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Five-link Friday
I'm a little late posting this week's five-link Friday, thanks to both oversleeping and a flat tire. Happy April Fool's to me, I guess.
Also: Feel free to keep sending in I'll publish some next week.
• Famous Ahh, the spaghetti harvest of Switzerland and the Taco Bell Liberty Bell.
• As the new "Star Wars" movie approaches, perhaps it's time to revisit . (Thanks to Alan for the link!)
• I'm a fan of the James Bond books even more than the movies, and I'm fascinated with the bitter, hard-bitten war veteran Bond who never comes through in the Hollywood version. Now Hyperion has started a young adult series of Bond books, the , looking at a teenage James Bond in the 1930s.
• After I wrote an entry earlier this week and the song "Weather With You," which begins with the lyrics "Walkin' round the room singing 'Stormy Weather,' at 57 Mount Pleasant Street," my husband Rob sent me Turns out 57 Mount Pleasant Street is the British registry office where John Lennon married Cynthia Powell in 1962, a marriage that he later tried to keep secret so as not to anger crazed teen Beatle fans who couldn't stand the thought of one of the Mop Tops being unavailable.
• McSweeney's presents it would be really annoying to give out over the phone. (Via .)
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Who'll get ‘Lost’?
Warning: If you can't stand television spoilers or speculation about what may or may not happen in upcoming episodes, stop reading now.
cocreator J.J. Abrams has said that one of his plane-crash survivors will not survive the season. Who's it going to be? I don't know, but like everyone else, I can speculate.
JACK: Personally, the doctor's plots have been a little dull lately, but he's the show's de facto leader -- he's not going anywhere. Plus, he still has to find out that Sawyer ran into his now-dead father in Australia.
KATE: She's technically the show's lead actress, even though she's been reduced to a supporting role lately. She should be safe, although I wouldn't be crushed if she wasn't.
SAYID: I'd think the former Iraqi soldier is fairly safe. He's been in all the action, and he's also got a new romance cooking with Shannon. Still, some have claimed that the departing actor is "sexy," and Sayid certainly fills that bill. And he's definitely one to put himself in harm's way.
HURLEY: And early rumor that the departing character was a "big guy" had lots of people fearing the worst for the , but I've since heard that rumor debunked. Let's hope the debunking is right: The show wouldn't be the same without Jorge Garcia's mellow dude.
LOCKE: No way is he gone. It's Locke's island, the rest of them all just live on it. (Although ... I could envision a plot where it looks like Locke's killed, but he resurfaces safely later.)
MICHAEL AND WALT: The father and son team are interesting. Other than Michael's work on the raft, they haven't had much to do recently. Walt's likely to stay since the show has only begun to explore his weird polar-bear conjuring powers, but Michael shouldn't feel so safe.
CHARLIE: The rocker sure kicked drugs fast, didn't he? He's head over heels in love with Claire, so much so that if she and her about-to-be-born infant were in danger, he might gladly sacrifice himself for them. Charlie's a definite possibility.
BOONE: Boone who? He's become Locke's sidekick, but except for the revelation about his creepy relationship with his stepsister, Boone's been relegated to wandering around guarding things. I wouldn't give him good odds to stay.
SHANNON: I'd give her a better chance than Boone, thanks to her developing romance with Sayid and the fact that there aren't as many women on the show as men.
SAWYER: The actor who plays the tough con man, Josh Holloway, is on the cover of next week's TV Guide, and he says "The someone-dying thing really breaks my heart. It's a very good friend of mine and that hurts...but who knows? I may be joining them next season." Now you might assume that Holloway was told to say that regardless of whether his character is the doomed one or not. When TV Guide asks him for clues as to the soon-to-be-dearly departed, he says only "Look at whose story lines have been developing and whose haven't." I think Sawyer's character is developing more than most, and I'm betting he'll stay around.
SUN AND JIN: If one of these two were to go, it would probably be about the most crowd-pleasing move. Because Jin doesn't speak English and until recently, Sun didn't want people to know she spoke English, their roles have been limited. And Jin's been made out to be a bit of a bad guy, so fans might not be so sad to see him go — especially if he redeems himself somehow by his death.
OTHERS: Well, Abrams has apparently specified that it will be one of the main 14, but if you don't buy that ... Frenchwoman Danielle Rousseau? Rose, the not-so-major character who refuses to believe her husband is dead? Claire's yet-unborn baby? The polar bear? (Or is he already dead ... an earlier show implied as much?)
Have a theory on who will bite the dust? Send in your thoughts and I'll share them in an upcoming column.
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Weather with you
When I heard this morning that Paul Hester, the drummer for Crowded House, apparently , my mental radio switched on and has been playing it in my head nonstop.
I hestitate to call myself a Crowded House fan, because I could only name one of their songs, and I came to that one late. But it was one of those songs that carried a message I needed to hear when I heard it for the first time, and has stuck with me since.
I was in western Ireland on a work trip, my first-ever time in Europe. Back in the U.S., my husband had moved from California to marry me and live in my home state of Minnesota, but we were considering a cross-country move of our own. I'd never lived anywhere else, never been away from my family, and the thought of moving, uprooting my life, weighed heavy on my mind.
My group had gone to one of Ireland's famed pubs, but were shocked to find how early the pub closed. At 11:15, the bartenders were calling "Gentlemen, your glasses, gentlemen, your glasses!" But someone in our group knew of an after-hours dance club, and we all headed there. It was cold and rainy, but the dance club was huge and crowded, and in true junior-high-school fashion, we all threw our coats and bags in a circle and danced around them. Finally, at 4 a.m., with the club apparently continuing on nonstop, we decided to head back to the farm where we were staying.
As we headed for the exits, Crowded House's "Weather With You" began to blast through the club, and one of the women with us shrieked with joy and dragged us all back to the dance floor.
The lyrics of the song start small, in a room with a small china boat on a mantelpiece, but they swell into a crashing chorus. For someone who was debating a big move, a big life change, the chorus presented words I needed to hear: Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you, everywhere you go, you always take the weather.
What those lyrics meant to Crowded House I don't know, but to me they meant that you're still you, wherever you go, and that if you carry with you a storm, you can't escape it by moving, yet if you carry with you a fierce spirit, you will always be at home.
And suddenly the world just seemed so huge. In the darkness, all of Ireland stretched outside, all of Europe, all of the world. A cross-country move seemed doable, even worthy.
I don't know what great sadness led Paul Hester to take his own life,. But I'd like to thank him, a man I never knew, for his part in producing that one song. Its message for me was simple and vital, and is still with me today, in my new life, 1500 miles away from home.