“Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it. Don’t wait for it. Just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the men’s store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot black coffee.” ~ Special Agent Dale Cooper
One of the greatest television experiences my generation has had was the first season of ‘Twin Peaks’. Imagined and executed by the wonderfully dark genius of David Lynch, it devoured my obsessional tendencies in the Fall of 1990. I fell completely under the spell of this strange town and its stranger inhabitants, along with the dorky rigid hotness of Kyle Maclachlan’s Special Agent Dale Cooper. One of the most magnificent parts of the experience was the moody music that gave the series its compelling power. Composed by the brilliant Angelo Badalamenti, the music was gorgeously atmospheric, conveying light and shadows, darkness and disturbance. It was haunting, with accents of jazz that bounced around in your head for days afterward. The theme song, sung by Julee Cruise, was perfectly hypnotic, and I’d listen to the entire soundtrack in a trance-like state of meditation and musing. I felt the ache of Laura Palmer’s parents, the tenderness of Donna’s love for James, and the saucy but sad desire of Audrey’s unrequited crush on Cooper. It was music for the Fall, when the impending slumber of winter started sprinkling its drops of drowsiness in the night, and the wind, rushing through the pine boughs high overhead, carried the last vestiges of summer far away.
