"A Juliet WCM For A Poster"

In spite of a few water cooler moments given to Juliet, it seems doubtful that she will get a poster all to herself. But if she did, her encounter with Smokey might make a great subject. She stood up to Smokey better than most of the guys when she and Kate were getting chased by it. Not only did she seem to be fairly confident in the banyan tree when Smokey was scanning the women, but she showed her usual island gutsiness at the sonic fence as well -- most likely due to the familiarity with Smokey that she gained as an insider in Otherville.

Why this seems like a Juliet WCM for me, is because it embodies the complete 180' turn that her personality made after she came to the island, possibly exhibiting what's known as "Pissed-Off Passive Syndrome" (which I can very much relate to after 32 years at IBM). Pre-Island, she couldn't even stand up to her Ex when he brought his Honey into the lab not even caring if Juliet would see them. She actually hunkered down on the ground hiding from them behind lab equipment. Then well beyond the supposed end of her term with the Others, she stands on her feet going toe-to-toe (if Smokey has toes) with some kind of unworldly monster. It would have made an interesting poster-worthy moment, IMHO.

"Happy Lostoween!"

Brought to you by poster #7, and my usual silly modifications. BTW, close-ups of the poster have been taken by the lucky owners who so kindly share their acquisitions with us, and this one has some very nice gold detailing.

"Poster #9"

This week's poster is an amazing piece of Lost subject done in minimalist (some say comic book) graphic style -- the radio tower, the A-team, and Shannon's first appearance in a poster. But the color did nothing for me. I would have tried to buy it if it looked more like how I manipulated the color above (but with a blue sky -- I couldn't make only the vegetation green and the sky blue with my program). I'm not crazy about beige at all. But it's a great poster and a perfect slice-of-Lost moment nonetheless, in my opinion. The translating of Rousseau's transmission was a jolting development that introduced a storm of questions in viewer's minds. Some people don't think so, but I do.

The original colors. An odd choice to me, but I must defer to the professional here.

"For Cusick Fans"

This week on the PBS series "Nova", the show veered off into more of a "Masterpiece Theater" genre, showing a two-part movie "Darwin's Darkest Hour." Henry Ian Cusick stars as Charles Darwin, looking still very much like island-Des with the longer Victorian period hair, but without the Scottish accent. Cusick plays the fatherly Darwin well, who in this stage of his life before his notes and ideas were published, balanced his passion for studying nature with family life. The 2-hour drama is interesting, but a bit heavy on the exposition. Much of Darwin's formative years of study are shown in flashbacks during talks with his wife. All in all though, a good venue for Desmond fans to see Cusick in another role.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/darwin

"We've Got A Bomb"

Not much time for posting rambling words about Lost lately, I've been getting some tech training at a museum where I volunteer by day, and I've been fully engrossed in Ken Burns' "The National Parks" documentary series on PBS all this week by night. But I have been thinking about how great it was that TPTB gave us some scenes with the Hostiles in the temple-like grotto of the tunnels and taking some of the Losties there! Actually, Jack found out about Jughead before they swam to the cave, not like my liberty-taking graphic above shows, and he surprisingly believed it. He never believes anything anyone says usually, whoodathunk he'd buy that? I do have some difficulty understanding how the Hostiles moved Jughead to the grotto, I hope that we find out more about that. Maybe Smokey rolled it there, or they used Ed Leedskalnin's anti-gravity method of moving tons of coral to build a little castle garden in Florida all by himself. :-) http://coralcastle.com

By the way, if these tunnels are near and/or under the barracks, that seems to be the way that Richard evaded the security of the sonic fence when he marched in and planted the torch in the quad. Alluding to this array of tunnels also lends credence to the theory that there could be a tunnel network on the island that allowed Ethan and Goodwin to get to the wreckage sites so quickly. It also helps to picture the connection to the tunnel entrance in Ben's (and formerly Horace's?) cottage and Smokey's lair. Indeed, some details are coming together a bit for us, however sketchy.

I hope that everyone is enjoying the Lost poster activities, the latest artwork of Smokey and Eko is awesome. A very good graphic for Halloween as well.

"Some Emmy Satisfaction"

It's so fantastic that the Emmy people made the choice for Michael Emerson to win best supporting actor in a drama. Of course we all love him and wished for the best to happen last night, and there will be plenty of posts today on his win, but I couldn't resist a little Lost-gloating as a fan myself. Here's an interesting website dedicated to M.E. http://www.michaelemerson.net

"What Now Ben?"

