Many Happy Returns: February 16th

Feb16

Henry Adams, b. 1838. He was the grandson of one president and the great-grandson of another. Numbered among his many friends were Lincoln’s private secretary John Hay, Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore Roosevelt, geologist Clarence King, Senators Lucius Lamar and James Cameron, artist John La Farge, and writer Edith Wharton. His most famous work was an autobiography written in third person, The Education of Henry Adams. (online here) He also wrote and published many books about his extensive travels and about history.

The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand.

LeVar Burton, b. 1957. Star and executive producer of the PBS series Reading Rainbow. We used to watch a lot of Reading Rainbow, and I still have quite a few episodes on videotape. Mr. Burton also starred as Geordie in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and he got his start as Kunta Kinte in the mini-series Roots, based on the book by the same name. How many of you read Roots when it was a best-seller, about thirty years ago? I remember it as a good story, and it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976. However, in 1978 Mr. Haley was sued for plagiarizing several passages in his book from a book called The African by Harold Courlander. Haley admitted that he did copy Courlander’s work “unintentionally,” and the suit was settled out of court for $650,000.
It was still a good story, and Mr. Burton started a fine career with it. Thanks to Roots and its success as a TV-miniseries, we have Reading Rainbow, a good deal if you ask me.
“But you don’t have to take my word for it.”
Reading Rainbow Official website.
On January 29, 2007, LeVar Burton announced that he had made his last episode of Reading Rainbowand that he was retiring, citing a difference in vision with the new owners of the show. “Their vision was not in alignment with what I stand for,” he said.

Lenten Blog Break and a New 100 Project

Feb16

Today is Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), and tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. For the past three years I’ve taken a break from Semicolon and from blogging for the forty days of Lent. I’ve been blogging since October 2003, and I plan to continue blogging. I just feel that this break is a good time of rest and reevaluation for me and for my family.

I will continue to post the Saturday Review of Books each week, but I may not be able to read your reviews until after I get back in April. I also have a few posts and re-posts and links set up to come online on certain dates while I’m gone.

Last year I conducted a Top 100 Hymns Poll during the spring and summer. I had such a great time counting down all the favorite hymns of all my readers, so I decided to try something similar this year.

IMG_0209I thought a Top 100 Classic Poems Poll would be a great spring/summer project. I might learn something and be encouraged in my own quest to learn and appreciate poetry. You might learn some new poems or be reminded of some classics. We all might enjoy visiting and re-visiting the best in English poetry together.

Here’s how I think this poll/journey is going to work:
1. Make a list of your top ten classic poems of all time.
Classic: judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind.
For the purposes of this poll the poems you choose should be poems that are no longer under copyright protection. Anything written before 1910 (1923?) is most likely no longer under copyright. Anything written after 1910 (1923?) is probably still protected by copyright. I’m putting this restriction on your selections for two reasons: first, this way the poems in our list will be truly classic, judged over a period of time. Second, if we restrict the list to poetry that is not under copyright, then I can freely share the poems that are chosen here at Semicolon.

2. List these poems in your order of preference. So your #1 poem would be the one you like the best, and so on. I will be giving your first choice 10 points, your second choice 9 points, and so on.

3. Submit your list to me at sherryDOTearlyATgmailDOTcom. Write “Poem Survey” in the subject line. I’d rather you didn’t leave your votes in my comments here because it’ll be easier to tabulate all the votes if they’re all in my email (plus I want everyone’s votes to be a surprise). Deadline for votes to be sent to me is midnight, March 26, 2010.

4. If you like, you can submit a justification for each poem (tell me why it’s a favorite). Or you can send me a link to an audio or video version online. Include the title or first line of the poem and the name of the poet. At the end of March I will tally up the totals, and I will pull from the submitted pieces why one reader or another liked a particular poem (naming the reader, of course). That way we’ll be able to hear from a whole bunch of people about why they love one poem or another. I will then count down from 100 to 1, over the course of Poetry Month (April), May and into June, the top choices of what folks feel the best classic poems of all time are.

