Local Legend: An Ode to Margaret Lanterman, The Once and Forever Log Lady
Find a random stranger. Ask them what they know about Twin Peaks. Maybe they know nothing. Maybe they are nerds like me and obsess over every detail. Most likely, if I had to poll a completely random stranger, I would hear something on the lines of “Oh yeah, isn’t that the one with the lady with the log?”
The lady with the log. Perhaps another actor would blanch at forever being saddled with that character. Harrison Ford and Sean Connery sound curmudgeonly when discussing Han Solo or James Bond. Catherine E. Coulson was not like that. In Reflections: An Oral History of Twin Peaks by Brad Dukes, Coulson tells a story of having to FedEx the log—which was an actual piece of Ponderosa Pine gifted to the actress—to Los Angeles for an autograph show. “I got incredibly nervous because I just don’t let it go off on its own” worried the actress. Coulson lamented that with stricter security measures on air travel after the September 11th attacks, she could no longer amuse flight attendants by stashing the log in the overhead compartment because TSA said, “the log could be used as a bludgeon”. (As If the Log Lady could ever be murderous!) This is evidence of a performer who wholly embraced and nurtured her little niche in pop culture. Once and forever, Catherine Coulson is The Log Lady.
It is fitting that Coulson embodied the character perhaps most closely associated with Twin Peaks because the actress is among the oldest collaborators with director David Lynch. Lynch and Coulson met in 1971. She was the star and co-writer of his 1974 short film The Amputee, in which her character does not have legs (there’s Lynch’s obsession with the grotesque again). On Eraserhead, Coulson could best be described as Lynch’s right-hand woman, as she filled several behind-the-scenes roles (becoming one of the first women in Hollywood to be on a camera crew) including financially supporting the project with supplementary income made waitressing. Lynch has also credited Coulson with introducing him to transcendental meditation. The professional and personal collaborations between Lynch and Coulson provided the foundations for many themes seen throughout Twin Peaks.
In Reflections, Coulson says the idea for the Log Lady came a full fifteen years before Twin Peaks was created. In fact, one of Lynch’s first ideas for a television show was to have Coulson star as the “Log Girl” in a series called “I’ll Test My Log With Every Branch of Knowledge”, where Coulson would take the log to various experts. Coulson uses the example of taking the log to the dentist, whereupon the dentist could demonstrate an examination on the log. It’s like Lynch was thinking of logs and branches and cooked up a punny title and an outrageous idea. Coulson explains further, citing Lynch’s father as a member of the U.S. Forestry Service who wrote a thesis on Ponderosa Pines. That show never came to fruition, but the idea lingered. When Lynch met Mark Frost the idea was revisited. Lynch and Frost padded out a whole backstory for the character, most of which remains unvarnished when Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and friends from the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department visit Margaret Lanterman in her cabin in the (inaptly titled) Season One episode “Cooper’s Dreams”.
The character has a rich backstory, but the Log Lady is equally intriguing when seen in small doses. Cooper first notices her at his introductory town hall, flicking the lights on and off. Norma chastises her for sticking pitch gum underneath the booths at the Double R. These quirks are mere prelude to the more loaded scenes where Margaret drops clues such as “my log saw something” on the night of Laura Palmer’s (Sheryl Lee) murder, or arriving at the Sheriff’s Department to tell Cooper “There are owls in the Road House”. (It is worth noting that when Margaret takes Cooper to the Road House, she is seen munching on peanuts and tapping her foot to an upbeat Julee Cruise number. This shows that the character can retain her penchant for eccentricity while also providing pivotal information to the plot. On the podcast, all four of us noted how Coulson’s performance brought a much-needed dose of levity to the otherwise macabre Season Two episode “Lonely Souls”.) The character primes the audience to pay close attention. It also makes the audience wonder what exactly the nature of the relationship between Margaret and the Log is. Is it Margaret’s child? Her dead logger husband? Wisely, and in true Lynchian fashion, those questions remain unanswered and left open to interpretation.
These qualities perhaps why when Twin Peaks was re-ran (for the first time) on the Bravo network. Lynch tapped Coulson to record introductions to the original 30 episodes. Those introductions are classic Log Lady, with Coulson in full costume, sitting in front of a fire in her cabin, cradling her log. Most of what she says is completely esoteric, but that can take the shape of spouting philosophy, alluding to events in the episode, waxing poetic on chewing pitch, or even provide sly commentary revealing how the creators feel about the results of their work. Lynch wrote 30 separate introductions for Coulson to record. The Log Lady introduction to “Masked Ball” is a classic example containing each of these tropes:
"Is life like a game of chess? Are our present moves important for future success? I think so. We paint our future with every present brush stroke.
Painting. Colors. Shapes. Textures. Composition. Repetition of shapes. Contrast. Let nature guide us. Nature is the great teacher. Who is the principal?
Sometimes jokes are welcome. Like the one about the kid who said: 'I enjoyed school. It was just the principal of the thing."
Lynch could also get metatextual with the Log Lady introductions. Her intro to “Arbitrary Law” is one of the most pointed clues to how Lynch felt about ABC meddling with the reveal of Laura Palmer’s murder.
"So now the sadness comes. The revelation. There is a depression after an answer is given. It was almost fun not knowing. Yes, now we know. At least we know what we sought in the beginning. But there is still the question, why? And this question will go on and on until the final answer comes. Then the knowing is so full there is no room for questions."
I also how The Log Lady is leveraged in some of the ancillary canonical materials of the show. To me, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer really doesn’t hook me until the part where a 12-year-old Laura encounters Margaret in the woods. The character also has crucial appearances in Mark Frost’s two compendiums to the show The Secret History of Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier. I am also truly thankful that Coulson was able to reprise her role as Margaret Lanterman for Twin Peaks: The Return. Lynch states that Coulson was able to complete the role mere days before succumbing to cancer, and while I will elaborate more on Coulson’s appearance in the third season when we cover those episodes in the podcast, it is not hyperbole to state that her performance, especially regarding the timing and impact, was nothing short of miraculous.
If the rumors about Lynch’s Wisteria project for Netflix being a fourth season of Twin Peaks are true, it will be hard to imagine the story continuing without the Log Lady. Or, as viewers of the show know, characters played by dead actors have a strange habit of showing up in unexpected ways. For always, we will have Catherine Coulson as the Log Lady.
