My Media Week Meme

As far as I can tell, a “meme” (pronounced like dream) is the offical name of those surveys that people post as bullitens on MySpace. High School is the first time I remember doing one, and back then there wasn’t any MySpace so we pompously emailed them to everyone in our address book.

Anyway, the rules for some of them is that you can “tag” someone else and they have to do it on their blog, then they tag other people, and so on. Mike tagged me, and that’s why you’re reading this post.

It’s about the media I’ve consumed (hungry, hungry, hungry) this past week.

*BOOKS — It was my resolution this year to read lots of books. So far I’ve only completed one this year. I would have finished more, but I have about 5 started, and when I start so many books, they all fight for my attention until none of them get it. I currently have a bookmark in: The Road by Cormac McCarthy, The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene, Love + Sex with Robots by David Levy, Everything’s Eventual by Steven King, and a pretty bland Star Trek novel. I also have a reservation to pick up “Virtual Girl,” by Amy Thomson at the library. It’s a story about a guy who creates a sentient female robot, and I love that shit. I also have a stack of unread comics that grows week by week.

*TV — Believe it or not, I really don’t watch that much. There are only a few shows I actually turn on, and I never really sit and flip through the channels like some people. The few shows I’ve watched in the past seven days are Lost, the Sarah Connor Chronicles, and a few Discovery/History channel shows like Man vs. Wild and a bad ass documentary showing seven ways human life could become extinct.

*MUSIC — I listened to half of a Tina Turner song yesterday. I also downloaded the song from the MacBook Air commercial because it was catchy, only to finally play it out yesterday and run out of stuff to listen to. I’m just not a music kind of guy, it seems, which is crappy. On the drive to and from work, my Sirius radio is usually on Howard Stern or Spa 73 for ambient music.

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So TAG! Who’s it? I don’t know many people with their own hosted blog, or at least I don’t know them well enough to pass this on, and those I do know well enough have never commented so I’m not sure if they even read this. However, I know lots of people with MySpace blogs so…

*Shameless
*Katy
*Chrissa
*MegN

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Damn you, Lost. I get on here Friday afternoon with thoughts quick in my head and the intention to make a simple recap post, then… I’m still here, 3 hours later. You’ll see why in a minute.

The most important question from yesterday’s episode, I think, should be this: what’s up with the polar bear skeleton? They were digging it out like it was a dinosaur fossil. It’s not just like it showed up in the middle of the desert recently and died. No, it had been there for a loooong time, and the fact that Charlotte knew to look for a Dharma marking tells us something. I like to think that she works for Dharma, after all, and was secretly researching the results of a time travel experiment.

And hey, speaking of wacko-theories, I think it’s important to put out there what we now know about the Lost universe as a whole: time travel is possible (Desmond) and ghosts are real (Miles, from last night’s episode). So when postulating theories, those topics should be given as much credibility as anything else. I say that not only because of the polar bear in the desert, but because what it might mean for Jacob, who seems like he might be some kind of spirit himself. I think the ghost thing will matter a lot when it comes to solving his mystery. If Ben, Locke, and now Hurley can only kind of talk with Jacob, maybe Miles will be able to have serious, coherent conversations with him?

Objectively, though, I have to be honest: this was not the best hour of television. I’m not saying that Lost has to be great every second of every episode, and it’s totally fine that an occasional episode is sub-par — this episode was just one of those. The pacing was goofy, the suspense just wasn’t that tight, and the stories seemed rushed, which is disappointing to me because one of my fav’s, Brian K Vaughan, co-wrote the thing (the other co-writer was the guy who did Cloverfield). Then again, it could have been the fact that I watched it at 3am.

I did, however, like the development between Sawyer and Hurley… did anyone else catch the nod Hurley gave Sawyer when he was about to hurt Ben, like Sawyer was checking in with Hurley? There’s a new bond there.

I also liked “the wink” that Kate totally missed, and the fact that Jack’s team kind of turned the tables in that now they are the ones calling the shots for the newcomers. Remember in season two, when Jack led an expedition through the jungle, and he was warned not to cross the line, and the bearded Mr. Friendly showed up and told Jack he had snipers in the jungle and they all lit up their flares? Kind of similar.

Another interesting clue was Charlotte’s full name, Charlotte Staples Lewis. That’s C.S. Lewis, who wrote the Chronicles of Narnia. Further research tells me that C.S. Lewis’ middle name is also Staples… so it’s no coincidence. I have the complete Chronicles in one book (Now a Major Motion Picture!), so out of curiosity this morning I started flipping through it. I’ve never read the thing, but have seen the movie and heard the stories throughout elementary school, so I was reminded of Aslan’s resurrection (how very J.C. of him) and the Adam & Eve theme, but in looking at the chapter titles in the table of contents I noticed something that caught my eye. The first chapter in the book “Prince Caspian” is called “The Island.” Here’s the first paragraph, painstakingly-yet-hastily-because-I-have-other-things-to-do-soon typed by me:

Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, and it has been told in another book called The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe how they had a remarkable adventure. They had opened the door of a magic wardrobe and found themselves in a quite different world from ours, and in that different world they had become Kings and Queens in a country called Narnia. While they were in Narnia they seemed to reign for years and years; but when they came back through the door and found themselves in England again, it all seemed to have taken no time at all. At any rate, no one noticed that they had never been away, and they never told anyone except one very wise grown-up.