Thanks in advance for your votes/nominations. I’m going to enjoy this little exercise, and I hope you will, too.
Oh, and if you don’t mind, I would appreciate your publicizing this poll on your blog. I’d like to get at least 100 nominations or lists for this survey; more would be even better. If you want to post your top ten list on your blog, that’s fine. Just be sure you send me a copy.

Finally here are a few links to help you as you observe Lent, waiting and watching for our Lord’s Resurrection Day:

10 Lenten Traditions to Enrich Your Family’s Easter Celebration by Barbara Curtis.

Books for Lent to Lead You into Resurrection

Lenten Links: Resources for a Post-Evangelical Lent by iMonk.

At a Hen’s Pace An Anglican Family Lent

Vegetarian Recipes for Lent.

Janice Meredith by Paul Leiscester Ford

Feb15

OK, so older is not always better. The bestsellers of today are sometimes full of gratuitous sex and violence, without much depth of character and devoid of significant meaning.

Janice Meredith, one of the ten best selling novels of 1900, didn’t have any sex, other than a few stolen kisses, and the violence of the American Revolution was described somewhat obliquely through the eyes and experiences of the noncombatants, Janice and her mother. For example:

“Only with death did the people forget the enormities of those few months, when Cornwallis’s army cut a double swath from tide water almost to the mountains, and Tarleton’s and Simcoe’s cavalry rode whither they pleased; and the hatred of the British and the fear of their own slaves outlasted even the passing away of the generation which had suffered.”

Nevertheless, the character development in Janice Meredith is poor, and by today’s standards, the book could have been edited down from 503 pages to about half that. Janice herself begins the novel as a giddy teenager reading romance novels and indulging in romantic fantasies, and she ends the novel, after having bounced from one suitor to the next and back over a dozen times, indulging in her new romantic fantasy of marriage to dashing young officer with her father’s reluctant permission.

The characters of the Revolution –George Washington, Cornwallis, General Gates, General Lee, and others—appear with as much historical accuracy as can be expected in a romance novel. The battles and the deprivations that the people experience as the war drags on seem real, and if the language is little flowery, the descriptions are at least based on fact.

The main problem with the novel was that I never really liked wishy-washy little Miss Meredith. She never knew what she wanted. SHe ran away with one man and was fetched back by her parents. She promised herself in marriage to at least four different men over the course of the novel in return for their help to her and her family as they attempted to navigate the vicissitudes of war. Janice’s father promised her to several different men, usually the same ones Janice affianced, but at differing times. It made for several confusing reversals of plot, and Janice ended up seeming fickle and willing to give herself in marriage to the highest bidder.

If all of the bestsellers of 1900 are like this one, I feel sure that:

a) most of the books on the bestseller list must have been purchased and read by women. I can’t imagine any man reading through 500 pages of this.
b) surely Dickens’ and Thackeray’s heroines were a relief to the ladies of 1900 after reading about Miss Janice. At least Dora (David Copperfield) knows she’s found a good man in David, and Becky Sharp (Vanity Fair) could have transplanted herself to the New World and had a whopping adventure in the time it took Janice to dither around, flirt with half the British army, and then end up where she began with a penniless and somewhat immature American fiance.

Footnote: I looked up the author, Paul Leicester Ford, and his life, or more particularly his death, would make a rather lurid novel. (In fact this NY TImes article about Ford’s death reads like a novel. Ah, the good old days of yellow journalism!) Ford wrote biographies as well as novels, and his subjects were several of the founding fathers, including Washington. So I’m guessing his facts and characterizations are, as I said, quite accurate.

Sunday Salon: Random Stuff

Feb14

The 2009 Cybils Award Winning Books in all categories.

The Semicolon Book Club selection for February is Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. There will be a discussion post on the 28th here at Semicolon. So if you’re reading with us, it’s time to get the book and get reading.

I can spend a lot of time playing Lexulous (Scrabble) if I let myself.

I’m looking forward to my now-annual blog break for Lent. It’s not that I’m tired of blogging, just that I’m ready for an enforced break. Even a self-enforced break.

