TWIN PEAKS CONVERSATIONS #9 w/ Twin Peaks Fanatic creator Mya McBriar (YouTube & extended PATREON)

While this is Mya McBriar's debut as guest in the extended Lost in the Movies universe, she and I have crossed paths many times before beginning in the heady days of 2014 - 17 on the dugpa World of Blue forum where we and other fans shared theories and speculation about the upcoming series. She started her blog Twin Peaks Fanatic around that time, soon moving from quick posts on various aspects of the show to longer, more personal essays on the elements of Peaks or David Lynch's work that most moved her, all while plugging away at recaps and reactions to every episode. We appeared, together and apart, on Twin Peaks Unwrapped episodes too - most famously (at least in Unwrapped's own lore) to rank Lynch fims, with some unexpected results. On the anniversary of the Twin Peaks pilot this weekend, we discussed this era of fandom - its new discoveries and layers of nostalgia (and nostalgia-for-nostalgia) - in our first one-on-one interview, along with an eclectic array of topics. These include the highs and lows of season three after all that anticipation: experimentation in Parts 3 and 8; Sarah, Judy, and the frogbug; Dougie's world; Richard Horne's place after abandoning the original Audrey story; and - as always - where the finale leaves us going forward. We also talk about the power of Laura Palmer, Lynch's possible jabs at Quentin Tarantino from the nineties to the teens, Mya's discovery of the original show as a preteen Gen Xer in one of the more remote and offbeat parts of New Jersey ("Shades of Death Road", anyone?), and her own creative writing which combines Lynch analysis with original fictional material. Some of this is featured in the public part of the conversation on YouTube...

PART 1 on YouTube

...while the other half of the discussion, available to $5/month patrons, incorporates the rest of these subjects and casts the net even wider.

Listen to...

PART 2 on Patreon

Read Mya's other work on 25 Years Later/TV Obsessive as well as in The Blue Rose magazine & the book Women of Lynch (for her piece "Impressions of Lynch: Journaling a Requiem")

Highlights from Twin Peaks Fanatic include Laura Walked With Me amp; Pinky's Dream: The Story of Crazy Clown Time

The Hunter S. Thompson quote was used in 25 Years Later - Happy Anniversary Twin Peaks!

Mya's appearance on Twin Peaks Unwrapped to discuss Lost Highway

My piece SEVEN AMERICAN GENERATIONS:

zoomers, millennials, X, boomers, silent, greatest, and lost

Julius Kassendorf's article suggesting Fire Walk With Me-after-reveal viewing order

Twin Peaks Unwrapped - Ultimate Lynch Madness (w/ Mya McBriar, Josh Minton, and John Thorne)

If you haven't listened to the previous four "Madness" podcasts yet, stop reading and check them out now because this episode was determined by those outcomes.

All good things must come to an end. This is true not only of the fun "Madness" exercise of the past two years, where the hosts of Twin Peaks Unwrapped have invited myself and other guests to rank various Peaks and Lynch works in a March Madness-style bracket until only one title remained, but also of Twin Peaks Unwrapped itself. Although Ben and Bryon intended to conclude the show in 2020, the pandemic disrupted their plans. For the past few months they've been working their way through the final community rewatches of season two episodes and will belatedly wrap it all up this month. This will be my last appearance as a guest although not the last time we talk in podcast form (stay tuned).

This was a great way to go out, revisiting our early decisions (all of the guests from previous episodes were supposed to participate, although only four of us could make it) and figuring out which work we wanted to ultimately represent the Lynch canon at its apex: Lost Highway, the season one "Red Room" episode, the season two finale, or the season three finale. I found myself going back and forth so what both we as a group and I individually chose was as much a surprise to me as to the listeners (or viewers, since Unwrapped published the video on YouTube - you can also listen to it here or elsewhere).

The episode was recorded in April and shared in May, but this is the first Thursday I've had open to share it and coincidentally it's the thirtieth anniversary of the episode that ended the original Twin Peaks. Whether or not episode 29 takes the cake (or the cherry pie) I'll leave for you to find out, but if you're a patron - and even if you're not (yet) - keep an eye on my Patreon today...this conversation won't be the only one to highlight that unforgettable finale.

Twin Peaks Unwrapped - The TV pilot version of Mulholland Drive (w/ Mya McBriar and John Thorne)

What if Mulholland Drive had been an ABC series competing for viewers in the fall of 1999, rather than an uber-cinematic art film quickly acclaimed as the best movie of the 21st century? This and other questions animate my discussion with Ben and Bryon, hosts of the most prolific Twin Peaks podcast, Mya McBriar of Twin Peaks Fanatic, and John Thorne of Wrapped in Plastic and The Blue Rose Magazines, who brought knowledge of several different cuts to the table. Four years ago, we spoke about the finished film when it was incorporated into the Criterion Collection and now we've reunited for a round-table about the TV pilot version of the movie. Though I've long been aware of what was and wasn't in the rejected version David Lynch presented to the network, it was startling to actually watch this familiar footage in fuzzy VHS quality and a boxy aspect ratio - not to mention the subtle additions and subtractions scattered throughout this version of Mulholland Drive. And it made for a great conversation.

This is the first of three appearances I'll be making on Twin Peaks Unwrapped this fall, so keep an eye out for my contribution to a Season 1 Finale rewatch and another "Madness" session, this time eliminating and elevating the various episodes of the truly mad Season 2.

Lynch Madness: choosing our favorite Lynch film on Twin Peaks Unwrapped (w/ Mya McBriar)

I joined the Twin Peaks Unwrapped podcast (along with Mya McBriar, of Twin Peaks Fanatic) for our first discussion in a year, and it was a doozy - not just a normal conversation, but a "March Madness"-style competition to determine our collective favorite Lynch films by setting two against each other in brackets and advancing until only one remained. You won't believe what happens next...

There are plans to use this format again for episodes, and I can't wait. It's of course ridiculous to set Lynch's film against each other this way, but by embracing that ridiculousness we had a blast and even managed to point out some interesting strengths, flaws, and surprises about the various works. How would you have voted in each step?

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