When I read this, friends, I am not ashamed to say that I got chills and shivers and all kinds of excited. I feel like I’ve stumbled on a clue, not just an easter egg. You see, this remarkable adventure to another land all sounds really familiar. Going through a magic door neatly explains the “bumpy ride” to the island, the island where some rose up to be leaders and, if the time-shift theory is true, maybe a lot more time has passed in the outside world than it has on the island — seemingly taking no time at all? The most important line though, to me, is the last one: at any rate, no one noticed that they had never been away, and they never told anyone except one very wise grown-up.

“I’m sick of lying,” Jack said. The Oceanic Six seem to be hiding the fact that they were on the island, so, in other words, no one noticed that they were away, and they never told anyone except one very wise grown-up.

The man in the casket? Methinks.

But there’s more, friends! And here’s where I wasted away my Friday afternoon. Again, I have not read the book (yet), but just the table of contents alone is enough to get thrills. Among some of the chapter titles in Prince Caspian:

• The People That Lived in Hiding. The Others, right? Maybe even Locke’s camp of survivors not wanting to get rescued. Or the whispers?
• Old Narnia in Danger. “The people on that boat will kill every living thing on this island,” said Ben.
• How They Left the Island. Ooo. I think this season is shaping up to reveal that, yes?
• The Return of the Lion. More symbolism is required here, but if a lion is thought of as being mean, nasty, and vicious, might that be Michael, who killed two people to get off the island? If so — if the Lion is indeed Michael — the next chapter in the book sounds kind of ominous…
• The Lion Roars. Michael’s coming back, who knows what he’ll be like? Maybe he’s even Ben’s inside man on the freighter.

There’s other chapters in the other books in the series that also caught my eye.  For example:

• The End of this Story and the Beginning of All Others, from the “Magician’s Nephew.”  Remonescent of the title of last week’s episode, “The Beginning of the End,” but not more than…
• The Beginning of the End of the World, from “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.”
• The Island of the Voices, also from “Dawn Treader,” reminds me of the whispers.

Maybe there’s more. I’ll eagerly be reading Prince Caspian this weekend, in any case. If anyone has read it, can you offer any insight, or am I on what grown-ups like to call a “wild goose chase?”

Even if I am, it’s a fun connection, and the worse that’ll happen is that I’ll read a book in the Chronicles of Narnia.

So what did ya’ll think of last night’s episode?  They’re after Ben, it turns out, so does that mean they’re the bad guys to the Others but not necessarily our castaways?  And howzabout Locke’s revelation that since he has no kidney, the bullet did no damage (and therefore everything really does happen for a reason)?  What the hell was Miles’ little ghost-buster device — and could the money he took be an Eko (clever pun) of one of our dead castaway’s drug dealing pasts?

Even though the episode as it stood alone wasn’t one of my favorites, it still did a lot to advance the storyline and, I think, introduced four new characters in the span of 42 minutes quite well.  And we still have 6 episodes left this year!

:-/

Until later… stay outta Narnia.

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1.) Did anyone notice the new picture in the upper right corner? It’s me, flapper jacks, in case you don’t know what I look like. That took some time to make.

2.) I’ll probably not have a Lost blog immediately after the show, because a friend from out of town will be in town, and he takes precedence. The good news is that he and his wife also enjoy Lost so I’m sure we’ll be watching it on the DVR by Friday at the latest.

3.) No new Nexterday News blog from me this week, not because I don’t have some written, but because of #2, and plus I want to slow the pace a bit. And, I kind of feel like nobody gets the concept (as evidenced by Katy saying, “I really don’t get the concept…”) So now is your chance to understand it: It’s news from the future. It can be funny, maybe. It can also be depressing, maybe. It can be whatever it wants to be, because the future isn’t written yet (or, at least, not until we write it). The biggest concept to understand is the year in the subject line of each post. The rest kind of falls into place after that.

4.) I’m a moderator over at The Terminator Forum now. Booyakacha. Brand new web site, so… if ya like Terminator…

…

Just sayin’.

Happy Birthday to my fiance Katy!

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Have you heard of this show? I saw a commercial for it a few weeks ago, and I thought the gimmick was pretty ridiculous. It’s a game show where they supposedly hook you up to a lie-detector and ask you a bunch of personal questions. Answer them truthfully, they give you cash. Answer one wrong, they take away the cash — all while your friends and family sit on the sidelines.

The commercial I saw had a guy hooked up to the machine, and the host asked, “Would you have sex with another woman if you were absolutely sure your wife would never find out?”

He hesitated… they cut to the wife (who looked sick to her stomach) and then… “Coming soon!”

