During the last day of the Real Twin Peaks 2024 event on February 25, a free panel discussion was held at Arête Coffee Bar in North Bend, Washington. Karl Reinsch moderated a conversation with John Thorne, Vinnie Guidera and Steven Miller about archiving and documenting David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks.
ARCHIVING AND DOCUMENTING TWIN PEAKS AT ARÊTE COFFEE BAR
The conversation between Karl and the three panel members began at 11:00 a.m. inside Arête Coffee Bar located at 112 West 2nd Street in North Bend. The small cafe is found inside Pro Ski and Mountain Service shop.
In 1991, Martin Volken opened a small ski sales and service shop in Seattle. By 1999, he had opened a second shop opened in North Bend with a focus on Pro Guiding Services for mountaineering. Volken sold the Seattle location in 2005 and by 2019, he relocated his North Bend shop into their current location on West 2nd Street. Meghan and David Schumacher then opened Arête in February 2022.
According to an interview with the Snoqualmie Valley Record, David Schumacher wanted to “create a space where you can come get great coffee and dream about being outdoors.”
On that Sunday morning, it was also a nice location to discuss the preservation of history related to Twin Peaks and the Real Twin Peaks locations in Snoqualmie Valley.
PANEL DISCUSSION
The panel discussion was moderated by long-time Snoqualmie resident Karl Reinsch. In recent years, Karl has drafted the Twin Peaks Day proclamations for North Bend, Snoqualmie, Carnation and, new this year, King County, Washington.
John Thorne has covered Twin Peaks since launching “Wrapped in Plastic” magazine in the early 1990s with his late co-editor Craig Miller. In the days before social media and the internet, their magazine was my lifeline to the wonderful and strange show. In 2016, John published the “Essential Wrapped in Plastic: Pathways to Twin Peaks” which included important essays and interviews from the 75 issues of the magazine. More recently, John published “Ominous Whoosh: A Wandering Mind Returns to Twin Peaks.” It’s a fantastic read as John takes a deeper look into Lynch and Frost’s third season of the show.
I first connected with Vinnie in September 2019 during my return trip to Snoqualmie Valley after a 23-year hiatus. We quickly learned that we had similar interests about the minutia of Twin Peaks. He is an artist, musician, writer, and David Lynch fanatic from Sacramento, CA. In addition to Twin Peaks Blog, he has written articles for The Blue Rose Magazine, WelcomeToTwinPeaks.com, and 25YearsLaterSite.com. He identifies props and logs his collection on Instagram under the handle @twelverainbowtrout.
As for me, I’ve been a Twin Peaks fan since October 1993. On February 26, 2018, I launched Twin Peaks Blog to document my decades-long fascination with David Lynch and Mark Frost’s wonderful and strange show. With my Canon camera in hand, I have visited numerous film locations, attended Twin Peaks events and conducted extensive historical research about this groundbreaking series. I dream of creating a complete Twin Peaks Archive of the series and feature film, which is why I enjoyed speaking with Karl, John, and Vinnie.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PANEL DISCUSSION
This panel was the brainchild of Karl who previously had individual conversations with each of us about preserving the history of Twin Peaks. Being a long-time resident in Snoqualmie Valley, Karl was particularly interested in the local history as so much of the show was filmed here in 1989, 1991 and 2015.
Karl pointed out that John, Vinnie and I represented three generations of fans – John had been following the show the longest, followed by me in the mid-1990s and then Vinnie. We all had our individual experiences with the show which are in many ways like Harold Smith’s “living novel” as seen in season two episodes.
We discussed the newest exhibit at the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum featuring props, replica props, documents and memorabilia from the show.
It’s spectacular that the museum has an exhibit about Twin Peaks as for more than 35 years, the series has left an indelible mark on Snoqualmie Valley.
Karl, Vinnie, and Jason Mattson loaned several items to display in the small exhibit.
It’s like a time capsule from the early 1990s when Twin Peaks mania took the world by storm. There is a combination of licensed products and other items that feature the Real Twin Peaks locations like Snoqualmie Falls or Mar-T Cafe (known today as Twede’s Cafe).
Replica prop creator and fellow Twin Peaks Blog author Jason Mattson loaned the chair that the crew used in season three.
It’s the chair on the far left side of the image above.
The crew reupholstered the chair for filming and Jason has been trying to track down what specific fabric they used.
The museum also has part of the jail cell bars seen in the pilot episode. It’s a fun photo spot inside the museum.
For many years, the jail cell bars were found on the second floor of the former Sunset Garage building located across the street from Twede’s Cafe. They disappeared and were later found at the Valley Stage. They were loaned to the Museum for this exhibit.
Vinnie shared some actual props from the show he acquired from Jeff Moore, the second season Prop Master. This is one of the tags, with Jeff’s handwriting, that was used to identify items sent by Windom Earle from Twin Peaks episode 2.015.
Vinnie also shared the name of the uncredited “Georgia Peach” as seen in episode 1.005 when the law enforcement team is examining Jacques Renault’s apartment.
The gentleman dressed in blue lingerie is Dave Robinson, who was the Property Master for the first season and lead painter for season two. He also worked on Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and Lost Highway.
We also discussed the important of documenting the film locations as things continue to change as the years roll by. For example, Steven and Gersten’s tree from Twin Peaks Part 15 fell due to a bad winter storm in mid January 2024.
We also dreamed about having a place where fans who have taken photos of these locations could upload and share images. This would help for researching the history of changes to various film locations.
Fans of Star Trek or Space 1999 have a challenging time visiting space locations as we haven’t started making trips to the moon (yet). John shared how special visiting the Real Twin Peaks was to him. Unlike other film locations, such as the Breaking Bad house which is closed off due to the large volume of visitors, there are so many locations to visit in Snoqualmie Valley, mostly all for free. When you walk into Twede’s Cafe, you feel like you are in the show as the crew left it how they remodeled the spot for season 3.
All said, the conversation was interesting as it felt like the start of a much longer conversation about how to preserve history for future generations who will discover the show long after we are gone.
