After trying to puzzle out the answers to Lost for so long, I find myself now accepting the lack of answers with great vigor. I think the producers really have a good hang on where things are going. Anyway, here’s an email conversation I had with my friend Matt, after he suggested I post it online I brought it here:

Matt: Have you seen this before? http://vodpod.com/watch/2937393-lost-answers-song-parody

Derek: That was pretty well done, and kind of sweet that they really did touch on a lot of those this season. It’s not as bad as some people make it out to be, although I’m sure if they think it can only end with all the answers they have getting checked off then it will disappoint. The way the finale will really be successful is if you feel like there was a purpose to what you’ve seen before and the you feel like there’s some closure to the characters’ stories. Like Doc Jensen said, “don’t go into it looking for answers, try to find meaning” because it’s turtles all the way down.

Matt: I think you’re exactly right. If they don’t tell us about Eko’s brother or the polar bears, big deal. For me, it is going to come down to whether or not they figured out how to explain the purpose of the Jacob storyline (the greater mythology of the entire show), while still making it worthwhile (actually interesting and digestible) for those people (I count myself in this group) who really liked the show for its storylines in the first 2 seasons (action adventure/a little sci-fi) and not for the very same Jacob storyline that they’ll be explaining.

I want to know what was the big deal with Walt and if they get off this island, not necessarily if there was a connection between all these people and grand theories of good and bad and Daniel Faraday mumbo jumbo.

But yes, they have explained the numbers and who the Man in Black is/was? and where he and Jacob came from. We shall see…

ps. But what is at the END of the universe? Just JC riding a bulldozer pushing forward? Nobody knows…

Derek: I’d take it a step further and say what they think answers are is very different from what some people think answers are. Like I considered the polar bears settled, they were brought by the Dharma Initiative, kept in cages and trained/genetically modified to be able to live successfully on the island. After their destruction they were able to swim over to the main island and set up a cave home. Question raised by answering that question: Why did the DI bring them over? Because they found a giant donkey wheel in a frozen pocket underground. If you’re going to strap an animal to a wheel and turn it then there’s no better animal suited for that than the brute strength of the arctic polar bear. And then who cares if they end up on the other side (in Tunisia), we’ll have more for our experiments on this wheel.

New question: Where’d the donkey wheel come from? Well, the Man In Black designed it, and knew it was important, so important his mother was willing to destroy it and his village. Did he actually go back and complete it? Yeah, probably, but it didn’t work like he expected because he’s a smoke monster now, he needed real people to turn it, and so influenced Ben/Locke to do it eventually (as Christian). And why is it frozen now? Well he mentioned water was a key to the success of the manipulation of the island’s light, but if they get into any more mechanical detail it’ll be absurd and no longer interesting/related to the characters, here’s a nice stopping point in the question path. But there are Lost fans with an engineering slant and think they want to know exactly how everything works, but that’s how you end up with scenes like the Architect in the Matrix Reloaded and Midichlorians in Star Wars Episode 1.

So there’s a case study of how a mystery is puzzled out on Lost. We have to take lots of information, a guess or two, and figure out a lot on our own. It’s more rewarding than them just telling us “yeah, the whispers are ghosts,” so I prefer that. The characters are what really connects us to the show, and so yeah, it makes sense that if they’re curious about something (why are we here?) they will find out the answer. But the Dharma food drops? That doesn’t affect their lives at all anymore.

I went to a Lost special interview with the producers last night (simulcast into movie theaters) and they not only mentioned that we’ll be seeing Walt again, but also illuminated the point that Walt was special, and apparently it scared the Others (this was hinted at when they found the dead birds outside the brainwash room in a season 3 mobisode). Apparently Walt was so special that Ben decided he’d be more comfortable with him far away from the island. The producers also mentioned that they prefer to answer questions with people, examples: What’s in the hatch? Desmond is WHO is in the hatch. What’s the Smoke Monster? Oh, you mean WHO is this Smoke Monster person. Because it’s always about the people!

And it’s not like they’re leaving you hanging on stuff mentioned in that song like “what’s in the guitar case?” “How’d the Black Rock get where it was?”, “Why does Richard not age, (and start the Others)?”. And that bit about Jin time traveling made sense to me, those bearings are the only way to get OUT of the island’s sphere of influence, to get inside can be from any degree, and he simply floated within range of it, as opposed to those in the helicopter. Although I will say, I’m more partial to the sci-fi elements, I love that they wove in time travel, I think that might be my favorite season (so far). But it doesn’t seem like they’re going to close the time loop on that incident in which Sawyer, Juliet, Locke, Miles, Charlotte and Farraday were in a boat getting shot at after they found an Ajira water bottle at the beach camp. That seems like it should’ve happened with Widmore’s people or something. It seems like our time now, but then again, maybe it’s further into the future and we’re just suppose to assume it’s new people brought to the island (as we never got a good view of the shooters).

Matt: Phew.

Why aren’t you writing your own blog? Very good sir! I need to pass this off as my own to my coworker now.

Derek: Haha, you’re more than welcome to it! I guess I could post it on my blog (although it has more of a design slant to it) it is SO rarely updated that it might be worth putting up there!

Using a Cinema 4D module called Mograph I was able to get some cool effects fairly easily. Like that nice building effect is basically the cloner and a matrix of cubes.

Using the constraint tag and some trigonometry I created an oil derrick in Cinema 4D. There will be oil (and blood?) in no time! I like to set it on loop and just sit back for a while. And keep your milkshake straws away!

A little late for St. Patrick’s Day, but fun none the less: check out this render of a beer, complete with particles to act as the carbonation and foam.

…you’ll just wanna bang on these drums all day!

You need a webcam in or for your computer in order to get this to work, but you can now play the drums by waving your hands around in well-lit areas.

Virtual Drums

Because I received so many compliments on my pastel figure drawing last week (check it out), I thought you might want to see a few other pastel pieces I scrounged up.

This is quite an old fruit and vegetable still life, but I enjoy the reflective quality of the fruit and surface, and the color of the wall. Then I have two self portraits: the pointing one is the older (and least successful) of the two, but I like that I was at least going for the foreshortening and distortion. And the colors have some life to them in the inquisitive one.

Another class I am taking right now is Figure Drawing. And let me tell you: at this point it feels so good to just be drawing again. It’s been three years since a model has disrobed in my presence, and as weird as it sounds: it was nice. The pure art center of my brain was ready to go almost instantly. And here comes a wide sampling of durations, poses, and techniques…

There’s a lot of great stuff going on in the computer generated art scene, it’s a nice mix of programming prowess and personal expression. I made one that combines nature-inspired vector shapes with a color sampling of this image. It is also a drawing tool, one in which I made massive amounts of swirls in. The faster you move the cursor the more it throws down and in wilder rotations. The longer you hold it in the same spot, the more blurry it gets. And each time you click it switches to a different color. Here are my results, overall and up close:

Check out and upload an image of yourself to the I Exist web site! Maybe you can feel a bit reassured about your existence knowing that a small group of people feel the same way and have seen you on a web site. Quite a large overhaul from the previous version, I would say.

As promised, here is a Flash way to interact with the 360 panoramas. Select any of the three pictures, click and drag to pan up or down, and watch as they go all the way around.