I just finished watching the second season of Lost on DVD. It’s become a cult classic as the third season gets underway, with fans offering all sorts of theories as to what exactly is going on.
It reminds me of where we were in 2003 after The Matrix Reloaded during the months before The Matrix Revolutions. Under the alias of Spoon Boy, I participated in a legendary online conversation that became #1 on Google. We got into all sorts of analysis and existential observations, predicting (often rabidly) where the Wachowski brothers were going to take us with the final excerpt of the trilogy. Aside of the folks that embraced the sci-fi story on the surface, some of the deeper thinking people regarded the Matrix story as a metaphor religions like Christianity and Hinduism, finding tons of related symbolism within the films. I for one was an advocate of the “it’s all A.I.” theory, and still love the notion that the whole thing is a metaphor for artificial intelligence. I went off on that here.
Although I’m somewhat of a latecomer to Lost, it struck me that nobody’s noticed that the thematic six numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 add up to the 108 minutes. Also notable is that the button’s alarm goes off with 4 minutes left in the countdown, implying that those 108 minutes could be considered a collective incremental countdown of 42 minutes, 23 minutes, 16 minutes, 15 minutes, 8 minutes, and 4 minutes.
I’m beginning to brainstorm this a bit more, and I’m pretty sure I’m not done yet. For starters, consider the word DHARMA, as in the DHARMA initiative. Notice how the letter D holds the fourth slot in the alphabet, H holds the eighth. Hmmm.
I hope the creative brains behind Lost stumble across something cool to share with us before this is all said and done. They’re really on to something with this if they do it right. Reminds me of the Twilight Zone meets Survivor meets Myst, with a sort of Matrixy flavor. Our cast just hasn’t met their Morpheus yet, which brings us back to the title of the show.
My theory for the record: IT’S ALL A.I.! 😉
Let me first preface this by saying that I don’t consider myself a political person. In a nation split down the middle of people who blindly submit their loyalties to red or blue, I’d probably be somewhere in the area of a dark purple approaching black, or perhaps a pale lavender nearly faded to white, depending on which color system you’re using. I personally find myself disgusted by both the red or blue sides on any given day. (You know who you are.) I point this out to emphasize that anything I say will never have a hidden agenda favoring a certain political party.
That said,
Is anybody going to tell our President how to correctly pronounce ‘nuclear’? My god. In a time when nuclear arms are arguably the most important topic of discussion on the planet, you’d think the skipper of the biggest boat would at least figure out how to pronounce the goddam word. And to those who defend him and others by virtue of the metathesis argument, I disagree. I wouldn’t consider nucular a result of metathesis any more than I would ain’t, orientate, or irregardless. These types of words are results of sadly common linguistic errors, and have nothing to do with intelligently arbitrary syllabatic transposition. Besides, you probably don’t believe in the serial comma anyway.
In fairness, I should point out that he’s not alone. At least two other presidents have done the same thing, namely Clinton and Carter. But since we only have one president at a time, it’s Junior’s problem right now. Lucky guy.
Hey Mr. President, it’s nuclear. Not nucular. NUCLEAR. Say it with me:
NEW-CLEE-AR
It is not, as you say:
NEW-CUE-LAR
It’s nuclear.
What seems to be the confusion? The word nuclear comes from the word nucleus. Not nuculus. Nucleus.
TOP TEN WORDS GEORGE W. BUSH MISPRONOUNCES WHEN THE CAMERAS AREN’T ROLLING
1. nucular (nuclear)
2. tuburcleosis (tuburculosis)
3. particlear (particular)
4. spectaclear (spectacular)
5. simular (similar)
6. circlear (circular)
7. immacleate (immaculate)
8. singlear (singular)
9. cellear (cellular)
10. Caliglua (Caligula)*Runner-up: Draclua (Dracula). Should make the Top Ten this month.
Say what you want about his politics. I’d just like to get somebody in there who doesn’t sound like he has his thumb up his ass when he talks. That’d be a start, anyway.
