LOST Rehash: The Cost of Living . . Is Dying?
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
LOST Spoilers ahead. If you have not seen tonight’s episode, and don’t want to know about it until you’ve done so, don’t read anymore.
I’m not sure Mr. Eko ever got it, and I’m not happy that the LOST writers left him in limbo or purgatory or unresolved or whatever. I like Mr. Eko. I agree that back in Africa he pretty much responded to events in the best way he knew how. And on the island, when he took out a couple of the Others, I don’t know what choice he had. And he didn’t finish Yemi’s church because he thought he had to push the button. I agree that decision was dumb, but not culpable. So, are we supposed to get out of all this that all sin is illusion and that everybody’s just doing the best they can. Even Kate who blew up her dad? Even Sawyer the con-man? Even Benny himself (who as far as I’m concerned is the Arch-Fiend)?
Or is the Black Smoke coming to get them all and make them pay for their very real sins? Was Yemi really Yemi, or was he the Black Smoke Devil impersonating Yemi? He said, “You talk to me as if I am your brother.” In that case, was the Yemi vision that Mr. Eko saw earlier that led him to the Pearl Hatch and the plane, a good Yemi vision or a demonic vision? That one sure created a lot of trouble, causing Locke to lose faith in the button-pushing and eventually causing the blow-up of the hatch.We are beginning to think that LOST island is the Island where dead people come back to life and lead people astray.
Sorry, Juliette. It may seem as if it would be the perfect way to get rid of your Benny problem, but Jack is not going to let someone die during surgery on purpose. You’re going to have to find another way —if I believe that you’re honest in the first place. I believe that Benny’s a liar and that you and he have some kind of tension between you. But I don’t know if you, Ms. Juliette, are any more honest, trustworthy, and upright than Benny.
Who’s the guy with the eye patch who made such a brief appearance on TV?
Wasn’t Mr. Eko cool when he got those guys who were planning to cut off his hand? Why, oh, why did the writers have to kill Mr. Eko?
What’s with the white robes for the funeral? It looked like a cult. Maybe the Others worship and appease the Black Smoke god so that he won’t do to them what he did to Eko. Oh, but Benny is good because he believes in God. What god does he think brought Jack to his rescue?
And why are the Others, especially Benny, engaging in all this deception and rigamarole? Benny has cancer. A surgeon falls out of the air. Why didn’t the Others introduce themselves, tell the survivors who they were and what they were doing on the island, and ask Jack to do surgery? Obviously, there’s something else going on, but what?
I’m not too happy with this week’s episode of LOST. Eko has “paid” for his sins, but he’s no more sinful, no more a “bad man” than many of the other LOST characters. If I were Bernard, I’d be really worried right now. People who crashed in the tail section of the plane don’t have a good prognosis for survival. Class prejudice.
Choose Your Own Adventure: The Abominable Snowman
I remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books; they were quite popular back in the early eighties when I was a school librarian (in another life). With the books the premise or gimmick was that they were written in second when you got to certain pages in the book, you were presented with a choice. Choose A and go to page X; choose B and go to page Y. Some choices were disastrous and ended the story rather quickly. Other choices prolonged the adventure and led to more choices.
In this DVD the idea is much the same. At certain key points in the movie, the viewer is given a choice as to how the adventure will continue. Stay in the airplane or parachute out? Follow the footprints or go back to camp? Each choice made leads the movie adventurers in a different direction. The DVD case says you can choose from eleven possible stories.
The main characters are stereotypical, multi-cultural, adventurous kids who go to visit their uncle in Nepal.There’s a bold, curious girl named Christa, a nerdy, cautious brother named Benjamin, and their adopted-from-Guatemala kid brother, Marco. The parents are missing-in-action. The dialog is cartoonish; the animation is adequate; and the story, or stories, is fairly predictable. Also, be warned, the humor is clean but juvenile, several jokes about “colder than a penguin’s butt,” for example.
Nevertheless, my urchins were fascinated, going back over and over again to try out the different alternatives and choices. There’s information in the the course of the story about Nepal and the Himalayas, if you’re looking for educational value. And there’s an extra 28 minute documentary on the same DVD entitled How People Live in Nepal —which, of course, my adventurers had no interest in watching. I plan to make them watch it anyway in a couple of weeks when we get to India and Nepal in our around-the-world study.
Coming in 2007 & 2008:The Lost Jewels and The Mystery of The Maya. You can order the movie The Abominable Snowman, at amazon.com. Or go to the official website for the series to learn more about the DVD’s and to enter related contests.
April???
It turns out that April is National Pecan Month. Pecans fall in the fall. They are fresh in the grocery stores in October or November just in time for holiday baking. Pecan pies and fruit salad with pecans and pecan fudge are all associated with the fall and winter months. So why April? Are they trying to build up sales in a slow month? Were October and November already taken by Rhubarb and Peanuts?
