The Dark Passenger

Filed under: the log lady twin peaks interview intervista david lynch mark frost Catherine E. Coulson 
bbook:

Coulson has said that years before her appearance as The Log Lady in Twin Peaks, you predicted she would appear in a television series one day with a log. Was that a joke?
No. I had this idea during Eraserhead that I described to her and Jack and whoever would listen. [Laughs] And it was called I’ll Test My Log with Every Branch of Knowledge! It’s a half-hour television show starring Catherine as the lady with the log. Her husband has been killed in a forest fire and his ashes are on the mantlepiece, with his pipes and his sock hat. He was a woodsman. But the fireplace is completely boarded up. Because she is now afraid of fire. And she has a small child, but she doesn’t drive, so she takes cabs. And each show would start with her making a phone call to some expert in one of the many, many fields of knowledge. Maybe on this particular day she calls a dentist, but she makes the appointment for her log. And the log goes in the dental chair and gets a little bib and chain and the dentist X-rays the log for cavities, goes through the whole thing, and the son is also there. Because she is teaching her son through his observations of what the log is going through. Then sometimes they go to a diner and they never get to where they’re going. That was the idea. You’d learn something each week, see? For real! In an absurd sort of world.

bbook:

Coulson has said that years before her appearance as The Log Lady in Twin Peaks, you predicted she would appear in a television series one day with a log. Was that a joke?

No. I had this idea during Eraserhead that I described to her and Jack and whoever would listen. [Laughs] And it was called I’ll Test My Log with Every Branch of Knowledge! It’s a half-hour television show starring Catherine as the lady with the log. Her husband has been killed in a forest fire and his ashes are on the mantlepiece, with his pipes and his sock hat. He was a woodsman. But the fireplace is completely boarded up. Because she is now afraid of fire. And she has a small child, but she doesn’t drive, so she takes cabs. And each show would start with her making a phone call to some expert in one of the many, many fields of knowledge. Maybe on this particular day she calls a dentist, but she makes the appointment for her log. And the log goes in the dental chair and gets a little bib and chain and the dentist X-rays the log for cavities, goes through the whole thing, and the son is also there. Because she is teaching her son through his observations of what the log is going through. Then sometimes they go to a diner and they never get to where they’re going. That was the idea. You’d learn something each week, see? For real! In an absurd sort of world.

(via oldfilmsflicker)