Lost for Other Reasons, on a Different Sort of Island

I've been quiet. But I have a good excuse: For the first time in a while, I have neither time nor desire to sit in front of a computer and interpret the world through the words that come out of my fingers. Instead, I've been actually doing things, seeing people and making words with my mouth. More importantly, I've been doing so in New York, where there's plenty of things to be done, a seemingly infinite number of people to see, and so many words to make. (Big in that last category: “Excuse me” and questions beginning with the word “where.”) Today, however, is a cool-down day and my first real chance to think about the past week. Decisions must be made and I think my brain is slowly getting to a point that it can make them. Slowly. And definitely not in a manner that is conducive to the formation of words in the near future.

So in lieu of anything else, you get something that I'll throw together about Lost, a show that I've had a few opportunities to think about while in New York. It's occasionally a thematically appropriate show, despite my life's lack of smoke monsters. (So far.)

I actually had reason to think about Lost moments before I stepped out of the cab that drove me from the airport. In the show's first episode, the Losers hear the thing that eventually came to be known as the Smoke Monster. It crashes through the trees, all the while clicking and clanking and making all manner of machine-like noises that we don't usually associate with masses of air. One of the Losers, Bronx native Rose, notes that the then-unseen entity sounded familiar --- an odd comment that I don't think has ever been directly addressed on the show itself. The people who make Lost have admitted, however, that one of the noises incorporated into Smokey's repertoire of sound effects is that of a receipt printer as one might find in a New York City taxicab, hence Rose's familiarity. I'd heard this but forgotten it, until the moment my cab ride ended. And then bam! Lost, when I least expected it. Cue the signature Lost horn of alarm. Whaaaaaaaam! SURPRISING THING!

In explaining this little connection to Sanam, she one-upped me and admitted that she spotted on the subway a man who looked exactly like Ethan Rom, the creeper Other who tried to steal Claire's poor little island baby. (Further clarification: He's the one who looks like a melty-faced Tom Cruise, because he's played by William Mapother, who is Tom Cruise's melty-faced cousin.) Sanam managed to sneak a photo:

A striking resemblance, you must admit. Of course, given that someone recently stole all of Sanam's babies, it probably really was Ethan Rom. Whaaaaaaaam!