits. For example, in part 6, the episode is 58 minutes long in total, from which I have subtracted the first minute and a half (opening credits) and the last minute and a half (closing credits). The narrative portion of the episode is therefore 55 minutes long (58 minutes minus 2 times 1:30 for the credits). When comparing parts 6 and 13, this process is not too important because they both have credits of roughly 1:30 before and after their narrative sections. This exercice was more important for episodes with slightly longer credits, so as to focus on the story itself and not on the whole length of the episode.

The left column below is dedicated to images from part 6 while the right column contains images from part 13. The first image in the left column is a snapshot taken 30 seconds after the end of the opening credits; the first image in the right column was taken 30 seconds before the beginning of the closing credits. Then we move to 14 minutes after the opening credits on the left and 14 minutes before the closing credits on the right. Then 42 minutes, and finally 44 minutes.

It is clear that Dougie/Cooper’s nostalgic loneliness echoes Big Ed’s in his gas farm, that the image of Cooper working on his files resonates with Norma’s open files in front of her, that Cooper’s fist is reminiscent of Mr. C’s blow to Renzo, and that Cooper’s failed handshake with Bushnell recall’s Mr. C and Renzo’s arm wrestling.

That said, I only had to superimpose these images so as to show how they work with each other.

I have adopted a similar method with the rest of the 18 parts of The Return, leading to the creation of 9 pairs of correspondences between episodes from the first half of the season and of its second half, as noted at the opening of this blog post (part 1 with part 18, part 2 with part 17, etc.).

Here are some of the most striking correspondences I have found:

PARTS 1 & 18

(see my other blog post here: https://unwrappingtheplastic.com/2021/05/12/eternal-returns/)

PARTS 2 & 17

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PARTS 3 & 16

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PARTS 4 & 15

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PARTS 5 & 14

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PARTS 6 & 13

(see beginning of post)

PARTS 7 & 12

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PARTS 8 & 11

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PARTS 9 & 10

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Last July, I contacted Thomas Aïdan, editor in chief of the French cinema magazine La Septième Obsession to ask him if he would like to collaborate with our online conference dedicated to Twin Peaks – It is in our House now – and perhaps put together a special issue of his magazine to be published in sync with the event. He agreed to this, and we are now proud to share the result of this endeavour, coordinated by the excellent Nicolas Tellop: a beautiful special issue covering all the aspects of the series, from characters to places, examining seasons 1, 2 and 3, as well as Fire Walk with Me.

I wrote two articles for the issue: one about the importance of Egyptian mythology in Twin Peaks; the other about various cryptic references found in the 18 parts of The Return. I also interviewed David Bushman about his upcoming book Murder at Teal’s Pond dedicated to the Hazel Drew case, which inspired Mark Frost when he began his creative work on Twin Peaks.

I’m also proud to say that my wife and conference co-organiser Marisa C. Hayes is published alongside me in this issue, with a text analysing the mysterious dance of the woodsmen around Mr C’s body in part 8. I’m also very glad to be published in the same issue as Dick Tomasovic and Guy Astic, who both moderated a panel during our conference.

Here’s the whole table of contents for the issue:

So, brush up on your French, and buy a copy of the issue at the following link if you want to drink full and descend: link.

Join Mr C this weekend…

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87957923029

Meeting ID: 879 5792 3029

One of the most mysterious elements of the Twin Peaks universe is probably the golden ring associated with the Lodge entities. First seen in Fire Walk with Me, its centrality has only become more important with The Return and Mark Frost’s new books. While its exact role and significance remain something of an enigma, its origin can nonetheless be traced to one of the most grandiose and unforgettable pieces of art from the end of the 19th Century, – and through it, to various Germanic and Nordic legends and mythologies: Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle (Der Ring des Nibelungen). Composed of four operas written between 1848 and 1874, with a total running time of over 15 hours, Wagner’s tetralogy is basically one continuous story told over four evenings: one preliminary evening – The Rhinegold, and three main evenings – The Valkyrie, Siegfried, and Twilight of the Gods.

This cycle can be translated as The Ring of the Nibelung, the Nibelung in question being the dwarf Alberich. Interestingly, the owl ring appears closely associated with The Arm in Twin Peaks, played by Michael Anderson, an actor of a small stature. Alberich originates in Germanic (The Nibelungenlied) and Old Norse heroic legends and his name means “ruler of supernatural beings”. In Norse mythology, he is known as Andvari and lives underneath a waterfall. In Wagner’s Ring, Alberich is the chief of the Nibelungen race of dwarves and the main driving antagonist.

The Ring’s story begins at the Rhine river, where Alberich steals the gold from the Rhine Maidens (three water nymphs, Woglinde, Wellgunde, and Flosshilde) by forsaking love. With this gold, he forges a magic ring that grants its owner the power to rule the world. But Wotan, leader of the gods, steals the ring from Alberich, who curses it. Whoever wears it from this point onward meets a tragic end. Wotan is in turn forced to give up the ring in payement to giants who have built his palace, the Valhalla. He then designs a plan to regain control of the ring through his grandson Siegfried, son of Siegmund and Sieglinde. In Unwrapping the Plastic, I had already noted that the theft of the (golden) Garmonbozia in Fire Walk with Me is highly reminiscent of what takes place in The Rhinegold.