My sister, Judy, just started her book blog a few weeks ago, and it’s great. If you get tired of reading recycled Semicolon during the forty days of Lent, go over read at Carpe Libris.

I’m starting a new blog project while I’m on break: come back and read all about it on Tuesday, Mardi Gras. Do you do anything special on the Tuesday before Lent? Do you do anything special to observe Ash Wednesday?

Many Happy Returns: February 13th

Feb13

Eleanor Farjeon, b. 1881. Click on her name to read a little more about her life and her poetry.

Grant Wood, b. 1892. American artist born near Anamosa, Iowa.

Georges Simenon,, b. 1903. He was a Belgian-born author of detective fiction. Many of his books feature the Parisian detective, Inspector Maigret. Has anyone read these books? I think I tried one a long time ago, and it seemed that it lost something in the translation. But maybe not.

IMG_0201
Betsy-Bee, b. 1999. She’s a joy and a wonder, Miss Fashion, full of life, our Funny Little Gypsy Girl.

President’s Day for Kids

Feb12

Monday, February 15th is Presidents’ Day, so I thought I’d re-run this list with a few additions. Have a happy holiday!

Leetla Giorgio Washeenton by Thomas Augustine Daly.

More Washington Poetry.

O Captain My Captain by Walt Whitman.

White House site with mini-biographies of all 44 U.S. Presidents.

More information on the Presidents for President’s Day.

Recommended Children’s Books about the Presidents:

The Buck Stops Here by Alice Provensen.

So You Want to be President? by Judith St. George and David Small.

Lives of the Presidents: Fame, Shame (and What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull.

A Book of Americans by Rosemary Carr and Stephen Vincent Benet.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House: Foolhardiness, Folly, and Fraud in the Presidential Elections, from Andrew Jackson to George W. Bush by David E. Johnson.

George Washington and the Founding of a Nation by Albert Marrin.

George Washington’s World by Genevieve Foster.

George Washington’s Breakfast by Jean Fritz.

Dangerous Crossing: The Revolutionary Voyage of John and John Quincy Adams by Stephen Krensky.

John Adams: Young Revolutionary by Jan Adkins. (Childhood of Famous Americans series)

Abigail Adams: Girl of Colonial Days by Jean Brown Wagoner. (Childhood of Famous Americans series)

A Picture Book of Thomas Jefferson by David A. Adler.

The Great Little Madison by Jean Fritz.

Young John Quincy by Cheryl Harness.

Old Hickory: Andrew Jackson and the American People by Albert Marrin.

William Henry Harrison, Young Tippecanoe by Howard Peckham. (Young Patriots series)


Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman

Lincoln Shot: A President’s Life Remembered
 by Barry Denenberg.

Chasing Lincoln’s Killer by James Swanson.

Abraham Lincoln for Kids: His Life and Times with 21 Activities by Janis Herbert.

If You Grew Up With Abraham Lincoln by Ann McGovern.

Unconditional Surrender: U. S. Grant and the Civil War by Albert Marrin.

Bully For You, Teddy Roosevelt by Jean Fritz

The Great Adventure: Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of Modern America by Albert Marrin.

Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery by Russell Freedman.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt by Russell Freedman.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: Young Military Leader by George E. Stanley.(Childhood of Famous Americans series)

Kennedy Assassinated! The World Mourns: A Reporter’s Story by Wilborn Hampton.

Ronald Reagan: Young Leader by Montrew Dunham. (Childhood of Famous Americans series)

Many Happy Returns: Poetry Friday

Feb12

Happy Birthday to poet and novelist George Meredith, b.1828, of whom Oscar Wilde said, “”Ah, Meredith! Who can define him? His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning.” (Wilde had an opinion on everything and everyone, didn’t he?)

Meredith wrote one novel that I’ve read, Diana of the Crossways.

I’ve also read a series of sonnets that Meridith wrote, called Modern Love, in which he worked out his feelings about his wife who three years after their marriaage deserted him and ran away with a Pre-Raphaelite artist. (Those Pre-Raphaelites!) the sonnet sequence consists of fifty sonnets tracing the decay and the death of a romance and a marriage. Rather a sad subject for the advent of Valentine’s Day. Think of it as an antidote to all the hearts and flowers clogging the airways.