Nevertheless here at Semicolon, November is the Month of the Pecan. Pecans have yet to attain worldwide fame. So in November, not waiting until April, here on this blog, we will do our part to exalt and pooularize the lowly but tasty pecan. This November celebration is more proof, in case you needed it, that I am not a hireling of the pecan industry. I’m just a an ordinary pecan-lover who’s trying to celebrate her faovrite nut in the month in which I’ve become accustomed to thinking about pecans.
If you have a recipe or a quotation or a story or a joke or a picture or anything else pecan-related to share on your blog, leave a link in the Mr. Linky, and I’ll also mention you and link to your post again in one of my daily(?) Pecan Posts.
Even better, for everyone who leaves a link to something pecan-like, I’ll put your name in the hat and draw one at the end of the month. The lucky winner will receive a pound of fresh shelled pecans and maybe I’ll even throw in a book, if I find one that is pecan-y enough.
SO, write pecans.
Pecans, the Nut of the Gods
Close View of Shelled Pecans in Warm Light
Photographic Print
Green, Brian…
Buy at AllPosters.com
OK, I realize it has an odd sound to it, but I believe in pecans (not the gods). Pecans are the most excellent of nuts. Pecans are supremely edible. Pecans are a good addition to almost any dessert and many salads and entrees. Pecans are King.
So, I thought to myself (to whom else would I think), if Rebecca can declare October Potato Month, I can certainly say that November is the Month of the Pecan. I don’t expect to get as much participation as Rebecca did since potatoes are ordinary, but ubitquitous and popular all over the world. Pecans have yet to attain worldwide fame. Nevertheless, here on this blog, we will do our part to exalt and pooularize the lowly but tasty pecan. If you have a recipe or a quotation or a story or a joke or a picture or anything else pecan-related to share on your blog, leave a link in the Mr. Linky, and I’ll also mention you and link to your post again in one of my daily(?) Pecan Posts.
Even better, for everyone who leaves a link to something pecan-like, I’ll put your name in the hat and draw one at the end of the month. The lucky winner will receive a pound of fresh shelled pecans and maybe I’ll even throw in a book, if I find one that is pecan-y enough. We will be making our Annual Pecan Trek this Saturday to beautiful downtown Richmond, Texas, where we go every year to buy pecans. Never fear, I’ll report here on the trip, and one of you will get to sample the pecans that we purchase.
SO, think pecans. (No, I do not work for the Pecan Growers of America, if there is such an organization. However, if there is and if they’d like to send me a few samples of whatever . . . I think we could work a deal.)
To This Great Stage of Fools: Born October 31st
John Keats, b.1795.
Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream,
And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
The transient pleasures as a vision seem,
And yet we think the greatest pain’s to die.How strange it is that man on earth should roam,
And lead a life of woe, but not forsake
His rugged path; nor dare he view alone
His future doom which is but to awake.
Chiang Kai-Shek, b.1887.
Sydney Taylor, b.1904. Ms. Taylor was an actress and a professional dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company in New York. But here in Semicolon family, she’s famous as the author of the All-of-a-Kind family books, from which we draw the frequently quoted phrase, “My mama smiles on me!”
Katherine Paterson, b.1932 in Qing-Jiang, China. Ms. Paterson wrote several classic children’s books including two Newbery Award books, Jacob Have I Loved and Bridge to Terebithia. She’s also the author of The Great Gilly Hopkins and The Master Puppeteer, both of which I’ve read and enjoyed. From an interview with the author at Katherine Paterson’s official website, terebithia.com:
In what ways has your religious conviction informed your writing? And would you comment on the presence (or lack ) of religious content, specifically Christian, in recent children’s literature (say the last fifteen years or so)?
I think it was Lewis who said something like: “The book cannot be what the writer is not.” What you are will shape your book whether you want it to or not. I am Christian, so that conviction will pervade the book even when I make no conscious effort to teach or preach. Grace and hope will inform everything I write.
You’re asking me to comment on fifteen years of 5000 or so books a year. Whew! We live in a Post-Christian society. Therefore, not many of those writers will be Christians or adherents of any of the traditional faiths. Self-consciously Christian (or Jewish or Muslim) writing will be sectarian and tend to propaganda and therefore have very little to say to persons outside that particular faith community. The challenge for those of us who care about our faith and about a hurting world is to tell stories which will carry the words of grace and hope in their bones and sinews and not wear them like fancy dress.
Reading Through Korea
Tales of a Korean Grandmother by Frances Carpenter. This book is a collection of Korean folk tales framed by the story of Kim Ok Cha and Kim Yong Tu, sister and brother, and their grandmother Halmoni who tells them the stories they love to hear. The thirty two stories in the book are varied from a Korean Cinderella story to the story of The Ant Who Laughed Too Much, a kind of fable/why story. We’re still reading this book aloud during our afternoon reading time even though we’re supposed to have moved on to China. There’s also a book by the same author, called Tales of a Chinese Grandmother, that we may read next.
