The fool dissed my hometown.
O’Reilly can say whatever he wants about San Francsico. I don’t give a shit. But when he advocates the destruction of the Coit Tower by terrorists and the resultant loss of life, I have to wonder what O’Reilly fans see in such a man.
The Book Standard asks if a reference to Flann O’Brien’s great classic The Third Policeman on the television show Lost has had any sales impact. Aside from confusing O’Brien’s book with an O’Brien title I wasn’t aware of (The Last Policeman? Man, I wish that wasn’t a typo.), it’s revealed that Dalkey Archive ordered an extra print run of 10,000. Lost writer Craig Wright has also gone on record, suggesting that the O’Brien book would be “invaluable to fans seeking to unravel the island’s mystery.” I find this claim skeptical, given writer David Fury‘s remarks in Rolling Stone a few weeks ago, where he suggested that the show’s producers were making the story up as they went along, concluding, “It’s a brilliant trick to make us look smart.”
Subterfuge or no, at the time of composing this post, The Third Policeman has an Amazon rank of #1,518. And the Book Standard reports that Dalkey has shipped 15,000 more copies to meet increasing demand. That’s pretty remarkable for a casual reference in a hit television show. Of course, one wonders if these sales would have happened had Craig Wright not insinuated a tie-in. But if it gets people reading Flann O’Brien, perhaps they’ll devote their energies to discussing bicycle metaphors rather than deconstructing a highly addictive show that might be less profound and symbolic than we’ve been lead to believe.
This information from Nielsen Media Research (PDF) can’t possibly be right. The average American watches 8 hours and 11 minutes per day? Okay, let’s say the average American works from nine to five. That’s eight hours. Let’s say further that the average American spends about an hour commuting. That leaves fifteen hours left in the day: seven hours devoted to sleep and eight hours to television?
And that’s just the mean. Who knows what the standard deviation is? We’re not even counting the folks (e.g., senior citizens) who are putting in ten hours of television watching a day. Or even twelve hours a day? I mean, this is pretty much that Ray Bradbury story (the title escapes me) in which the entire population is watching television and a man is arrested for daring to walk outside.
I mean, I’m lucky if I watch eight hours of television a month. Please help me understand.
Have American lives become so fundamentally empty that we now clutch onto the television as if it’s some totem to stave off loneliness? Or are Nielsen’s figures suspect?
One thing’s for sure: this television thing sure explains certain mentalities.
Since speculating about the meaning of Lost is apparently the thing to do at cocktail parties (if not a pretext to get someone’s phone number), and since said activity has replaced speculating about, oh say, real people across the room as the topic du jour, I’ve decided to offer a running series of theories explaining the motivations of the show. **SPOILERS SPOILERS** and all that.
Theory 1: It’s All About Sexual Repression. The show’s creators have been reluctant to explore John Locke’s sex life (until this week’s episode, where a relationship was profiled). That is because John Locke is sexually repressed. After his kidney was removed by his father and Locke was left hung out to dry, reduced to sipping coffee with a disturbingly giddy grimace on his face in a car (the grimace itself closely matching the cup’s shape), note that Locke had great difficulty snuggling in bed with his girlfriend (who, not so coincidentally, teaches an anger management class). Even when she gave him the key to the house! (This is an ancient myth that goes back to the classic cinematic comedy Ghostbusters, whereby the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster must enjoin.)
The kidney represents virility and shares its shape with Locke’s grimace and his girlfriend’s beautiful ass crack (unseen, because this is teevee we’re talking about). Keep in mind too that Locke did resort to a phone sex line with “Helen” (a woman who he never met and, indeed, did not see, a sly reference to Helen Keller!). His idea was to go to Australia, aka Down Under, i.e., “going down under” on a woman. Locke then is partially frustrated because he has been unable to perform cunnilingus. Thus, he must “walkabout” the continent that is the global equiavlent of Helen/Anger Management Teacher’s vagina. It has not yet been revealed, but I suspect that the trajectory of Locke’s planned walkabout resembles a grimace, thus maintaining the symbol of the slight curve. Locke is also confined to a wheelchair — thus, reinforcing the circular motif. Is the real miracle then not Locke’s use of his legs, but his forthcoming ablity to lap his tongue with gusto?
Now, conversely, the French woman (who is, incidentally, named Rousseau, a philosopher exploring similar social contract issues as the 16th century philosopher John Locke) is also quite a lonely woman. What’s the first thing she does when Sayid comes looking for? Why, she ties him down and gets extremely close to him, demanding that he not bolt out of the building. Now it’s worth noting that Sayid is tied down to a square and uncomfortable bed, thus demonstrating that Rousseau is the exact opposite of Locke! (And where Locke is a man, Rousseau is a woman — another set of obverses. And where Rousseau has wild and unruly hair, Locke ain’t got much on top.) Where Locke has problems expressing intimacy and must resort to grand and despearate bravado (such as expensive plane tickets bought for phone sex operators), Rousseau is a woman ready to party (no LCD Soundsystem in her lair to speak of, but there is, at least, a music box; the woman can improvise). She also speaks French, the language of love.
Thus, it is the love/sexual repression that is one of the island’s many experiments. Locke and Rousseau are mere pawns. By the middle of Season 2, we will see rampant copulation among the island’s population. This season’s finale will end in an orgy uniting “The Others” with the survivors of Flight 815 in a very naked and licentious way. Kate will become the island’s dominatrix, demanding subservience from both Jack and Sawyer. Dawson will apply his carpentry skills to the construction of bamboo-related toys for the dungeon. And the Mamas and the Papas’ music will form a lasting soundtrack for this televised debauchery.
I was very skeptical. Friends keep telling me that I must see it, that even my jaded opinion of television and my annoyance at the medium’s hollow artifices would be mollified by this series.
Well, I have at last seen the first few episodes of Lost and I can happily report that, from what I’ve seen, this television show cuts the mustard in almost every way. It is as enchanting as a baroque tapestry. It is as beguiling as a James Ellroy novel. It is, one gets the sense, leading somewhere, which is a rarity on episodic television. By some miracle, Lost does not insult the intelligence of its viewers and it even has the audacity to reward those who are paying attention. People are not what they seem to be. The setting is not what it seems to be. The situation, indeed, is not what it seems to be. One is left delighted by the confusion, driven compulsively to watch more, wondering what details the writers will throw in next.
Lost is one part Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, one part The Prisoner, one part Cast Away, and several parts a parable of humanism and interconnectivity. To wit, it may very well fall into that rarest of categories: sui generis.
In particular, one episode revealing the origins of Locke, a mysterious man with a penchant for knives and a capacious threshold of history and obscure trivia, was, much to my surprise, a moving tale of surprise revelations and indomnitable will. We see early on a young middle manager’s cruelty and agism directed to Locke, and realize much later that it is something more atavistic and unpleasant, yet ultimately futile. That television is still capable of exploring such human complexity, that indeed Hollywood is still capable of doing this, is nothing less than a miracle in this epoch of braindead entertainment designed for mass consumption.
This is that rare series that threatens to draw me away from my work and that may keep me up late. Let us hope that Lost‘s success finally gives the programming heads some clue that if television is to survive, it must, like Lost, be nurtured.