It is the season of the sweet wild rose,
My Lady’s emblem in the heart of me!
So golden-crownèd shines she gloriously,
And with that softest dream of blood she glows:
Mild as an evening heaven round Hesper bright!
I pluck the flower, and smell it, and revive
The time when in her eyes I stood alive.
I seem to look upon it out of Night.
Here’s Madam, stepping hastily. Her whims
Bid her demand the flower, which I let drop.
As I proceed, I feel her sharply stop,
And crush it under heel with trembling limbs.
She joins me in a cat-like way, and talks
Of company, and even condescends
To utter laughing scandal of old friends.
These are the summer days, and these our walks.

Ouch. I hope if you send your love roses for Valentine’s Day, they fare better than the one in the poem.

Cybils YA Fiction Finalists

Feb11

Blue Plate Special by Michelle D. Kwasney
Chronicle Books
I haven’t found this one yet.
Others who have read it: Frenetic Reader, Pop Culture Junkie, Sarah’s Random Musings, Amanda at A Patchwork of Books.

Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford
Disney Press
Carter is a typical male, I guess. I also guess I don’t want to read about every thought that goes through a typical male’s rather mundane and typical mind. Locker room humor disguised as reality/comedic fiction. Didn’t finish.
Lots of other people loved, loved, loved it.

Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers
Macmillan
With the f-bombs and other crude words dropping at a rate of one or two per paragraph, and the crude, rude, and socially unacceptable “situations” multiplying, I found it difficult to get to the actual story. So I didn’t finish. School Library Journal’s review says it’s “marked by explicit language and frank sexuality.” Yeah. It is–and not much else, at least as far as I got into it.
Again it was quite popular with other reviewers and bloggers.

How To Say Goodbye In Robot by Natalie Standiford
Scholastic
This one was both quirky and fascinating. I loved “listening” in on the late night radio call-in show, Night Lights, in which lonelyhearts and conspiracy theorists and assorted oddballs called to share their thoughts, feelings, and warnings about the apocalypse. The teen protagonists of the novel, Bea and Joshua, aka RobotGirl and Ghost Boy, share an addiction to late night radio, especially Night Lights.
However, even though I enjoyed the book, read it in one afternoon, I’m not sure who I’d recommend it to. I found much of it, plot and characters, quite unbelievable. In fact, the Night Lights callers were some of the more believable characters in the novel. I mistakenly thought Joshua was a liar, making up stories to get attention, for about half of the novel. The truth was a little too fantastic to be believable. Then, Bea’s mother seems at first to be merely eccentric, but she quickly moves into the realm of insanity. However, Bea and her father expect Bea’s mother to function as a sane person, and eventually by the end of the story Mom wanders back to the sane side of the street. Finally, Bea and Joshua come up with a plan so fantastic and so completely unworkable that it’s hard to believe any two halfway intelligent high school seniors could even entertain the notion.
And yet . . . with a high tolerance for strange, odd, and even looney, a reader might really grow to love this novel of two teen in search of an identity.
Becky, and Jen, and Amanda, and Tirzah all liked it.

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern.
Feiwel & Friends
I actually read several chapters of this story of Jessie and her friends, Bizza and Char. First of all, Char doesn’t do much of anything except bake a few cookies, so I’m not sure why she’s in the story. Bizza on the other hand is an expletive deleted, and I’m not sure why she and Jessie are friends in the first place, or the second place, or any place. While Bizza proceeds to contract VD from Jessie’s crush, Jessie considers joining the nerd crowd playing Dungeons and Dragons. Blech.
Several bloggers disagree with me and give it a thumbs up.

