A Marbleous Idea

I read this post recently about using marbles to help kids manage screen time over the summer, and my first thought was that it was pretty much just another reward system like a sticker chart (which has never ever ever worked for us never ever).  But seeing as our summer was off to a rocky start in terms of too much Minecraft and TV and not enough doing basic chores without nagging, I figured it couldn't hurt to try.

Holy moly is the marble thing a good system.

Basically the way it works is one marble is worth 15 minutes of screen time.  When the kids do the chores they are supposed to be doing anyway, they earn marbles to put in their jars.  When they are ready to use screens they set a timer and "pay" for it by taking marbles out of their jars.  It's not so much a reward system, but a way of helping them balance out their time better between what they should be doing and stuff they know they need to monitor better.

I talked to them about it first to see if they were interested.  Quinn (who likes collecting things) and Mona (who already does her chores without being reminded) were excited about the idea.  Aden was wary, but agreed to give it a go.

In the News

What a peculiar week.  I learned again that tragedy can strike anywhere, what things matter, and what things don't.

I also learned that when you do a Google search for "violins" and "Milwaukee" apparently I come up first.  Thus I have been asked for quotes on a story that I have no real connection to because all of those directly involved can't speak about it yet.

The first I heard of the news of the stolen Lipinski Strad was from a talk radio reporter who needed to know something about Stradivaris.  He called me at work and gave me no details on what had happened or to whom.  I gave him general information about how fragile violins can be and why instruments by Antonio Stradivari are so valuable.  I didn't know why we were having the conversation, but at least what little of my recorded self I caught on the radio later that day sounded like it added to the discussion in a useful way.

Then I got a call from a local news station asking if they could interview me about it.  By then I'd searched online and discovered more details about the crime and could just not believe it.  I wasn't sure what I'd have to offer a TV interviewer on the topic, but I was willing to share what I could.

Watching "TV"

(Note: There are probably random spoilers in here.  Not that it should matter, honestly.  I don't often find learning plot points about most things ruins them.  Good stories are made in the way they are told, not usually in what they are about.  But fair warning here just the same because who knows what I might say?)

I watch a lot of "TV."  But what I'm calling "TV" my kids would call "Movies."  They call everything on a screen a Movie.  Except for things they watch on particular YouTube Channels, but even odd things here and there on YouTube they call Movies.  (If you have half an hour the clip in that link is very funny.)  I'm starting to wonder if we need new terms in general.  Maybe "Features" for what I think of as movies, and "Serial Dramas/Comedies" for what I think of as television.

I want to say the main difference between movies and television has to do with telling a single, contained story, versus drawing one out in parts, possibly over years.  But there are still exceptions there, because, you know, Star Wars.  And I remember seeing the movie Shoah over the course of two nights when it came out, because its total running length on screen was over nine hours, and there are entire British television series that can be viewed in less time.  There are movies that are essentially parts of a series, such as the Up documentaries (the first one of those I saw in a theater was 28 Up as a child and I look forward to the next installment every seven years).  Star Trek straddles both worlds but tells its best stories on TV in my opinion.  TV allows characters and ideas to develop in ways movies don't have patience for.

Lost Again (Babble)

I’ve had some time now to contemplate the ending to the show Lost, and since I don’t have anyone here to discuss it with, you lucky people get to read my musings on it.  (Or not.  I have complete sympathy for people who are not interested.  It’d be like trying to have a discussion with me about sports.  I don’t care.  You can’t make me care.)  This post is also a mess of spoilers, so for those who may still watch it all, don’t read this.  (I’m talking to you, Kraco5.  Go read this old post again if you need something to pass the time.)  If you never plan to see it, read and enjoy how nonsensical I can sound!  I know that at this point even people who care might not care because it comes on the heels of a lot of more timely analysis, but remember, I don’t have a husband around to talk to, and I just want to get some thoughts out of my head.  Indulge me and share some of your own theories.

Okay, my thoughts on Lost for anyone who cares to read them are these:  The finale, on an emotional level, was satisfying.  You couldn’t ask for a more perfect set of last few images than Jack stumbling past his father’s weathered tennis shoe and lying down in the bamboo to die.  To watch the plane fly away was hopeful, and I was a wreck when Vincent the dog showed up to lie down with him so he wouldn’t die alone.  The eye shutting to that last little note of music was perfect.  The symmetry of all of that was beautiful.  The episode, like the series in general, left us with a lot to think about.  That’s the fun of it.