Siegfried slays the giant-turned-dragon Fafner, before falling in love with the valkyrie Brünnhilde, Erda and Wotan’s child, whom he has saved, following the song of a woodbird, from a rock surrounded by magic fire on which Wotan had cursed her to sleep eternally because she disobeyed him. The cycle ends in tragedy as Alberich manages to have his son Hagen get Siegfried killed before Brünnhilde takes the ring and tells the Rhinemaidens to claim it from her ashes, once fire has cleansed it of its curse. She “works the deed that redeems the World.” Flames flare up in the Hall of the Gods and the gods are consumed in the flames.

The Ring‘s ending is linked to the concept of Ragnarök found in Norse mythology. Ragnarök, described in the Poetic and Prose Edda, is a series of events and natural disasters leading to the submersion of the world in water. After these events, the world will resurface anew and be fertile, the surviving and returning gods will meet and the world will be repopulated by two human survivors. The cyclic nature of the Eddic eschatology is mirrored in The Ring of the Nibelung as the tetralogy starts and ends with the Rhine Maidens and their golden treasure.

It is easy now to see how this reflects the action that takes place in season 3. The cyclicality of The Return, often noted (see my previous posts), mirrors that of the Ring. Season 3 is very much the story of an apocalypse leading to a renewal of the universe, in an endless loop (see the Möbius strip “drawn” by Phillip Jeffries in part 18). The various characters of the series echo those depicted by Wagner: the Fireman is akin to Wotan, Senorita Dido to Fricka, and The Arm to Alberich, while the versions of Cooper and Diane in the Red Room can be linked to Siegmund and Sieglinde. The reincarnated aspect of Cooper, the one who ends up driving Laura back to Twin Peaks in part 18, can be seen as akin to Siegfried, while Laura/Carrie, whom he found sleeping on a rock surrounded by fire (Odessa and/or Twin Peaks when wrapped in plastic) and who is supposed to redeem the world, appears to be the perfect Brünnhilde. She is the one who starts Ragnarök with her shriek, who mounts her horse Grane and rides into the flames, bringing things to a new beginning, back to balance. It is also worth noting that when she first appears wrapped in plastic, in the series’ pilot, she is also evocative of one of the Rhine Maidens. The Wind River in Twin Peaks is many things at once, reminiscent of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine.

As for the characters directly linked to evil in Twin Peaks, one could argue that BOB is meant to represent Fafner the dragon (Fire Walks with Him? BOB was “born” from the Experiment, whose eggs produce the reptilian/amphibian Frogmoth), while Mr. C is somehow evocative of the giant wolf Fenrir, who does not appear in Wagner’s Ring. In Norse mythology, Fenrir was bound by the gods because of a dream of Odin’s announcing that the wolf would be there at the end of everything, Ragnarök. This is reminiscent of what takes place in part 18, when Mr. C is locked in a cage in the Fireman’s palace, right before returning to Twin Peaks. As for Judy, could she be Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent, Thor’s nemesis? Cooper could indeed be associated with Thor in this fight (as well as Freddie Sykes, whose green glove is akin to a hammer). During Ragnarök, Jörmungandr will thrash its way onto land, spraying poison to fill the air and water, advancing beside Fenrir, whose eyes and nostrils will blaze with fire. BOB and Judy could very well represent this devilish duo described in the Prose Edda.

Mark Frost’s interest in everything mythological is no secret, so the various connections made in this post do not seem far fetched. The possibility that he may have leaned on Wagner’s Ring cycle in order to elaborate some of the elements at work in Twin Peaks appears to make sense because of the tetralogy’s close links to Germanic and Nordic lore. It would be interesting to know if Frost really likes opera, specifically those composed by Wagner. But it is worth remembering that Wagner’s links to mythological subjects does not end with his Ring. Most of his operatic productions, starting with The Flying Dutchman (1841) and up to Parsifal (1882), are based on stories with a mythic undertone, and one may wonder if these have not also made it into the script for The Return.

I have already discussed in another post the links between Twin Peaks and The Flying Dutchman. The Dutchman’s Lodge visited by Mr. C is akin to the ghost ship cursed to sail the seas forever, wrapped in mist, and love relationship between the Dutchman and Senta (who ends up throwing herself into the sea, claiming that she will be faithful to him unto death) is reminiscent of what takes place between Cooper and Diane.

Also, the story of the Flying Dutchman is closely connected to the Cape of Good Hope, off the coast of South Africa, where the vessel was lost. When one looks for the longitude and latitude coordinates on a world map corresponding to the two main numbers cited in The Return, 430 and 253, one ends up locating a point close to the above mentioned cape (to be contrasted with the other evil cape linked to the show, Cape Horn, south of Argentina).