I have not watched it, and will not watch it, because it’s stuff like that that gives television a bad name. I’d talk about it more, but Dr. Laura already said it better than I can. She compares it to the recent movie “Untraceable,” where a killer posts live videos of his victims as they’re being killed, torturing and killing them faster when more people log on. The symbolism is kind of obvious: ratings for these types of shows = death. Death of a person, death of a soul, death of a society… take your pick.

We really need our writers back.

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All right, so, jumping to wild conclusions probably isn’t the way to go ’round these parts. Therefore, I retract my previous statement that “Jack’s father is Jacob!” What I meant by that is: Jack’s father obviously has something to do with Jacob. I’ll try to be more clear in the future. Say what I mean and mean what I say and all that.

So, exactly what is the connection between Jacob and Christian Shepherd? Besides the initials being all symbolic of Jesus Christ and the resurrection theme and what not, I think a commenter over at A Mike’s Life by the name of Frank C might be on to something: maybe Jacob’s spirit — energy force, whatever — inhabits people’s physical shells and saw Jack’s dead father lying there on the island after the crash, his casket all split open with the body still in relatively good shape.

Currently, that makes the most sense to me, so props to Frank.

I would like an explanation, though, that ties together Jacob, the smoke monster, and all the visions the other characters have seen. Kate’s horse, Hurley’s Dave, and Eko’s brother Yemi, maybe even off-island Charlie from last week, for example. But, the Others’ sonic fence seems to repel the smoke monster and if we believe Juliet about not knowing what exactly it is, maybe it and Jacob aren’t connected after all, because Ben seems pretty loyal to Jacob.

Speaking of the sonic fence, I hope we see it again in tomorrow’s episode. Last week, Locke rounded up a faction of survivors and headed to abandoned Othersville, hoping to keep away from the freighter people by means of the fence. I ripped this little snippet to remind you what it does, in case you forgot.

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What I love about this clip is that you aren’t really sure if the electrical surging noises are sounds generated by the fence or if it’s part of the show’s musical score. Probably both, in which case, that’s friggin ACE.

Anyway, the more I think about what happened last week and what’s supposed to happen in tomorrow’s episode, I think the answer to “what are the Ocean Six lying about?” is pretty clear.

I’m thinking back to one of the first things Naomi said after she parachuted onto the island: “you can’t be the survivors of Flight 815, they found the wreckage… and all the bodies.”

When I first heard that, I started thinking that the survivors were all clones or the plane somehow duplicated itself or some other sci-fi explanation, but, if there is one thing to keep in mind when thinking about Lost it’s this: keep it simple. Things hide in plain sight (plane sight?!!? eh?!?) The simplest explanation is that it’s a cover up.

We know the Widmores, Mittelos Bioscience, and the Hanso Foundation have a lot to do with what’s happened on the island in the past, in one way or another. If Oceanic Airlines agreed to go along with some kind of cover up in order to call off the search in order to keep the island hidden, maybe Jack, Kate, Hurley, and the rest of the Oceanic Six screwed things up by going and getting themselves rescued. Now, all of the companies that paid off Oceanic Airlines are trying to keep the Six quiet, and that’s when all the lying starts. They need cover stories, etc.

The celebrity/Jack signing autograph’s thing might explain the cover story… maybe Oceanic just said something like “Oops, we didn’t find all of the bodies after all…” and then claimed that there were six “heroes” who washed ashore on an island (not our island) and survived long enough for rescue. The other castaways that we all know and love might have just been left behind because they couldn’t explain all of them “coming back to life.”

I really wonder what Michael’s story was if/when he was found. Do you think it’s true that he wouldn’t tell people what happened on the island because of what he did to get off? Or do you think he’d admit to everything in hopes that extenuating circumstances were enough to keep him out of trouble?

Maybe the freighter found them because Michael told them where to go? Either way, if tonight’s episode is about the people on that freighter, I suspect we’ll get that answer.

Let’s play a game. Winner gets to donate to my wedding fund. Complete this sentence from this week’s preview: “You want to know why we’re here? I’ll tell you why we’re here…”

My guess: “…we’re here to pay back what they did to the rest of the Dharma Initiative!” They can finally see the island, and will hold Ben responsible for his little purge.

Then again, if that’s the case… who is making the food drops?

::headache::

More tomorrow!

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Have you ever seen something so funny that you know deep in your chest you should laugh, but you just can’t because it’s that funny. That’s kind of how I feel about this.

Back in my awkward middle/high school days, I was all about the Spice Girls. Mostly because they were hot, but I thought their music was pretty good too. When they got back together for a tour last fall I thought it might be cool — not that I’d go see it, but I figured someone might. Apparently not, I guess. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard much from them since the beginning of the tour.

They’re blaming it on “family obligations,” and apparently didn’t know they’d be doing this many tours.  Way to plan ahead, girls.

This news doesn’t surprise me at all, and the way they’re announcing it really doesn’t either. And that little “we love each other, are you kidding?” thing was a little too obvious. Almost like the video itself is a joke of some kind. I think that’s why I want to laugh.

G’night!

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