A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park. Ms. Park has written several books for children set in Korea (The Kite Fighters, Seesaw Girl) in addition to this Newbery Award winning story of an orphan boy who wants to become a potter. Tree-Ear, named for a wild mushroom that grows without seed, lives under a bridge with his friend and mentor, Crane-man. His friend’s shriveled and twisted leg and foot makes him unable to work, and the two manage to eat and hold body and soul together by foraging among the garbage heaps. Then, Tree-Ear gets a job —and a dream of leaving the fringes of 12th century Korean society to become an artisan. This Newbery Award book is one that should capture the interest of adults and children alike. Apropriate for ages 8 to adult, the book could be read aloud to even younger children.
The Girl-Son by Anne Neuberger. Imduk Pahk, a seven year old Korean girl, becomes Induk Pahk, a boy, so that she can go to school with the boys. Only boys were allowed to go to school in 1896 in Korea, but Imduk’s widowed and illiterate mother wants her daughter to have an education to go with the pencil that she received as a Christmas gift from some missionaries. So Imduk/Induk begins her educational and spiritual journey by posing as a boy. This book, classified as fiction but based on a true story, takes Induk through her year at a boys’ school, elementary education at a mission school for girls, a quest for a secondary education in faraway Seoul, and finally imprisonment at the hands of the Japanese. Induk’s Christian faith is given minor emphasis in the book; perhaps she herself felt that Christianity was a minor influence in her life. However, when she is in prison and longs for a Bible and when she identifies her experiences with those of the apostle Paul, her faith in Christ is what sustains her and gives her hope in those dark days. Induk does indeedhave a “loud and clear voice” in the book, as the author promises, but it’s too bad if she was not allowed to speak as strongly and clearly as she might have wished about the hope that was within her. Appropriate for ages 11 to adult.
The Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi. (This review is written by Brown Bear Daughter, age eleven.) The Year of Impossible Goodbyes was a interesting and yet depressing book. It is incredible that all the things in the book are true, but it is also very difficult to believe every bit. The author, who lived during the same time in Korea, probably spoke from experience.
It is set in Pyongyang, North Korea. The book is in first person and the narrator is named Sookan, a Korean girl who live in the time when the Japanese had taken over her country. She is ten years old, and she has four brothers, three older and one younger, named Hanchun, Jaechun, Hyunchun, and Inchun. The older three are no longer at home, taken by the Japanese to work, as their father had been also. The Japanese terrorize and kill many Korean people. Then the Russians come and create even more problems, though the Japanese left when World War Two ended. It is getting very difficult to get to South Korea, where there is no communism, but Sookan, Inchun, and their mother attempt to get past the Thirty-eight Parallel, which separates North Korea from South Korea.
I won’t give away any more of the book, but it was gripping and exciting and made me want to recommend it to everyone. (Mom NOTE: I did not read this book before giving it to my eleven year old daughter. It does have some mature content, although it’s discreetly handled.) North Korea is still corrupt with communism today. I liked this book because it made me feel sympathy for Sookan and her family.
Jama Rattigan recommends Korean (American) picture books at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.
World Geography: Week 11, China
Music:
Guiseppe Verdi—Ave Maria from Othello
Mission Study:
1. Bold Bearers of his Name: Lula F. Whilden
2. Window on the World: Newars
3. WotW: Tibetans
4. WotW: Xinjiang
5. WotW: Yao-Mien
Poems:
My Poetry Book: At Our House
Science:
Magnets
Nonfiction Read Alouds:
The Pageant of Chinese History–Seeger
China by Tami Deedrick
Fiction Read Alouds:
Little Pear—Lattimore
A Grain of Rice–Pittman
Tales of a Chinese Grandmother by Frances Carpenter
Picture Books:
The Emperor and the Nightingale—Andersen
The Five Chinese Brothers—Bishop
The Empty Pot–Demi
Ming Lo Moves the Mountain—Lobel
Eyes of the Dragon—Leaf
Tikki Tikki Tembo—Mosel
Emperor and the Kite–Yolen
Elementary Readers:
Homesick—Fritz
Mission to Cathay—Polland
Silkworms—Johnson
Eyewitness: Ancient China
Confucius; The Golden Rule—Freedman
A Boy’s War—Michell
Between Two Worlds: A Story about Pearl S. Buck–Mitchell
Other Books:
Nothing Daunted; The Story of Isobel Kuhn–Repp
The Importance of Living–Lin Yutang
Movies:
Arsenic and Old Lace
To This Great Stage of Fools: Born October 30th
John Adams, Second President of the United States, b. 1735. “There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.”