The plot of Tannhaüser (1845) revolves around the 14th-century Minnesingers and the myth of Venus and her subterranean realm of Venusberg, where the eponymous knight and poet spends a year. The longing for his earthly home is nonetheless overwhelming, but many years have passed in the world during his absence. The story follows his return from this orgiastic realm to his true home in Wartburg, and his true love, Elisabeth. The opera begins as follows: “Oh, that I now might awake! In dreams, it was as if I heard a sound… the joyful peal of bells… The time I have sojourned here I cannot measure. I see no more… the nightingale that foretells me the spring”. The omnipresence of Venus statues in the Black Lodge connects it to Venusberg.

Wagner’s next opera, Lohengrin 1850), can also be linked to Twin Peaks. Lohengrin, whose identity remains a mystery for most of the opera, was the son of Parsifal, the knight who found the famous Holy Grail. Similarly, Dougie Cooper’s identity is also a mystery, for the police and for himself. Parsifal (1882) was Wagner’s own version of the knight’s story, loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s epic poem. References to Arthurian legend are plentiful in Twin Peaks (Merlin’s Market, Glastonbury Grove, etc.) and it would not be surprising if Lynch and Frost had picked up a few things from either of these Wagnerian operas.

Interestingly, the Grail in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s poem is not the traditional cup or dish, but a stone with miraculous powers. It is called Lapis exillis, which in alchemy is the name of the Philosopher’s stone. This is worth pointing out because Laura is may represent the Holy Grail in the series, as evidenced by the similarity between her representation in the opening credits and the following painting. She is Cooper’s Grail, the reason for his quest, and she is also the object/person who will restore balance to the world. As mentioned above, von Eschenbach describes the Grail as a stone, which lets us think that Laura might be the “tools” used by the Fireman to kill two birds at once (BOB and Joudy?). Also, the Grail Castle is known as Corbenic (or Monsalvat), a word with Welsh origins meant to represent a cornucopia (horn of plenty). This might very well be the device hung to the ceiling in the Fireman’s palace, through which Laura’s orb is sent to Earth in part 8.

Tristan und Isolde (1865) and The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (1868) are the two remaining operas of Wagner not yet mentioned (notwithstanding his earlier works). Tristan’s story was adapted for the screen by Jean Cocteau, one of Lynch’s favorite artists, in 1943 for a film by Jean Delannoy called… The Eternal Return. In the original tale, Tristan’s love is split between two versions of Isolde/Iseult: Iseult the Blond and Iseult of the White Hands. One may wonder if Diane and her Tulpa are not representations of this dual version of Isolde.

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As for The Meistersingers of Nuremberg, the links with Twin Peaks are less obvious. The opera nevertheless focuses on a series of philosophical themes largely inspired by the works of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860), one of particular interest being the relation between dreams and artistic creativity. In Act III, we can hear for instance the following song:

Awake! the dawn is drawing near;
I hear a blissful nightingale
singing in the green grove,
its voice rings through hill and valley;
night is sinking in the west,
the day arises in the east,
the ardent red glow of morning
approaches through the gloomy clouds.

Now, I can only recommend that you watch one (or several!) of the various versions available online of the above-mentioned operas. They are all beautiful, and Wagner’s music is absolutely sublime. There are other echoes of Twin Peaks that can be found within these operas, but I wanted to summarise what I consider to be the main junctions between the two creative universes.

A good start consists in watching the Ring‘s cycle, perhaps with Boulez and Chéreau’s version, one of the most acclaimed in Bayreuth:

Then, take a look at Wagner’s three Romantic operas, The Flying Dutchman, Tannhaüser and Lohengrin:

As noted above, Lohengrin and Parsifal are both connected to Arthurian lore, so why not continue with Wagner’s last opera?

Tristan und Isolde could be your next stop:

Finally, one should watch Wagner’s slightly atypical opera The Meistersingers from Nuremberg:

LET’S ROCK!

In my last blog post, I tried to show how parts 1 and 18 were linked so as to form a loop of sorts, the very ending of the season echoing its beginning. I believe this is meant to replicate the design of a Möbius strip, similar to the one displayed by the “moka pot / teapot that used to be Phillip Jeffries” in part 18. I think that part 1 runs from A to B on the yellow strip below, and part 18 from Y to Z; and that then the strip becomes twisted, inverted, and its two ends are attached to create a loop in the shape of an 8 / infinity sign.

But as depicted in the illustration above, not only do the ends meet in an inverted fashion, but a dotted line runs through the rest of the episodes, in their middle, with various elements of their second half, visual, audio or thematic, echoing what takes place in their first half. Below are several examples of these resonances for each part of the season, in order to underscore that I’m not talking about a few random accidents, but rather a continuous stream of extremely interesting hidden clues. What I did to get such superimpositions was count the time from the end of the opening credits when watched forward (except for part 1 which has a prologue before the credits, so I started counting right from the start of the episode) and compare it to the time from the end credits when watched backward. This is an ongoing project, some parts have more connections than others, but I certainly hope to post more in the future.

PART 1 ⬇

PART 3 ⬇

PART 4 ⬇

PART 5 ⬇

PART 6 ⬇

PART 7 ⬇

PART 8 ⬇

PART 9 ⬇

PART 10 ⬇

PART 11 ⬇

PART 12 ⬇

PART 13 ⬇

PART 14 ⬇

PART 15 ⬇

PART 16 ⬇

PART 17 ⬇

PART 18 ⬇