'Lost': Map madness continues

Obsessives, stretch your nerd muscles (located mostly in the neck and eyeballs): It’s time for some Lost detective work.

You’ll be happy to know we’re publishing That Crazy Map from the Hatch blast door in this week’s issue — and also right here on the site.

(Let’s pretend, for a second, that it hasn’t already spread all over the Internet.)

Now I’m no Doc Jensen (though I strongly recommend you check out his insanely rational theories), but a friend has strongly encouraged me to follow this lead: Valenzetti. You’ll see the name on the lower left hand corner of the map, along with the words, “…relevance to Valenzetti-related research activity.” My friend Googled “Valenzetti” and discovered a Googlewhack, that oh-so-rare search term that brings up only one result, in this case a log of recently registered domain names, including:

enzovalenzetti.com
thevalenzettiequation.com
valenzetti.com
valenzettiequation.com

All were registered last Sunday, by a shadowy entity called “Domain Discreet,” which I suspect is a broker for companies buying sites on the sly for one reason or another.

So… who is Enzo Valenzetti? Is he, like Alvar Hanso, a fictitious creation, sprung from the minds of Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, and J.J. Abrams? Or is he a real-world reference, like Flann O’Brien, much-blogged-about author of The Third Policeman? Get crackin’, ladies and gents. Like I said, I’m no Doc Jensen. I don’t formulate answers; I demand them — from other, smarter people!

And while you’re at it, help me with the mystery of “Dharmatel.” It appears on The Map more than once (look in the upper right corner, near the dotted, hatch-marked “C3”): “Why so many Dharmatel relays in such an untenable position?”; down below, under “I am here,” a note speaks of “Dharmatel intranet.”

Sounds like more Lost nerdspeak, right? And it most assuredly is. But Dharmatel might be a real company, if these listings are to be believed.

So get to work, people! I want answers! Gotta run now, there’s an IM coming in from Milo Rambaldi…

[UPDATE: The folks at The Tail Section have translated — and in some cases, corrected the grammar of (suh-NAP!) — the Latin phrases that appear on the map.]