Based on a one-off tweet from Roger Ebert the other day – one which led to his blog on the Chicago Sun-Times site – I completely jumped down the early adolescent memory rabbit hole.

You owe it to yourself to watch the video and read the essay re-printed there so I won’t steal it’s thunder.

For the uninitiated, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was Hayao Miyazaki’s first feature film and if you haven’t experienced it (or his other works), you’re missing out. As Mr. Ebert says in his tweet, “Some people haven’t seen a Miyazaki film. They should start here.”

Several of Miyazaki’s films are on Google Video and here’s an embed of Nausicaä to make it easier for you:

I first saw a snippet of the movie at a comic convention where it was playing from a tattered VHS along side a similar quality copy of the Dolph Lundgren Punisher movie. One of the two left a lasting impression on me.

Later during that same timeframe (middle school is, thankfully, a blur) I caught the bastardized international version on HBO. I was struck by the glider Nausicaä flew and the goliath “Ohm” creatures.

Watching it again as an adult – with the new voice talent for its re-release – I realize how brilliant and beautiful the story is. Miyazaki isn’t just an amazing animator or brilliant inventor of worlds, he tells very deep, emotional stories too, ones that transcend his chosen medium.

I’ve been going on ad nauseam about the movie to Jenn the past couple of days and I would really like Raelyn to watch it if we can track down a copy somewhere. I’d rather see it together on a bigger screen instead of a laptop, but I’ll take what I can get.

We’ve already watched Spirited Away together and, though she didn’t quite get what it was about, the fact that it was something the two of us shared together as father and daughter was really special. Plus, I like the fact that Miyazaki’s heroes tend to be heroines and that they show much more than just the courage and bravery of standard male heroic characters.

I want Raelyn to learn those lessons but also appreciate cartoons as an art form and not just a distraction (though we both enjoy Phineas & Ferb and Spongebob Squarepants, much to the consternation of her mother).

Seeing the movie reminded me of the wonder of animation and the power of childhood memories. Spirited Away hits more of the notes of the movement of child to adulthood, but something about Nausicaä really sticks with me. Maybe it’s the earnestness and conviction of the titular character. Maybe it’s just a damn fine film.

Either way, enjoy!

I’m thinking I should take this story somewhere, but I have very little time to develop any of my original writing. Let me know if you think it’s worth continuing.

I don’t like reading.
I don’t read.

This isn’t odd for a writer, especially a journalist.

I’m busy. I read my Blackberry and my bank statement and my travel itinerary.

I’m busy.
I don’t read.

Of course, the version of the truth I’m telling here – the version of myself I’m showing you – is an edited document, not the raw logs. If this were all there was of me, it’d be fraught with chicken scratches and coffee stains and the faint taint of nicotine and sweat.

Oh, and the regular smudge of newsprint.

See, I lied. I still read the paper. Every morning. Front page to Obits and even the lingering glances at the Personals.

Habit is a powerful magnet. That and I love the smell of paper like other people enjoy Scotch or Cigar Smoke of New Car (or New Baby).

Scent being the sense with the strongest linkage to our memory, maybe I’m just trying to remember what it’s like to be home. Have a real life and a real job.

It’s my Grandfather’s study and all those aromas are there. The scotch and smoke and new car scent (even my baby brother’s dirty diaper – not so fresh or new baby) all coalesce into that newsprint. Those pages. That heap of captured words and captioned pictures and comics and coupons.

That’s me now.

A heap.
Captured.
Captioned.
Comical.
Handing a drink coupon to a stewardess on a flight to nowhere.

I haven’t read the ticket. Don’t know my itinerary. Don’t know my assignment or the assignment editor.

Shut off the berry. Shut down. See you on the ground.

Comments appreciated.

When you’ve been married a long time (over ten years in our case) it’s easy to forget the romance and magic of your courtship and early married life, the time(s) before you had three kids.

When you’re first married, you say things like “soulmate” and “destiny” (Just not too loudly, as it induces vomiting in others).

And when you see the story of a married couple – who lived in different countries as children – appearing together in a photograph taken while they both vacationed at Disney World well, then, you blog it.

I initially got the story from Peta Pixel who was quoting BoingBoing who ran with the story as reported by The Disney Blog. The story even made CNN today.

When I mentioned the story to Jenn last night both of us got chills. Watch the video above and tell me it doesn’t stir you in some way, especially if you’re married or coupled.

It reminded us both of many of the stories on Lost (yes, I’m officially a one-note broken record) but also of an encounter that occurred in our own past, before we “met” officially.

Way back in the Fall of 1993 I was a high school Drum Major leading my marching band at a competition and Jenn was a color guard member who got to lead bands from the staging area to the football field.

That night was especially cold in Georgia (for October anyhow) and we both have vivid memories of the competition and the cold. I remember being led to the field by two color guard members in their lettermen jackets one of whom could easily have been Jenn.

It’s not quite the Disney World story above, but it’s our own little crossed paths story.

Do you have your own? Let me know in the comments.

So here it is.

Finally.

The End.

