Sunday, November 20, 2011

Travels Into Twilight


The Atlantic travels to Forks, Washington (right near me, actually) to take in all the Twilight hoo-haw.

From the piece...

Forks, where the books and movies are supposedly set, is a sleepy town sandwiched between segments of Olympic National Park, most of the way up the northern tip of Washington (Not a single scene of the movies have actually been filmed in Forks, in part because Oregon, and then B.C., had more appealing tax concessions, and in part because producers feared Forks was too small to accommodate the film's housing and culinary needs). Before Twilight (hereafter designated as BT), Forks was one of those post-timber towns that most people didn't know existed, the kind of town where if you knew where it was, chances were you lived there and wanted to leave. Twilight's Bella herself disdained the place, saying, "Forks was literally my personal hell on Earth."

It's a rainforest settlement, a conglomeration of clapboard houses lining wide, mostly deserted streets, the air always feeling like it's about to rain, that is, if it's not already raining. Forks' economy, as the last place you can find a supermarket before entering the Olympics, used to revolve around selling socks and matches to intrepid hikers who'd forgotten theirs. That is, BT. Since Stephanie Meyers set her best-selling novels there, Forks has transformed.

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