That quote makes me think of the “myself” social media creates.

I am very glad to see this addressed as a starting point–thank you– but I cringe when I see the overwhelming desire a couple has for each other within marriage during fertility when your bodies are communicating at a level you don’t have complete control of as “lust.” Noooo. It is NOT lust.  It is an ordered desire for unity in the sacrament of marriage, greatly complicated by knowledge a possible child of this union could have a serious health issue in a world that doesn’t support much less understand such situations.  Nevermind genetic disorders can also make NFP methods almost impossible to follow.  And to have to sacrifice the unitive part of the sacrament because of the founded fear is like, well, I honestly can’t think of an equivalent for any of the other sacraments. I guess a priest losing his ability to administer the sacraments indefinitely? Maybe?  Saying this as a widow to a man with a genetic disorder with a 50% chance of transmission.  I would say the most disabling part of a genetic disorder is the loneliness and lack of understanding and support from family and friends and church members. I can’t even think of how to explain it to someone who has never lived it.  The Man Born Blind “Which one of his parents sinned?” “Neither.  He was born to make manifest the glory of God.”  In other words, the desire man and woman are given during her fertile time is always sacred.  Period.

This one by John Leoard from May 7, 1990, New York Magazine, interestingly refers to or anticipates several things from season 2, including “the man in a smiling bag,” though ironically rules out the Palmers themselves as suspects. But at the peak (ha) of the show’s popularity, Leonard realized then what I finally just did:

Lynch, who seems to have an unlimited and unedited access to his own unconscious, lets us think we recognize ourselves; we’re seeing our favorite movies, reading our favorite books, standing in front of our favorite paintings. […]

Wittgenstein had a philosophy, and Pynchon has some politics. Lynch is merely moody, more of a Warhol. Though beautiful to look at, there isn’t much of anything inside his soft labyrinth except an unimportant secret. Unlike, say, The Prisoner, with Patrick McGoohan, or The Edge of Darkness, the brilliant British eco­thriller that Channel 13 refuses to run, or The Singing Detective, which Lynch says he’s never seen, Twin Peaks has nothing at all in its pretty little head except the desire to please. In this, and only in this, it resembles almost everything else on television. But beautiful is better. Must we, like the Deconstructionists, moisten everything with meaning?

If the point is to tell a story, as the original series does, the quest for “meaning” must be grounded in the story, if at all.

Leonard also suggests way back then that maybe the whole thing is just a dream.

If what we’re seeing is a bunch of disjointed vignettes and characters with no clear motivation, as in season 3/The Return, then we have to find “meaning,” and that brings me to two columnists from Slate before the premiere in May who seem to have inadvertently “solved” Season 3 before it aired.

In the first, Laura Miller discusses the original series’ allusions to other movies and their significance, and how even noir, which was supposed to be a metaphor for the darkness underlying the American dream, involves its own facade.

In the other, Forrest Wicker discusses the show as a commentary on television itself.

All three of these articles explain the complex pastiche of cinematic, television and literary allusions that somehow make Twin Peaks something new and different while not really having much depth beyond all the allusions, but I have yet to see a commentary which mentions the significance of “Gordon Cole” other than as a “minor character” in Sunset Boulevard.

Every character whose name is an allusion means something. Philip Gerard, the One Armed Man, is both in his real name and his nickname an allusion to The Fugitive. And while he initially appears as a red herring suspect, we eventually find out that he is in his own way pursuing BOB, and of course Philip Gerard is the name of the Inspector Javert-based detective in the earlier series. Madeleine, Laura Palmer’s lookalike cousin, is named for a blond murder victim in Vertigo, and interestingly her brunette lookalike in that movie is named Judy (though Twin Peaks’ mysterious Judy, so far as we know did not turn out to be a Laura Palmer lookalike, as many suspected).

Miller also points out that Walter Neff, the life insurance salesman in Season 1, episode 7, is named after the life insurance salesman in Double Indemnity: and he’s presenting Catherine Martell with a new policy, with her sister in law Josie as the beneficiary, which Josie and Benjamin Horne have actually purchased because they plan to have her die in the upcoming mill fire.

So what is the significance of Gordon Cole? At first, it seems like a throwaway reference. The reference gains some forced significance in The Return when the movie is the catalyst for Cooper to “wake up.” But let’s look at Gordon as we know him on the original series.

In season 1, he’s a voice on a speaker phone. He shouts in part because he’s on a speaker phone. This carries over into Season 2 in Gordon being hard-of-hearing. He seems like a generally clueless figure. He seems more insightful in The Return, and supposedly he and Cooper had a master plan all along, even though there’s no suggestion of it in the ABC series. We find he uses his hearing loss strategically but generally hears better than he lets on.

The Cole in Sunset Boulevard is a “minor character” but a very significant minor character–he’s the production assistant who sees Max drive Norma Desmond’s car onto the lot to deliver her script to Cecil B. DeMille, and starts calling to speak to her, hoping to rent her car. So the character is truly clueless about what’s really going on, and his cluelessness unwittingly leads to worse problems. Though in some ways, Agent Cole on TP seems less clueless in The Return than his original portrayal, and though he gives us some amazingly straightforward (or is it?) exposition, he still spends most of the season spinning his wheels. If he knows as much as he supposedly knows, why does he wait so long to say it or act like he’s surprised by some discoveries?
Why does he so callously use Diane to get at “Mr. C”?

Originally written by John in September 2017

And with the early dawn moving right along
Couldn’t buy an eyeful of sleep
And in the aching night under satellites
I was not received
Built with stolen parts, a telephone in my heart
Someone get me a priest
To put my mind to bed, this ringing in my head
Is this a cure or is this a disease?
Nail in my head from my creator
You gave me life, now show me how to live
Nail in my head from my creator
You gave me life, now show me how to live
And in the afterbirth on the quiet earth
Let the stains remind you
You thought you made a man, you better think again
Before my role defines you
Nail in my head from my creator
You gave me life, now show me how to live
Nail in my head from my creator
You gave me life, now show me how to live
And in your waiting hands, I will land
And roll out of my skin
And in your final hours, I will stand
Ready to begin
Ready to begin
Ready to begin
Ready to begin
Nail in my head from my creator
You gave me life, now show me how to live
Nail in my head from my creator
You gave me life, now show me how to live
Show me how to live
Show me how to live
Show me how to live
Show me how to live

Now, the Trump Era has muddied the waters a bit, and it’s important to note that racism is not conservative–the

A Good Friday with Mr. Eliot