Two of the things I tend to ramble on about quite a bit here are art and Lost. Like… excessively, right? Well, today is just more of the same, so I hope you love it.

I’ve been fortunate to meet a lot of interesting people online since we started here at Counterforce (I know, I know, it’s shocking to hear that people actually read this site), including a few fellow ridiculous Lost fanatics. But recently, one of those wonderful people that I’ve encountered in my online travels, the amazing and lovely Lia, started watching Lost herself. In fact, when she sent me a message the other day asking me whether the Others were scary magical or just another group of survivors who had just plain gone wrong, I had to seriously bite my lip from the hundred million responses I could give to that question. Instead, I think I answered with something trite like, “Keep watching,” I believe. Sorry, Lia, but don’t worry, they’re the good guys.

But her journey through season 1 got me thinking about it myself. That and conversating with another friend of mine about the movie Taken, which he loved because it’s an hour and a half of Liam Neeson going Jason Bourne’s badass daddy all over Europe as he tries to get back his kidnapped daughter, played by Maggie Grace, who played Shannon way back when on Lost. That was easily a hundred million years ago.

Long story short, I got to thinking about those days of the show, and the characters, and I fondling traveled back to the episode “Hearts And Minds,” the only Boone-centric episode, the one in which Locke takes Boone out into the woods and through the aid of a few chemicals (in a very Carlos Castenada hallucinogenic style), helps him to finally let go of his obsession with Shannon and move on…

On to what? Well, on to being the sacrifice that the Island demanded, of course, ha ha!

Intriguing premise, but a bad movie. Watch the original.

But anyway, I was reminded of Boone and Locke there in the jungle, Boone very much the student and Locke not so much in the hunter role that he is suited for, but in the role that he seems to crave the most, the mentor/teacher. And as he went to work, cooking up Boone’s catharsis drugs, listening to Boone’s frustrations about the hatch (at this point, they were desperately trying to figure a way into it, which they were keeping a secret from everyone) Locke told Boone a story…

“Ludovico Buonarrati, Michelangelo’s father. He was a wealthy man. He had no understanding of the divinity in his son, so he beat him. No child of his was going to use his hands for a living. So, Michelangelo learned not to use his hands. Years later a visiting prince came into Michelangelo’s studio and found the master staring at a single 18 foot block of marble. Then he knew that the rumors were true — that Michelangelo had come in everyday for the last four months, stared at the marble, and gone home for his supper. So the prince asked the obvious — what are you doing? And Michelangelo turned around and looked at him, and whispered, sto lavorando, I’m working. Three years later that block of marble was the statue of David.”

The point? None, really. Just a nice little Lost flashback, and one of my favorite moments with Locke. Especially since, it seems like the character is usually so lost (pun intended) as he tries to keep his head above water, bobbing up and down on the waves of destiny, and I just like it when he gets to play the teacher to someone else. As for you and me… we should probably get back to work, whatever that is.

“Ancora Imparo.”

-Michelangelo (which translates as “Yet I am learning.”)