This scene has been on my mind, and I've been wondering if this is the first time that Jacob ever touched Ben. If it is, will Ben be affected by Jacob's contact as we are to assume that the lives of the Losties that he touched were? Granted, Jack didn't seem to become any less of a tool after his encounter with Jacob at the candy machine, so I wouldn't expect miracles with Ben here. But since for whatever reason Jacob had withheld his presence from Ben, the gravity of this first contact could be a very profound one on such an attention hungry man. This could be the final straw that wrecks Ben's last good nerve, and becomes the release valve that blows the pressure that's built up in him after a life of working very hard on things that perhaps he never understood at all.

So it brings to mind the question of what's in store for Ben in S6. There are no take-backs when you bludgeon someone, Ben could stumble back from seeing Jacob callously kicked into the flames and feel that he made a terrible mistake. Or he could whip around and finish his stabbing spree on Not-Locke out of insane anger at being used for yet another killing. Maybe Jacob's phoenix spirit will whisper to Ben, the way that Obi-Wan whispered to Luke, that it's better this way. But Luke didn't kill Obi, so who knows if Ben can come back from the dark side after murdering the man he thought was his hero.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing how this event will effect Ben and what he will do next. But my imagination is leaning towards seeing the act of killing Jacob completely cracking Ben's mind under the weight of all his previous evil deeds, and then he lives the rest of his life mumbling and playing Connect-Four with Lenny at Santa Rosa.

"My Jacob Fantasy"

Before we finally learned who Jacob was, in my imagination I pictured him to be someone much like Captain Nemo. They do have similar personalities as far as we knew up to Season 5: reclusive, disliking the modern world, judgemental, with a peculiar wisdom of sorts that inspired devoted followers. Of course it would be totally unoriginal if TPTB did this, and I would not expect them too. I just enjoyed combining two of my favorite old fantasy movies ("20,000 Leagues Under The Sea", and "Mysterious Island") with the similar Lost story in my mind for a while.

And now we know that Jacob is actually two people! Well not really, but we got two for the price of one when Jacob was finally revealed, which added all kinds of confusion into the mix as far as who is telling whom to do what and for why, on the island. How about that, we were so intently trying to figure out who Jacob could be, and then they threw the Bad Twin at us too (sorry couldn't resist the reference). I pretty much dare TPTB to unwind this thing to my satisfaction by the end of Season 6, but I will bow to their artistic genius when they do.

"Second Lost Poster"

The second installment of Lost posters to buy suckered me in and I bought one. I'm number #105, dang so close. :-)

This poster is very reminiscent of the movie poster for "Vertigo", but with the wheelchair it fits better with "Rear Window", that had James Stewart in a lower body cast the entire movie. He played an intrepid globe-trotting photo journalist, and no one told his character what to do in that movie either!

This poster also has some personal meaning for me, since I've been spending the past few years recovering from aggressive chemo and radiation therapy which rendered me physically handicapped in many ways. So I have to keep telling myself that my limitations can't tell me what to do, although I often must succumb to them. I'll just keep this poster handy for inspiration!

"This Little Piggie"

On the subject of the number of Jacob's and MIB's toes, there aren't many screencaps available to assist in the research of both of the men in question. A few images confirm that Jacob has the average number of toes on an Earthling, on the foot that counts anyway -- i.e. like the left foot of the broken statue.

As for MIB, I haven't come across any definitive caps to resolve the query of his features yet. If anyone finds a good one, let us know. Tx. :-)

"I'm Just Saying - #4"

The SD convention is over now and we're back to ruminating about S5 until Lost University opens, or someone gets more information out of the odd videos of Hurley, Kate, and Oceanic Air. Meanwhile, I've been thinking about Ben and Judas Iscariot.

A few things about the finale in the statue base, and Ben overall, have been reminding me of the stories that we know about Judas. It's believed from the Gospels of the Judeo-Christian bible that Judas did not quite become a follower of Jesus' teachings and what they really meant. That is, he didn't seem to really understand that Jesus was speaking of saving Israel in a spiritual sense, and rather might have put his hopes in Jesus being an earthly conqueror in releasing the Jewish nation from the immediate physical oppressors in their promised land -- i.e., to solve all of their problems in the here and now, not in some heavenly lofty "later". If he came to realize that this was not the case, it may have made him bitter and therefore easily swayed into turning Jesus over to be accused of being a false leader.

