Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Bob Dylan, Young Thief

Looks like Bob Dylan got an early start "borrowing" lyrics, according to this. His career winds down as it began, passing off the words of others as his own.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

"Lost": The Godgame Returns

A while back, I wrote about "Lost as Godgame." After watching last night's season finale, I think I was right, although possibly there are two godgames going on.

We met Jacob last night, the white figure (and therefore good guy), and his nemesis, dressed in black. Let us call him Esau, although Seth (nemesis of Osiris) would be quite as suitable. I think everything that has happened thus far is due to the manipulations of one of these two figures.

Some significant reveals of the finale:

Dead means dead. No one returns from the dead on the island. Therefore "Neo-Locke," as we discover, is a tool or meat puppet of Esau. When Neo-Locke told Richard Alpert to tell the real Locke that he had to die, this was a con of some kind. Esau needed Locke's corpse in order to con Ben and the Others.

This presumably means also that "Christian Shephard" is also a meat puppet or manifestation of Esau. (Note that Neo-Christian and Neo-Locke never appear on screen together.) Therefore everything "Christian" has said to anyone is a con of some kind. He doesn't speak for Jacob. Locke was not supposed to move the island or die. Jack wasn't supposed to come back.

If so, then Esau at the moment can only work through one kind of being: dead people: Christian Shephard, John Locke, Yemi, Alex Rousseau.

Since the Smoke Monster (through Alex) told Ben that he had to obey Neo-Locke, we have to assume that Smokey is also a manifestation (or perhaps is) Esau. Ben Linus's "judgment" was also a con. (Is there more than one Smokey? Is there a white Smokey, too?)

We saw Greek and Egyptian last night, and we heard some Latin. Would it have killed them to put some Aramaic in the show?

Sunday, May 10, 2009

New Ancient Document

This (HT: Paleojudaica) looks like it might be interesting. Kudos to the IAA for providing a hi-res photograph link.

The cursive script is hard to read. The beginning of the text, at least, is in Aramaic: בתרין עשר (on the 12th day) and then dated to לחרבן בית ישראל -- an unusual dating formula, to be sure ("after the destruction of the house of Israel"). However, I am told that the rest of the text is in Hebrew, and that it will be published in due course by Esti Eshel and Ada Yardeni.