#its almost as if they have completely different tones and styles and overarching narratives. Anyway

[eastgaysian]

succession character rpg classes thoughts:

fire emblem edition: kendall - obligatory lord roman - dancer tom - knight/potentially cavalier, wanted to be a pegasus knight shiv - dark mage connor - mage or potentially a priest? i lean mage though. stewy - wyvern rider for the cool factor greg - obligatory villager

dnd edition: joke/serious: everyone is a warlock whose patron is logan and/or capitalism. serious/joke: still a pretty unplayable party. kendall - i'm inclined towards some kind of cringe monk, but i could see the argument for cringe bard roman - gotta be a bard. college of eloquence probably connor - don't know why i'm so fixed on con as a caster but sorcerer imo, though i can see wizard. wild magic would be funny and fitting tom - either a bog-standard fighter or kind of a shitty paladin (oath of devotion probably) shiv and stewy - still both warlocks to me. greg -

there's a succession dragon age au also in my mind but that's a whole other thing. not accepting constructive criticism at this time

[troutfishinginmusic]

Interview: John Galm (Bad Heaven Ltd.) talks Twin Peaks

John Galm (Bad Heaven Ltd., Snowing, SLOW WARM DEATH, Street Smart Cyclist) loves Twin Peaks. I love Twin Peaks. He has a new Bad Heaven Ltd. record out called Strength. He did a good interview about the album here. Instead of going over the standard questions about the album, I wanted to get his thoughts on the new season of Twin Peaks.

But first I wanted to include the text from an Instagram post Galm made about the album that gives some insight into his deeply affecting new album.

Over the past few years, I've been writing a lot more from these series of disparate memories, where I take images from my past and create these new scenarios based around them. For Strength, I kept coming back to this one image, of evening on pine street in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, the town where I went to college and spent four difficult years. After high school, a lot of my friends went off to cities and were enjoying the culture and experiences they provide for folks fresh out on their own for the first time. I was stuck in the middle of farmland, still reeling from the death of my dad a year prior and struggling to relate to anything and anyone around me. I felt alien; isolated, and it's a feeling that’s stuck with me for many years. When these songs started coming to me, I'd see Pine Street, and the old house where some of my only friends lived draped in orange streetlights, and I’d imagine a world where I had someone, that type of friend you have an irrefutable connection with, to sift through the darkness with. For years, I felt like my years in Kutztown took something from me. I took my inability to feel OK there as a personal defeat; as something fundamentally wrong with myself. I know now, almost a decade removed from it, that that's bullshit. In a way, Strength was a way for me to reconcile with this thing that I haven't known how to: A time of great confusion where I couldn't find the comfort and support I needed in the place I was stuck in. To go back and re-see these streets knowing that what I needed wasn't there and to re-imagine how it'd feel if it had been, in its own odd way, helped me heal.

Now here’s my awkward attempt at talking about season 3 of Twin Peaks and being out-nerded by John Galm. I’ve changed the format to go with my style for the blog. Other than that, I left things mostly as they were in our conversation via Facebook Messenger.

What did you think of the split of the Dale Cooper character?

I took the split Dales a lot like how I took the rest of the season. I remember staying up until 2 finishing the first four episodes the night they premiered and being so utterly confused by the tone of the show. The vibe had obviously changed, which I don't think anyone was expecting, but that's David Lynch. He's an artist that trusts his vision and follows where it takes him, which I respect. Once I realized that, I just let the show sweep over me and rolled with the punches.

Having the split Coops was a necessary thing with how season two ends, and Kyle Maclachlan did a masterful job. I have no idea how he wasn't even nominated for an Emmy. All three roles (four if we count the tonal shift from Coop to Richard) really touched on these almost ingrained, primal human qualities that made each so unique, and again, Kyle MacLachlan played them so perfectly. To watch him as Mr. C and a scene later see Dougie Jones didn't even seem like the same actor. Was it all good? No. Dougie was a lot to handle, but I think with a lesser actor, it would've been unbearable.

I found myself typing out all the stuff I thought about it too but realized that'd probably make for a shit interview. I totally agree with those assessments though. Anyway, what did you make of the room with the portal? That whole thing was interesting to me. A lot of pieces of the season feel like they could be short David Lynch films. Episode 8 with the bomb definitely could have been.

Which portal room are you referring to, specifically? There were a lot of portals to be honest.

Yeah I didn’t even think of that but yeah there are. I was thinking of the part where the guy was just paid to sit and watch the glass box.

Ah right. It's hard to say. I think the later implication is that Mr. C was the mystery financier of that room, but I could be wrong. I know Lynch left a lot of those sort of details hidden, probably so that we could have conversations like this one. And honestly, it's been a bit of time since I've re-watched season three, which is on my to do list for the next few weeks.

I think it makes sense that if Mr. C was financing the room, he was either trying to capture Cooper to keep him from returning to our world, or he was trying to capture the creature that arrived (known as the experiment in Twin Peaks lore). Either way, it makes sense: Mr. C was literally evil incarnate; the complete inverse of our Cooper. Harnessing literal, pure evil seems like pretty reasonable task, and one that would've provided an already powerful creature with even more power.

Also, my god, I fucking love this show.

Well that certainly makes sense if it's true. It's definitely going to give me some new perspective when I watch it again. What was your take on Audrey's storyline?

Audrey’s storyline was a tough one. I know it disappointed a lot of people, including Sherilyn Fenn. There are some really interesting elements to it, though. There’s that now famous scene, the Monica Bellucci dream, where she talks about living inside a dream. I think that is a larger element to the overarching narrative of the season, and I think it plays out largely in what we see of Audrey. I mean, it’s hard to talk about all the elements, but Audrey led a traumatic life after season two, and I think the scenes we see of her are she’s created to escape it. Where it gets interesting for me, though, is thinking about, well, if Audrey is living within a different plane of thought, what else is taking place there? What other scenes from the show are also a product of this reality in which Audrey finds herself in? I know a lot of people were confused by these Roadhouse scenes where characters discussed people and events we hadn’t heard of before. Maybe they’re all in Audrey’s head? maybe we were seeing a lot more of Audrey before we knew we were.

Also, the end of episode 16 where she snaps out of one reality and into another was one of the most terrifying and intriguing moments of the whole show for me. I absolutely loved that.

What was your take on the score and the more song-based soundtrack?

I think the more song-based soundtrack was kind of a neat touch. the original soundtrack had such an impact on so many musicians, and you could really see that in a lot of the bands they chose to work with.

I actually listen to the season three soundtrack quite a bit, as well as the companion piece that Dean Hurley released. What I find most fascinating about the season is how sound really plays a role in the events. Oftentimes, you'll get these long expanses without background composition, which, for television, is very rare. It elevates those moments when suddenly a song hits, or there's whispers of static, that break you from this almost monotonous pacing and thrust your mind into hyper drive.

Did the new season work its way into influencing the new Bad Heaven Ltd. stuff in any way?

It's hard to say. David Lynch is one of my favorite artists across any medium, so his influence is always prevalent in what I do. I think that, in general, being a fan of his allows you to think outside the box and try things that may not be so conventional, which I employed on this record for sure.

Do you think season 3 put a good cap on the whole series since it doesn’t seem like there will be more seasons?

A good cap may not be the right way of putting it, but season 3 gave us so much more of a world that a lot of people spent the last few decades speculating about. And while it provided some answers, it gave us so much more to ponder and dream about. For that, I think we should be forever grateful.

You can download Bad Heaven Limited’s new album Strength here