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen.
Little, Brown. Semicolon review here.
“North of Beautiful transcends the problem-of-the-week genre, and it’s a truly beautiful novel. The strength of the book is in its treatment of relationships and family dynamics. Terra Cooper, the protagonist of the novel, isn’t just a girl with low self esteem because of her facial disfigurement and her controlling dad.” Not my favorite of the year, but it’s a good solid pick.
North of Beautiful got lots of good buzz from everywhere: Teen Book Review, Presenting Lenore, S. Krishan’s Books, Miss Erin, and many others.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Viking. Semicolon review here.
I read this one earlier last year because I usually like Ms. Anderson’s books. However, I really think Wintergirls was just O.K., nothing special, another problem novel, this time about anorexia. And the plot sometimes gets obscured by an attempt to be poetic, or fanciful, or something.
You can find lots of much more enthusiastic reviews of this one by a very talented author.

These are the books that won out and made the finalist list over Marcelo in the Real World and Flygirl and What I Saw and How I Lied and Secret Keeper? I don’t get it. I don’t mean to diss the committee, but can I respectfully disagree? Tell you what, I grant you the right and privilege of reading all of the nominees yourself and forming your own opinion. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you about some of them.

And I almost hate to mention it, but in light of discussions about the dearth of characters and authors who are not white, not one of these books has a protagonist who is anything other than white-bread-white, and only one of the authors could be called a Person of Color. I don’t believe in quotas, but actually many of the YA books I thought were outstanding in 2009 featured persons who were Asian, Hispanic, and African American (see preceding paragraph).

If I were on the committee to pick the Cybils Award winner for YA fiction, and I had to choose from this list, I’d go with North of Beautiful. The Cybils winners will be announced on Valentine’s Day.

Love Links, Lists, and Quotes 2010

Feb11

Just in time for Valentine’s Day . . . if you need some help:

Love Links
Joe Carter Tells Guys How to Write a Love Letter
All for Love: Kelli’s Valentine Traditions
Strawberry Cake recipe for Valentine’s Day

Books about Love, Romance, and Marriage
Anatomy of a Marriage: Novels about Marriage
The Love Letters by Madeleine L’Engle.
Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins
Random Harvest by James Hilton
Green Mansions by WH Hudson. ““Our souls were near together, like two raindrops side by side, drawing irresistibly nearer, ever nearer; for now they had touched and were not two, but one inseparable drop, crystallised beyond change, not to be disintegrated by time, nor shattered by death’s blow, nor resolved by any alchemy.”
Real Romance for Grown-up Women
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Yes. Heathcliff and Cathy were actually the worst of lovers –capricious, unfaithful while remaining bonded to one another, but let’s not quibble. “I am Heathcliff!” says Cathy, and what better description of the marriage of two souls is there in literature?
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Jane and Mr. Rochester are as radically faithful and loving in their own way as Cathy and Heathcliff imagine themselves to be. And they actually get together before they die, surely an advantage for lovers.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy are the epitome of lovers in tension that finally leads to consummation.
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers. Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane are such a hesitant, battle-scarred pair of lovers that thye almost don’t get together at all, but that’s what makes the series of romance-within-a mystery novels that culminates in Gaudy Night so very romantic. They’ve used the same formula in TV series ever since, but Sayers is much better than any Remington Steele (Laura and Remington) or Cheers (Sam and Diane). And Ms. Sayers was even able to write a credibly interesting epilogue novel in Busman’s Honeymoon, which is better than the TV writers can do most of the time.
At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon. Who says love is only for the young? Father Tim and Cynthia make it through thick and thin and through five or six books, still in love, still throwing quotations at one another. They’re great lovers in the best sense of the word.

My Love Song Playlist (very retro–70’s)
The Twelfth of Never by Donnie Osmond.
Cherish by David Cassidy and the Partridge Family.
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack
Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As ev’ry fairy tale comes real
I’ve looked at love that way

I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It’s love’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know love at all. ~Joni Mitchell

I Honestly Love You by Olivia Newton John.
Evergreen by Barbra Streisand.
Can’t Help Falling in Love With You by Elvis Presley.
Laughter in the Rain by Neil Sedaka.
L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole.