Richard Sheridan, playwright, b. 1751. He was the creator of the character, Mrs. Malaprop, in his play The Rivals. A malapropism is “the mistaken use of a word in the place of a similar soundong one, often with unintentionally amusing effect.” For instance Mrs. Malaprop says in the play, “He is the very pineapple of politeness!”
Paul Valery, French poet, b.1871.
Emily Post, b.1872. Her book, Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage was first published in 1922.
Ezra Pound, American poet, b.1885.
LOST Rehash: Every Man for Himself, or Seeing Double
I’m late this week because I couldn’t get my LOST fix on Wednesday night. Events conspired to make that impossible. And what happens when Mama don’t get her fix? Mama had a bad day yesterday. I finally watched via computer at 11:00 p.m. last night. Then, I went over and read De-Thinkling’s live-blogging report and all the comments below.
A-a-a-h! Relief. I’m now ready to discuss the latest episode of the on-going soap opera that is LOST. As usual, if you have not gotten your fix, there are spoilers to follow. Be warned.
I’m going to go through the character list for this episode and say what there is to say.
1. Desmond. If I didn’t already have Engineer Husband . . . It’s the Scots accent and the nose. But, that aside, Desmond is definitely a prophet, and as someone noted over at Thinklings, perhaps a Christ-figure. He has the look, and the coming back naked from the blast reminded me of Gandalf. So we have Desmond-Elijah-Jesus-Gandalf. I don’t like the the idea of the “new” Lostie that Desmond borrowed the golf club from. I’m having enough trouble keeping the names and characters of the Others straight. And a guy who hits golf balls, of which there must be a somewhat limited supply, into the ocean?
2. Claire and Charlie. Claire and Charlie deserve each other, just like Sawyer and Kate deserve each other. C and C are kind of clueless but sweet and sometimes funny. Claire kind of wanders off, in her mind and with her eyes, with whichever guy pays the least bit of attention to her, but I think she’ll end up with Charlie when all is said and done.
3. Juliette and Jack. So, Jack is there to save someone’s life. Ben, most likely. Of course, being Jack, he’ll do it. If the Others had the least bit of understanding of human psychology, they would know that Jack is compulsive doctor-man, and all they had to do was ask. SO why all these psychological mind games? “We have a whole dossier on you and we know all about you.” If they’re trying to convince Jack to be cooperative, they’re going about it the wrong way. However, Juliette might be able to manage Jack if Ben would give her a free hand. Ben, however, is power-mad, and he’s probably cancerous in more ways than one.
4. Sawyer and Kate. Neither Sawyer nor Kate is too bright, if you ask me. Why did it take Sawyer so long to figure out they were watching him, and why has Kate STILL not figured that out? She saw Ben spring Sawyer’s water trap, if she didn’t hear him say that they turned off the elecrtricity, so how come she doesn’t know yet that Big Brother is watching? Hasn’t she read that book? Probably not. Of the two, Sawyer’s the more intellectual. Kate’s a Criminal Mastermind, but a hick, nevertheless. I say, as I’ve said all along, they deserve each other, and if they can ever quit conning each other, they’ll mate for life. Oh, and I understand why Sawyer couldn’t afford NOT to believe in the pacemaker, but why couldn’t he risk telling Kate to run and come for him and Jack later? And why admit up front that he’s out for himself? Wouldn’t a good con man say something like, “Honey, we’ll get out of here, and we’ll figure out a plan to come back for Jack?” Whether he planned to do so or not.
I can’t keep all the other Others straight, so I can’t really write about them. And I suppose Locke’s somewhere preparing to be the Great Deliverer. Maybe he needed another session in the sweat lodge first. (Yuck!)
Computer Guru Son, who knows all sorts of secret information about everything, tells me that some major character is slated to die in the next two episodes. He guesses Mr. Eko. I hope not because I like Mr. Eko, but I can picture him saying (in that wonderful Nigerian accent), “My mission here is ended. Now you, John, must take up my staff (Jesus Stick) and lead this people to the Promised Land.” Or revenge or something.
Questions:
Are there really two islands? Or is Ben/Henry lying again? He lies a lot.
If there are two islands, it makes sense that Rousseau never mentioned running across Other Village. But why hasn’t anyone at least seen the Other island from the original one?
Where is Rousseau? Where is to the statue with four toes? Where are Sayid and Sun and Jin? Where are Rose and Bernard? Why do we have to introduce new characters when we can’t keep up with the ones we have already?
Why does Ben/Henry think he’s God? And when is someone going to do something to convince him he’s not? I’m reading Moby Dick right now, and Ben reminds me of Ahab, spinning his webs of fantastical revenge and power. Pride goeth before . . .
OH, I forgot to mention, this week’s featured book on LOST was Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Someday I was going to a post on literary references in LOST, but I imagine Lostpedia has already beat me to it.