I’ve been putting off writing this post at least in part because it signifies not only the end of the series, but a significant portion of my blogging activities.

For the better part of the last 5 years (I didn’t start blogging about individual episodes until the Premiere of Season 2) I’ve taken my Thursday (or, as it ended, Tuesday) nights collecting my off-the-cuff results and putting them out there for the world to see, share & comment upon.

It’s been very gratifying and enjoyable, but at times it was also a lot of work.

More often than not, I’d have a long list of comments and theories waiting in my inbox the morning after.

I became an addict of Lostpedia, Dark UFO, FYL, Doc Jensen, the official Lost podcast and several of their alternate reality games.

I got LOST and I loved every minute of it.

Now some folks are using the LOST metaphor to completely justify the series finale, The End. I’m not going to be quite so gung ho, but I did enjoy it very much. It was a fitting EMOTIONAL ending if perhaps not the most INTELLECTUAL ending that many folks anticipated.

First, I’ll dispense with my minor quibbles:

• Purgatory

Using Season 6′s Flash Sideways storyline as a weigh station for our Losties as they moved between their (mostly) Island-based lives and the afterlife was brilliant in one sense. It provided a nice cover/thumbed-nose to all the haters who speculated that the Island itself was Purgatory.

Well played, Darlton!

But exactly what relationship did that reality have to the overall story arc of our Losties?

Some have theorized that each character gave themselves the kind of “life” in the Flash Sideways that they thought they deserved.

Others (myself included) thought it was another parallel universe/reality/timeline that would eventually merge with the Island storyline.

Darlton had always said that this wasn’t an alternate/alternative to the Island, but something equally “real”. If that’s the case, if the exposition there served to greater explain our characters, I’m still going to need some time to unravel all the little bits we learned about everyone.

I’m actually undecided about whether or not we can learn anything new about each character from this Flash Sideways if, ultimately, it was only a rest stop between Life and Death.

Like I said, a quibble.

• Eko, Michael, Walt

I understand the realities of making a television, I honestly do, but I really wish we’d gotten more closure on the fates of some of the first two season’s BEST characters.

I could care less about these questions:

What was Walt’s power?
Why did Smoky kill Eko?
Why is Michael stuck on the island as a whisper?

But I would’ve liked to have known just a little more about those connected to them: Yemi, Vincent the Dog (who looks to have lived out his life with Rose & Bernard [though he wasn't in the church] & Susan.

Again, minor nitpicks, but I wanted some of the closure for those outside of the church group.

We can discuss Ben not entering the church, but I think that’s just an indication that he wasn’t ready (or someone he was waiting on) to move on.

And I realize that Eko’s exclusion was contractual in nature: they didn’t want to pay him a king’s ransom.

• ABC’s added confusion

I also understand that promo departments have to drive viewership, but I think part of the blame for fan confusion/backlash about the ending stems from the heavily promoted axiom of “answers” as opposed to “closure” or “goodbye” that would have been more in keeping with the timbre of the finale episode and, ultimately, the series overall.

Phew. What a wreck of a run-on sentence.

Also, they truly fucked up airing the beach view of the plane crash post episode/over the credits.

Many mistook this to mean that the Island was not real (contradicting Christian Shephard) and thought everyone died in the initial crash. Not so.

Others thought this meant Ajira 316 crashed a second time. Also not true.

ABC had to issue a press release explaining themselves, but they really did marr the ending and mess with the perceptions of the fans, many of whom were looking for some kind of Deus Ex Machina to tie up everything. [Sidebar: the mere fact that episode 19 of Season 1 is named Deus Ex Machina should have tipped you off that maybe they were going to toy with questions & answers a wee bit]

I think what we got was much more satisfying, gratifying and respectful than Desmond’s Electromagnetism, Faraday’s “Constant” or Mother’s “Light” explanation could ever have been.

That said, I still want to know where Christian’s body was after the 815 crash. ;-)

For those that want closure/exposition/explanation, let me direct you to 2 minutes, 50 seconds of awesome, narrated by nerimon, who closes thusly:

“For me, Lost is a show that isn’t about the story, it’s about how the story is told.”

Amen, brutha.

We had flashbacks, flash forwards, flash sideways, time travel and all things Desmond. We got to see the survivors and their antagonists/protagonists through a huge number of lenses and told to divine (pun intended) our own truth about their natures and ultimate destiny for ourselves.

Brilliant!

On the flipside, there are unanswered questions, which I’m happy to discuss, if that’s the kind of thing you’re in to.

My own take?

I’ll just put out a couple of though-starters:

• Jacob::Old Testament God; Smokey::Satan; Hurley::Jesus Christ/New Testament God

YMMV, and I know there’s enough religion going around on LOST to start our own denomination, but that’s my reading on things.

Add in Adam & Eve in the cave (actually Mother & Smoky) and maybe the island is some kind of Garden of Eden, minus original sin.

I don’t know. Makes my head hurt.

Maybe the Island is just a MacGuffin after all, and I’m OK with that.

I even thought Mother’s “Light” explanation of things was a bit too squishy for me. Better to leave those Midi-chlorians undefined, IMHO.

