Subject: Re: Recurring Fans and Record Players Explained (SPOILER)
From: ii7gjg0b@serss0.fiu.edu (Jim Stafford)
Date: 1991-05-07, 06:34
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <1913@tekig7.MAP.TEK.COM> bradn@tekig3.PEN.TEK.COM () writes:
> >One of the recurring symbols in Twin Peaks has been rotating fans and record
> >players.  Now that Windom Earle is interested in celestial clockwork, I can
> >see an explanation of all the rotating stuff:
> >
> >Each one is a reference to the celestial clockwork of Jupiter and Saturn:
> >the rotating fan, the 'ticking' record player Leland loved so, the 'ticking'
> >fan in Donna's attic.  Each one says that the time of the black lodge
> >is returning.
> >Brad Needham
> >bradn@augsburg.pen.tek.com

This is only slightly related, but would anyone care to comment on the 
famous Spinning Fan Symbol?

I have noticed this device in several other films and TV shows, most
memorably in the film "Angel Heart" and the cancelled ABC show "China 
Beach".  It is used as a symbol of death, or perhaps passing into another
"place" (hell, etc.) In "Angel Heart", virtually every scene seemed to 
open or close with a fan sequence, which seemed to be associated with 
a murder.  In "China Beach", the quonset hut where the corpses were
bagged featured a large ventilation fan, prominent in most of the scenes
filmed there.

I suppose the fan blades symbolize the cross, and perhaps the fan just 
sucks the spirits into another place through the use of this cross...
of course, if you have a 3 or 5 bladed fan, the symbolism doesn't work
out so well.

Put your faith in that great Frigidaire in the sky and ye shall be saved!!

jimbo