I’ve been reading too many reactions online of people who seem to have confused the explanation of the sideways timeline with the island timeline.  The sideways timeline may have been a kind of purgatory, but I think they made it pretty clear the island was not.  I don’t think we need a perfect explanation for anything that happened in sideways land because it was a fiction they were creating for themselves.  Our core characters wanted to move on together to whatever comes next, and there is no way to know how long the sideways timeline played out until that happened.  For all we know Hurley and Ben ran the island for a thousand years before they died.  I like that idea, because that would mean after a millennium of penance Ben was still working things out before he could move on.  (Which seems appropriate for someone who killed so many.)  I think the moment Rose told Jack he could ‘let go now’ on the plane at the beginning of the season was the moment Jack died on the island.  That would mean even though as viewers it looked as if the sideways timeline was in the past, it was a form of the future we were catching up to, which has a very Lost type twist to it.  Despite arguable problems with the sideways stories, the awakenings and reunions in that timeline were also satisfying.  I loved Sawyer and Juliet by the vending machine and getting an explanation for what she was saying when she died in his arms at the beginning of the season.

Great stories don’t typically answer every question.  If they did there would be nothing left to discuss.  I know at the last book club meeting with Aden and her friends we talked about our theories of how the grandmother in the story The Witches lost her thumb.  Roald Dahl never tells you, and it’s far more interesting and mysterious that way.  If we had a simple explanation it would have killed the discussion because what would be the point of talking about it?  Mysteries where you get to fill in every blank become disposable, like a finished crossword puzzle.  Lost decided to leave us with many things to puzzle out, and in general I don’t have a problem with that.

BUT!  As much as I’m willing to let certain answers go, here are the ones I’m annoyed I didn’t get:  I seriously needed the backstories for Widmore, Hawking, and Libby.  I also wanted to know if Desmond’s interference in the regular timeline that was sparking course corrections was also responsible for retroactive changes as well (which would help explain away inconsistencies, like how Charlie couldn’t swim originally and was a champion swimmer later, or why that image he saw of Claire escaping with the baby on a helicopter never happened).

There is this hilarious bit about unanswered questions here, but some of these do have answers already (for instance, that image of Ben’s mom had to be the smoke monster, and ‘The Economist’ was Widmore).  The main one in this list that bugs me too is why The Others were in disguises ever.  What was that about?  And in my opinion the fertility issues on the island were the biggest thing that really should have been explained.  That was central to so many stories over and over I think that was unfair to offer us nothing on that topic.  And the reason Chrisitan Shephard could appear in so many places the smoke monster couldn’t?  I think it really was the ghost of Christian Shepard.  When Jack saw him standing in the water in White Rabbit?  And later in the flash forward?  I think he really saw his dad.  Not sure why he would appear to Michael on the freighter, but I suppose once one accepts dead people injected into a storyline, one should not get too picky about why they do what they do.  I think when the smoke monster in Locke form told Jack he was posing as his father, he was (gasp!) lying.

Here are my other guesses on a lot of things.  As much as I know many people disliked Across the Sea, I think it answered a lot of questions.  And I don’t mean the obvious ones, I mean that because we know the backstory for Jacob and his brother it explains a lot.  Jacob had important powers and responsibilities (although I couldn’t help thinking while he was at his loom about that quote from the Holy Grail where the knights are standing around watching the Mighty Tim make flames pop up from the ground and they say to him, “I can see you’re a busy man….”)–but the thing about Jacob is that he was really just a guy, and one with a messed up history at that.  How did he choose the people he picked to come to the island?  Well, how would you?  It could be for any random reason that seemed good the day he thought of it.  If a god is picking out people you expect certain standards, but a lonely guy with mommy issues?  I’m impressed he picked as well as he did.  Same goes for the smoke monster’s motivations.  Why did he kill the people he killed?  Again, a clever vengeful devil should do something evil with meaningful impact, but a lonely dead twin made of smoke with mommy issues?  Maybe he left people alone who were interesting to watch and killed others when he got bored.  I can see that.