• The symmetry/asymmetry of Lost’s storytelling

The first decade of the 21st century gave us both 24 & Lost, two shows that played with the rules/mores or TV storytelling like no other shows had done before.

While it infuriated new viewers, frustrated current viewers and sometimes confused the Hell out of both camps, the circular, flashing, interwoven storylines are what made LOST great.

I looked forward every week to reading blogs for Easter Eggs, book & music references and the subtle, hidden connections between each and every character.

If Jack’s “Live Together, Die Alone” statement was a rallying cry for the Losties, the finale showed us that each one had to “die alone” so they could eventually “live (forever) together”.

I’d still like to know what happened to Hurley, Ben, Desmond & Penelope after Jack closed his eyes, but that’s a different story.

Did Sawyer really reform after Ajira 316?
Did Kate go back to a life of crime (or was she captured) [she survived TWO plane crashes!!!]?
Did Lapidus get a hero’s welcome?
Did they start their own “Ajira 6″ backstory to explain everything?

As you can see, my questions aren’t about Dharma (science) or Others (faith) since, to me, those groups were just stand-ins (at times) for various sides to the Island argument.

Jacob v. Smokey
Locke v. Jack
Ben v. Widmore

All of them explorations of what we saw back in Man of Science, Man of Faith back in Season 2.

In the end, I got as LOST as the characters, and LOST *in* the characters, as I ever wanted to be.

No explanation of time travel or the numbers or the light or the hatches would ever be as satisfying as the thought that what mattered, to those people, was spending eternity together based on a few hundred days together (plus three years) on an Island.

MacGuffin or not, I’m happy that plane crashed and even more happy that the story was told (and eventually ended) with us winding our way back and forth over times and stories to a place where we’d all have to sit back and reflect on what happened.

I’ll leave you quoting the inimitable Bud Cadell:

Sorry friends, but the writers didn’t ‘waste’ your time, that community you’re griping to is what they offerred you.

All of this here (and maybe even the show itself) was just my two cents. Agree or disagree, like or dislike, I’ve enjoyed the journey and your company on it.

If you ever lurked or commented or linked, please stop by in the comments and say hello and/or goodbye.

I’ll see you in another life, brutha.

:-)

First off, here’s a fan-made trailer for the series finale. Much better than the promo we got at the end of tonight’s episode.

Here are my very brief thoughts on tonight’s episode, What They Died For:

• Choice

Now we hear it straight from the horse’s mouth: Jacob wants the candidates to choose who among them will take his place.

If Lost is about nothing else, it’s the choices we make as self-defining versus the immutability (destiny) of some outer appearance of the self.

Good times and I think we’ll see even better choices this Sunday in the finale.

Which leads to …

• Secrets & Grudges

I loved the fact that Widmore trusted Smoky enough to whisper in his ear almost as much as I really loved Ben shooting him just to get even vis-a-vis Penny & Alex.

Just when you think all the still-living Losties have somehow learned their lesson and grown personally, Ben goes back to being Ben, at least on the island. His statement to Smoky about “who else do you want me to kill” was almost as chilling as him calling himself Henry Gale that first time. I didn’t trust him then and I don’t trust him know. Love him though!

Also, interesting to note that even in the revelations of both Smoky and Jacob, there’s still some level of uncertainty. Neither one is omniscient, just very, very powerful. I think there are still some compelling secrets to be revealed and at least one more double-back by one of the main players, likely Desmond.

Des’ part in the flash sideways is brilliant, by the way. He’s become so much more than that button-pushing, sweaty, Widmore lackey. Happy to see him keep pulling secrets out of his pockets and hopefully that continues on the island in the finale.

• Regret

Jacob seemed to share some regret about “creating” Smoky (Very God and the Devil, don’t you think?

Widmore seemed at least a little penitent for playing his prior part in the island’s history (not that it stopped Ben from taking his revenge).

Sawyer regretted the choice (see above) he made about the bomb that ultimately led to Sayid’s death.

• Duty

One of the most under-referenced themes of the show (or maybe I’m just tone-deaf) is folks doing things “for the island”.

I think a lot of those impulses come from a sense of duty and, some might put it, purpose.

Good to see Jack drink from the well of knowledge (Adam eating the apple?) and “be like Jacob” but also fun to see Ben accept his role.

Off island, I really dig Desmond getting the band back together and Hurley as one of the major driving forces. Weird to think that flash sideways Hurley would accept leadership more than island Hurley. Would’ve bet on the other way around. Good on ya, writers.

Other tiny bits:

Good to see Ana Lucia, but now I’m curious how Sawyer gets roped in. Maybe he goes to the concert with Miles after all.

Also happy to see Mira Furlan (Danielle) and Ben get domestic.

Here’s some other random links:

On Lost & Creativity. A great read.

I think I’ll need this t-shirt once I’ve seen the series finale this weekend.

Or maybe I’ll bid on a prop in this auction.

You should also check out The Muppets visiting the production offices of Lost, especially The Swedish Chef. This is “Mostly Muppet” after all. ;-)

Until Sunday!