The Full Blossom of the Evening: A Podcast about David Lynch and Twin Peaks

Rita Hayworth appears only briefly on a poster in Mulholland Drive, but her life and work are deeply woven into the fabric of that film. Indigo and Hilary intended to focus on Gilda, but instead woke up to the magnificent star behind the eponymous character.

Fans of Twin Peaks have long discussed the uncanny resonances between the series and Peter Weir's 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock. Indigo, Hilary, and Mileta enter this ongoing conversation with an additional focus on the 1967 novel by Joan Lindsay that inspired Weir's film. 
 
Show notes from Mileta:
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A moving discussion of displacement, both historical and contemporary: 
Sydney Writers Festival 2021 Opening Night Address.'Writers Melissa Lucashenko, Tara June Winch and Evelyn Araluen discuss literature, who gets a voice, and the ways that stories define and shape us all.' 
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I meant to talk about the Aboriginal tracker character in Picnic, who is given no dialogue and, to add insult to injury, fails where white-knight Mike succeeds. In the film he appears once in the background and then only briefly.
 
The film Tracker turns a critical gaze on this aspect of Australian history:     
TRACKER - Trailer 

David Lynch said, “There is not a day that goes by when I don’t think of the Wizard of Oz.” Exploring the story through its origins in defining cultural movements of the early twentieth century, Indigo and Hilary discuss the meaning of this American fairy tale and how it echoes in Lynch’s life and work.

Mark Frost's inspiration for naming Horne's Department Store in Twin Peaks came from a Pittsburgh institution he encountered during his time at Carnegie Mellon University. Indigo and Hilary spend their Frost-awarded "bonus points" sharing details from the history of the real-life Horne's, as well as some personal memories of the store. 

Names like Jacoby and Lydecker come to Twin Peaks straight from Laura, the 1943 novel by Vera Caspary and 1944 film directed by Otto Preminger. Indigo and Hilary discuss thematic parallels between the stories of Laura Hunt and Laura Palmer.

Robert Engels intentionally referenced Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie when he added the blue rose to Twin Peaks' symbolism in Fire Walk with Me. Indigo and Hilary explore the implications of this allusion and discuss some of the reasons Engels may have felt compelled to link the world of Twin Peaks to the dreamy interiority of The Glass Menagerie. 
Read the play online here: https://hama-univ.edu.sy/newsites/humanities/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Glass-Menagerie-PDFDrive-.pdf
 

Called "Anime's David Lynch", Satoshi Kon cited Lynch as an influence, but some of his work seems to predict rather than reflect the themes of Lynch's films and Twin Peaks: The Return. Longtime Kon fan Indigo and neophyte Hilary discuss Kon's work through a Lynchian lens.

Laura Palmer interacts with two identifiable texts in Fire Walk with Me: William Thackeray's The Rose and the Ring and William Saroyan's The Human Comedy. Indigo and Hilary discuss the thematic resonances of both stories in the film and Twin Peaks.
Thanks to Twin Peaks Blog for the investigations that led to this episode! https://twinpeaksblog.com/2025/01/02/twin-peaks-prop-laura-palmers-home-university-bookshelf-volume-5/
 

Mark Frost cited Dion Fortune's occult classic Psychic Self-Defense as a source for terms and concepts woven into the Twin Peaks mythology. Indigo and Hilary are joined by John Bernardy of The Blue Rose Task Force Podcast to discuss everything from the creation of Artificial Elementals to the defensive capabilities of coffee and cherry pie.

Jacques Tati created worlds and films that allowed David Lynch to dream. Indigo and Hilary discuss what made these artists, in Lynch’s words, “kindred souls”.