In any case, I have a sense that the combination of Jacob’s powers and his general flaws helped create a lot of things that don’t make sense.  Maybe all those goofy costumes The Others were wearing were made for them by Jacob on his loom.  What else did he have to do most days?  (It doesn’t explain the bad fake beards, but there are weirder choices people make in reality, so whatever.)   Heck, the island looked uneventful enough most centuries he could have built that giant statue of Tawaret himself.  Also, our only clue on the fertility issues is the death of Jacob’s birth mom and his complicated feelings for his adoptive mother.  Maybe someone with Jacob’s powers doesn’t have complete conscious control of them.  Maybe any time he spent brooding over his mommy issues bled over onto all of the island in such a way that they became part of the fabric of existence there.  Maybe under Hurley’s reign the fertility issues ended and a new statue was built to honor ranch dressing.  Could happen.

Or maybe it had nothing to do with Jacob, and the glowy warm light with its warming glowy glow was causing interference for anyone else also trying to create life so close by.  I can see that, too.  But it would have been nice to have the writers of the show at least point us toward some kind of answer instead of leaving it so open.  I can let go of questions about the polar bears because that was probably some Dharma thing that a scientist with grant money thought was a good idea.  I can also explain away the mysterious Dharma food drops as related to the goofy time problems on the island.  For all we know the food drops happened in the 70’s and thanks to temporal anomalies didn’t hit the ground for 30 years.  Why not?

Widmore is still a puzzle.  I think he was working for Jacob, or trying to help Jacob in his own way, but wasn’t necessarily carrying out specific orders.  I don’t think Jacob, for instance, told Widmore to fake the plane crash at the bottom of the sea, but Widmore saw an opportunity to ‘help’ and went ahead with it.  In terms of his being inconsistent on things like letting Ben keep the baby, well, it just speaks to someone winging it.  If he was trying to help Jacob and not getting any decent direction, then he’d have to just go with his own judgment, and I’m sure ordering someone to kill a baby in a way that feels abstract is different from the baby showing up in front of you and then making a decision about whether it lives or dies.  That just seems human, and putting a fickle human spin on many of Lost’s mysteries may explain many of them.  The only big Widmore plan I do think Jacob was involved in was priming Desmond to be able to uncork the island.  I think the quarantine stuff was simply to keep him in the hatch where pushing that button for so many years immunized him against its electromagnetic effects.  Or maybe there really was some kind of ‘infection’ that was related to the smoke monster.  But that whole thing makes my head hurt, because I didn’t get the sense that the children stolen off the beach were getting injections, so why was Ethan intent on injecting Claire and her baby?  Ugh.

Here’s a LIbby theory I have that I haven’t read anywhere yet:  I think her dead husband was the same dead David that Hurley was talking to.  I think both Libby and Hurley could speak to the dead and that’s why they were both in the mental institution, and when David tries to trick Hurley into jumping off the cliff on the island it’s motivated by jealousy over Libby.  Somehow Libby must be tied to Widmore so that she could get the boat to Desmond, but I guess how or why we’ll never know.  That we wasted any time learning about Jack’s tattoos when we could have had a Libby backstory is a bit maddening.  (Or even an Ilana backstory.  Heck, I’d have even preferred a director’s cut of an episode of Expose.)

Zombie Sayid needed some kind of explanation.  That wasn’t fair to have him rise from the dead and not let us know what was up with that.  And why did Claire leave her baby?  I thought she was dead for a long time, killed in the explosion in Dharmaville that took out all those redshirts, but in the end she flies home, so I guess not.  Zombie Claire made more sense.  (You know something has not been sufficiently explained when a walking dead theory seems the most reasonable.)

Anyway, it was a good ride.  I loved being surprised and hated waiting so long between episodes and the whole thing was a good use of the medium of TV.  I can’t believe it stretched out for Mona’s entire lifetime, but it was worth watching.  (I nursed her all through season 1 and a bit into season 2!)  I’m tempted to buy the over-priced definitive box set when it comes out, but it’s still all free on Hulu, so I may start watching it all again from the beginning.  Knowing what I know now it will be extra enjoyable and frustrating this time.  I have a few more months before Ian gets home to get through it all.  It’s hard to sleep without him, so I tend to watch programs on my computer at night until I can’t stay awake anymore.  Lost reruns could serve that purpose well.

