The Creepy, Figure Smear Is On Purpose, Right?

Never fear, dear Vortex friends. I have the answer to that nagging question "WTH were those bizarre commercials with the tiny boxes during Lost last night?" I can barely contain my squee at the premise of what the almost-blackout snapshots meant.

To capitalize on the ultra savvy, sci-fi crazed audience who kneels at JJ Abram's time-plagued altar each week, ABC is promoting blips of their new 2009/10 series called "Flash Forward." According to From Inside the Box's Rick Porter, "The show is based on Robert J. Sawyer's novel and follows the fallout from a cataclysm in which the world's entire population blacks out for just over two minutes. In addition to dealing with the chaos that ensues when everyone wakes up -- everything from car crashes to people walking off rooftops -- people soon come to realize that they all had a vision of their futures. The network says that those investigating the event will have only "a huge mosaic of people's flash forwards" to go on." Huge atta-boy behind-smack to ABC, who has, of late, showed a willingness to embrace non-CSI premises.

And while we're all in piglandia, worried about the guy coughing behind us in the Kroger line, here's another bizarre morsel for you:The Georgia Guidestones are America's Stonehenge. Located on a barren hill in northeastern Georgia, the monument is comprised of five polished granite stones rising up out of the earth in a star-shaped pattern. Commissioned in 1980 by a man named Robert C. Christian on behalf of "a small group of loyal Americans", the stones were built to withstand a catastrophic event so those left behind had a guide to rebuild a better civilization than the previous one had destroyed. According to Christian, the structure would service as a compass, a calendar and a clock. Among the guidelines listed in eight languages, these:

Rule passion, faith, tradition and all things with tempered reason

Avoid petty laws and useless officials

Prize truth, beauty and love-seeking harmony with the infinite

Be not a cancer on the earth

Leave room for nature

Leave room for nature


Lastly, before we leave the land of creepy, check out these dolls someone crafted from Barbie and Ken. While Romance Writer Barbie may be freaky weird to those whose imaginations don't firmly reside in the Isle of Romance, this Rex Harrison/Gene Tierney homage to The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is sadly lacking the ostentatious Sea Captain portrait. Even Romance Writer Barbie had a Nora portrait.