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‘Lost' refers to how viewers feel trying to catch clues

Monday, January 2, 2006 10:43 AM EST

“Lost” is increasingly how I feel watching the Emmy-winning ABC hit, which I have been following faithfully since the first episode.

Hurley owned the box company where Locke worked?

I blinked and missed that and many other castaway connections.

Like Sayid popping up on the TV behind Kate when she visited her stepfather at a military recruiting station.

During a flashback last season, Jin entered a house where Hurley appeared on a Korean TV news program highlighting his lottery win.

Did you notice Walt pictured on the milk carton Hurley swigged from in the hatch's pantry during a dream sequence?

Drawings on a wall in the hatch - Desmond's? - resemble paintings in Claire's loft the first season when she told her boyfriend she was pregnant with his child.

You knew that orientation film in the hatch bristled with clues to the layers of mysteries settled over this island like fog.

The Dharma Initiative logo looks like something from the I Ching, but I sure didn't notice it on the shark that tried to snack on Sawyer, let alone on the Flight 815 fuselage - fueling speculation that the plane was rigged to crash for some experiment.

We listen as Dr. Marvin Candle narrates the orientation film and explains the purpose of the Initiative - creating a place where scientists and free-thinkers alike can study everything from electromagnetism to zoology.

That might explain the presence of polar bears in the tropics, if not in Hurley's comic book.

The mystery is even localized in that B.F. Skinner followers Gerald and Karen DeGroot, who founded the Initiative in 1970, were University of Michigan doctoral candidates.

We don't know what became of them, but they bear a striking resemblance to the Others who snatched Walt.

Maybe Dharma drove them mad.

We can only hope this show continues to intrigue without imploding like “Twin Peaks.”

Quips, quotes and qulunkers: “When I sing ‘Crimson and Clover,' I play this guitar that looks like it's made out of the fender of a car. I say this was made out of a car that I spent a lot of time in the backseat with a boy listening to Tommy James.”

- Dolly Parton

in Reader's Digest

“Under the tax cuts pushed through Congress since 2000, for every dollar in reductions for a middle-class family, the top 1 percent of households will receive $54, and those with $1 million or more in income will benefit by $191. During the first three years, the number of Americans living in poverty increased by 3.5 million, while the income for the 400 wealthiest Americans jumped by 10 percent just in the year 2002 ... salaries of corporate chief executive officers have gone from 40 times to 400 times the average worker's pay. Even though there was strong growth in corporate profits, wages for the average worker fell in 2004.”

- Jimmy Carter in “Our Endangered Values”

Ohio residents check out 146 items from the library each year. The national average is 6.9, according to the American Library Association.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus takes her second stab at post-”Seinfeld” success on CBS in March with “The New Adventures of Old Christine.”

Her title character is a single L.A. mom who swigs cough syrup and lives with her brother because her ex-husband has taken up with a new Christine.

Apparently, we won't be “Watching Ellie” sing.

Whatever happened to Justin Guarini? The Internet delivered me an immediate answer: “He just produced and independently released a fantastic new smooth jazz CD ‘Stranger Things Have Happened.' Justin performs on this CD with some of the best jazz musicians in the country. Songs on the CD are classic favorites like ‘Night and Day,' ‘My Funny Valentine,' as well as the original ‘Stranger Things Have Happened.' This is the music Justin was born to sing and he performs each song beautifully, creatively and from the heart. This is a mature, elegant, adult CD and it is just wonderful! You can hear samples and learn more about the CD at Justin's website, www.justinguarini.com.”

John Eby is managing editor of the Dowagiac Daily News. He can be reached at john.eby@leaderpub.com

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