Anyone have any other theories about any of the big unanswered Lost questions?  I’d love to read them.

Totally Lost (Babble)

I am one of those crazy people completely devoted to the show ‘Lost.’  There are programs here or there that I enjoy but I watch them all on my computer.  Lost is the only TV show I must watch in real time.  Lost is both ridiculous and great.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, you should see it.  But not this season.  You have to go back and start from the first season and watch everything from the beginning.  I purposely got my mom addicted to Lost because I had to have somebody in my family to talk about it with, and neither of my brothers even owns a TV.  I watched the first season with my husband, but both he and a friend I used to work with decided they preferred my summary and analysis the next day better than actually watching the show.  That’s sort of flattering, but not very satisfying.  Ian would patiently read in bed during the show and then ask me to tell him the episode I’d just seen after it was over.  Now he’s completely out of touch with it, so he listens to me spout off about random things that make no sense.

Which isn’t saying much because very little of Lost makes sense, but it’s a whole lot of fun.  It’s the ultimate TV watching experience for nerds like me who like keeping track of tiny details and drawing from a broad base of liberal arts knowledge.  Any scraps of information you know about philosophy or mythology or the bible or Star Wars or The Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland all pay off.  It’s nice to feel in on a reference that isn’t spelled out for you.  It’s nice to be treated like an intelligent viewer.


But the most fun for me is that nearly every week I am surprised.  I am so seldom surprised by stories told in movies or TV or even many novels that it’s a treat to gasp and then call my mom on the phone and ask, “Did you see that coming?!”  And we never see it coming, because it’s insane while still seeming smart.  The cliffhanger from the last season was the biggest cliffhanger I’ve ever watched on anything.  I couldn’t even begin to guess what would be happening this season.  Then the new season started and I still don’t know what’s going on.  It’s fascinating.

And it’s a fabulous distraction.  For one hour a week I don’t think about if my husband is in danger in Iraq or if there are bills to pay or how I’m not exercising like I should be or all the things I could have done better with my children or at work.  Lost throws too much at me in an average hour.  It’s extremely diverting.  As deeply as you want to look into anything there is a payoff.  If there is a TV on in the background on that show, it’s usually showing a connection to someone else you know about.  Numbers pop up that seem meaningful.  Names on signs are anagrams that provide clues to some plot point.  The central themes are all about faith and science, destiny and the connections between people, evil and light and our sense of purpose.  There are polar bears and hieroglyphs and a frozen donkey wheel and a submarine and enough other absurd sounding things that you sound like you’re just making stuff up if you try to explain any of it to the uninitiated and uninterested.  But if you are into it, it’s both thoughtful and exciting.  The body count is unbelievable.  So while you are contemplating the differences between the philosophies of Locke and Hume to gain insight on a certain character’s motivation, someone onscreen is being strangled or shot with flaming arrows or knifed in the back unexpectedly.  Six years in and I still don’t know who the good guys are for sure.  I love it.

The kids have been pretty accommodating about my request for my one show.  They know when we get back from choir practice that they must go straight to the bathroom to brush teeth and then go to bed.  For the girls it’s what they would do anyway, but they know to be more efficient about the whole bedtime routine when the clock is running down for the start of Lost.  Quinn doesn’t want to go to bed that early, but he agrees to it on the condition that I promise to come get him if there is a ‘kid part.’  I always tuck him in and assure him the second a kid part happens I will open the door and let him know.  (There are no kid parts–did I mention the body count?  And as cheesy as I find the Smoke Monster it would scare my kids silly.)  So I get an hour to myself.  (Well, myself and the biggest cast of characters I’ve ever tried to follow on one show, plus my mom on the phone saying, “What does it mean?”)

There are only a handful of episodes left before the program wraps up.  I’m hoping after this many years of investing in one crazy storyline I’m not disappointed (still grumbling under my breath about the finale of Battlestar Galactica), but it’s been a fun ride regardless.  I’ve got my kids so well trained on Tuesday nights I’m tempted to let them think the show is still running past May.  Maybe I can use that hour to read or write or just sit in silence without anyone asking me for anything.  It’s a Lost hour I don’t want to lose.