According to the other apostles, Judas was usually the stone in the cogs for much of their missions together. For example he allegedly hoped for a high position in the kingdom that he thought Jesus was building on earth, and when he saw that wasn't going to happen, that also turned him away. He was the groups' treasurer as we know, and when Jesus was anointed in Bethany, he pretended to be concerned for the poor and the wasted money represented in using the precious oil to anoint Jesus. But Jesus and other disciples knew his intentions (and that he took funds from their moneybag [John 12:6]), illustrated in his later deal for silver coins as well. It is also thought that Judas is one of the grumbling disciples mentioned who "...turned back and no longer followed Him..." (John 6:60-71). At that point Judas might have felt as if his allegiance to Jesus was all a waste of time and wasn't going to get him anywhere. His ambitious disappointment was capped by what happened in the garden of Gethsemane, when Judas gave his former teacher over to the officials who were already annoyed with Jesus.

Judas' misunderstanding of Jesus' purpose, his misguided faith, and eventual disillusionment and betrayal, all came to my mind as Ben whined to Jacob about not getting the kind of attention that he wanted after all of his efforts in Jacob's plans. Being so worked up in his heart, Ben was an easy target for Flocke/MIB tricking him into betraying Jacob in anger, resulting in Jacob's death -- just as Judas was finally an easy bribing target for the people who wanted Jesus silenced. I also couldn't help thinking that perhaps Jacob's making Ben wait, was a type of test for Ben that he ultimately failed miserably. I also wonder if Jacob knew this the way that Jesus knew about Judas' fate.

So do I think that TPTB were specifically making parallels between Ben's and Judas' life in the final scene of betrayal by Ben and Flocke? I don't know. I'm just sayin'.

"Comic Con From Afar"

This past Sunday's Foxtrot cartoon (click for large readable jpg) just about says it all for those of us who can't get to SDCC this week, for the final participation of the Lost powers-that-be. So, we'll live vicariously through our Lost friends who can, and who'll give us their timely reports. P.S. Bill Amend is pretty neat, and very geek-friendly in his cartoons. :o)

"Separated At Birth?"

Remember the photos and book published by Spy Magazine back in the 1980s that showed non-related famous people who looked like the twin of another random famous person? Well just for fun (and because I'm all theoried-out at the moment) I've got another entry. I give you: Neil Frogurt...

...and David Bowie. Definitely twin sons from different mothers, on different continents, haha. Have a good week everyone, give a toast to all of our astronauts who went to the Moon and back 40 years ago, and hopefully we will get a little pre-ComicCon goodie sent out through the ether this week to set the tone for whatever is to come from the Lost panel coming up!

"I'm Just Saying - #3"

The scene where Charlotte pokes her head up out of the lagoon after cutting herself free from the parachute so brought to mind the scene in "Apocalypse Now" when Capt. Willard's head emerges from the river. Both Charlotte and Willard are on two missions -- to find a nutcase in control of a renegade faction, and to find the meaning of their lives. You can imagine Charlotte thinking the thoughts of Willard as she ponders her next move, "Part of me was afraid of what I would find and what I would do when I got there. I knew the risks, or imagined I knew. But the thing I felt the most, much stronger than fear, was the desire to confront him."

We don't know if Charlotte was at the end of her sanity in her search for the meaning of her past and future, as was Willard. But we can empathize with the same combination of fear and exhilaration she may have felt. And we can imagine Ben reciting the words of Col. Kurtz as well: "But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. As for the charges against me, I am unconcerned. I am beyond their timid lying morality, and so I am beyond caring." I don't know if TPTB were trying to create a purposeful image link with Charlotte's lagoon moment and "Apocalypse Now", even though Lost bloggers have made other comparisons to Conrad's book "Heart of Darkness" in the early seasons of the show. I'm just sayin'.

"Some Lost Art From My Past"

This old dried up, cracked, and unfinished painting that I did in high school art class stares at me from the wall every time I sit at the computer. As I spend so much time online talking to my blog-buddies about Lost in front of this picture, I decided to revisit my past in Lost style, to give a new name to my old painting. I used to call it the "Cheez-Whiz" painting, for obvious reasons. But now I've renamed it "The Elizabeth" for Lost-related reasons. It makes me dislike the painting a lot less, so that's a good thing. :o)