return the inserted element
<p>i'm pretty new to jquery. I'm trying to insert an element to the DOM, and get that element back in my script.</p>

<p>Ex: </p>

<pre><code>
    var elem = $("body").append("");
    $(elem).show();
</code></pre>

<p>but it seems that .append returns the whole jQuery object.. 
am i supposed to use an ID for the inserted element and always reference it by it?? i really hope that there is a smarter move here.
I'm used to do it like that from Prototype..</p>