Poetry of Love
A Slice of Life by Edgar Guest
Come Live With Me and Be My Love by Christopher Marlowe
She Walks in Beauty Like the Night by Lord Byron
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe.
Young Lochinvar by Sir Walter Scott
As I Walked Out One Evening by WH Auden
If Thou Must Love Me by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Sonnet 116: Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds by William Shakespeare.
Oh, My Luve’s Like a Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns.
How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers’ tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.”
~Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Recommended Movies for Valentine’s Day
Marty. “Ernest Borgnine (Oscar for Best Actor) stars as a 35 year old Italian butcher who’s still not married in spite of the fact that all his younger brothers and sisters have already tied the knot.”
It Happened One Night. Clark Gable is a reporter in this romantic comedy about a run-away rich girl.
Much Ado About Nothing. Kenneth Branaugh and Emma Thompson. The reparte between Benedick and Beatrice is so memorable that you may find yourself quoting Shakespeare in spite of yourself.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I really loved the fact that Ian knew that he was not just marrying a girl but also her family.
The Princess Bride. Romance at it finest and funniest. “That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying ‘As you wish’, what he meant was, ‘I love you.’ And even more amazing was the day she realized she truly loved him back.”
You’ve Got Mail. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are a great pair.
Romeo and Juliet. The Franco Zefferelli version.

Love Quotes
“There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.” ~Trollope

“It may have been observed that there is no regular path for getting out of love as there is for getting in. Some people look upon marriage as a short cut that way but it has been known to fail.” ~Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy.

One advantage of marriage, it seems to me, is that when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until maybe you fall in again.
~Judith Viorst

Love Quotes 2007

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.
Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.
My beloved is mine, and I am his . . .

What are your favorites? Romantic movie? Romantic novel? Love song? Love poem?

LOST Rehash: What Kate Does

Feb9

Wow! LOST becomes Island of the Zombies.

So, to start toward the beginning, this episode is called What Kate Does. In an episode in season two of LOST called What Kate Did, we found out that Kate blew up her biological father, Wayne, and that she has a step-father named Sam Austen. On the island in this episode, Kate kisses Jack, runs away from him, and then has a heart-to-heart conversation with Sawyer who is recovering from being sick and infected and whatever else he was when he trekked halfway across the island with Ana Lucia and her crew.

I’m assuming this episode has something to do with that one, but other than Kate still running, chasing Sawyer, and generally being a fruitcake, I don’t know what. Kate and Claire are bonding in the No Crash World in spite of Kate’s having taken Claire hostage and scared the heck out of her. Claire even lies for Kate and gives Kate her credit card. Is Claire the world’s biggest sucker or what? (Maybe Sawyer should try a con on Claire, except Claire has no money —and now no credit card either.) Oh, and Kate also tells Claire that she’s “innocent”, and Claire believes that, too.

At least, we’re fairly sure that Kate is Kate. What Kate does is run away. Kate is The Fugitive. So since she’s still running, she’s still Kate. But who is Sayid? Is he still Sayid, or has he been “claimed”? Hurley asks Sayid if he’s a zombie, and Sayid says no. But this episode is all about trust, and can we trust the resurrected Sayid? Then, again, can we trust Temple Master Dogen? He says the pill that Jack is supposed to give Sayid is “medicine”; then, it turns out that it’s really poison. If they wanted to kill Sayid, why didn’t they do it while he was on the torture table? If they want to cure him, why use Jack to be the go-between?

How many times tonight did someone tell someone else that everything would be explained? Dogen said that they would answer all the Losties’ questions as soon as they talked to Sayid. But they didn’t. The show’s masterminds told us again at the beginning of the show and at the end that this was the last season when all questions would be answered. Then, at the end in the sneak peeks at next week, Fake Locke tells someone (I can’t remember) that he will explain everything. I think they’re teasing us. To paraphrase Hurley, whenever we go away and allow private conversations (among the writers), we end up doing something we don’t understand.

I am glad that Hurley’s back. “We’ll just wait outside in the Food Court.”
Miles: “As you can see, Hurley’s taken on the leadership position.”

Hurley is my hero, and Miles makes a good sidekick.

Next week’s episode is called The Substitute. Who do you think will be substituting for whom and doing what?