The Queue
I spent the afternoon & early evening finishing Casino Royale in a marathon session. Man alive, what a page-turner! Of all the 007 novels, Casino Royale is the story with which I was already most familiar—the benefit of having seen both "Casino Royale," an adaptation for an episode of the 1950s television show Climax!, and Casino Royale, the first picture starring Daniel Craig as Bond—but even so Fleming's writing fairly leapt off the page. And, holy smoke, Fleming's James Bond is a human person (I love it whenever they say that on Psych), not the demigod I grew up watching on the silver screen.
There's so much more that needs to be said about Casino Royale, but I need to take a little time to ruminate, to let sink in all I read, to let my thoughts take shape. Plus, and let's be frank, I'm not feeling at all an able communicator at the moment, I command none of my required eloquence and wit. But I can say this, I already know that Casino Royale is going to have a discernible influence on Project PANDORA going forward.
The Impossible Ingenue as Vesper Lynd?
Recently
Marshall Jevons, The Fatal Equilibrium
P. G. Wodehouse, Mike at Wrykyn
Ian Fleming, Casino Royale
Currently
waiting for…
Presently
Ian Fleming, Live and Let Die
Ian Fleming, Moonraker
Ian Fleming, Diamonds Are Forever
Go ahead and unleash the hounds, Brenda. What is it you wanted to say about your relatively recent experience reading several of the Bond novels?
What's Eating The Last Angry Man?
I relished the feast for the senses that was the gorgeous B.B.C./Discovery Channel nature documentary Planet Earth. That Planet Earth was narrated by Sigourney Weaver, an actress best known as the voice of the Planet Express Ship in the Futurama episode "Love and Rocket"? A bonus! I'd love to be excited about the forthcoming thematic sequel to Planet Earth, Life (Where are Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi?), but for the American broadcast Sir David Attenborough was replaced as narrator by… Oprah Winfrey, whose voice is much akin to the sound of fingernails shrieking across a chalkboard. So, I shan't be watching Life, though if it is made available I may at some point rent or borrow from the library the B.B.C. version.
Watching a bit of To Kill a Mockingbird this evening prior to the start of the new episode of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, I saw that the broadcast of the film was being "presented" by Maya Angelou, reputed to be one of our time's premiere thinkers. Dr. Angelou said "the greatest theme" of To Kill a Mockingbird is "social responsibility." Also, "the greatest theme of the film is family. The greatest theme is love… not sentiment, but love." The greatest theme is social responsibility. The greatest theme is family. The greatest theme is love. Forgive me if I'm completely mistaken, but how can a film have three themes as its singular greatest theme? Is not the entire idea of "the greatest" anything to stand alone, apart from all else? Is that not the operational definition of "the greatest"? To Kill a Mockingbird is a phenomenal novel, and To Kill a Mockingbird is a phenomenal motion picture. Must we celebrate them by butchering the English language? Whatever respect I might have had for Maya Angelou was washed away once she became a public proponent of ignorance and idiocy. For shame!
The Banzai Beard Bonanza II: Bonsai's Revenge
Day 65: I apologize for the exceptionally long delay since the last round of photographs. I will try to have my father take a new round of snapshots tomorrow. The beard has come a long way in the more than three weeks since the last photos were posted: The L.A.W. has become… almost complimentary. At the very least, she seems to accept that she'd prejudged the beard without giving it a chance to come into its own. I expect no such softening in Mrs. Skeeter, Esq.'s or The Watergirl's attitudes.
The greatest challenge remains the propensity for moustache hairs to insinuate themselves into the eating and drinking processes. I am walking a fine line between encouraging the moustache to flourish and trimming back those hairs that overhang my lips and pose an, as it were, hazard to navigation. No one ever said the Bonanza would be easy, but, by Jove (who's always represented with a beard, mind you), it's worth the inconvenience!
"Man, I can't wait until tomorrow!"
"Why's that?"
"Because I get better looking every day."
The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Chris Cornell, "You Know My Name" (the theme song from the 2006 film Casino Royale) via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)
8 comments:
First, to play the devil's advocate, I'm going to suggest that maybe Maya Angelou was employing poetic license in order to emphasize how the great film cannot easily be summarized in a single facet. If you want to hate on Maya for whatever reason you want, then please do what you want to do. It just isn't uncharacteristic of a poet to employee such devices, and I'm sure she did it deliberately.
Also, what about mustache wax? This might allow you to keep them stray hairs in line while adding a further sense of refinement to the project and your face. Face.
Finally, "You Know My Name" is the only song I've ever heard from Chris Cornell that is worth hearing again, but only in the context of watching that beautiful opening theme. Best. Bond. Intro. Ever.
I fail to see how deliberately promoting ignorance and idiocy is morally preferable to inadvertently promoting ignorance and idiocy. There are any number of ways "to emphasize how the great film cannot easily be summarized in a single facet" without specifically inverting/perverting, the definition of any words.
1. Am intrigued as to how you envision Casino Royale influencing pandora
2. Kind of agree with the guy re: Maya Angelou
3. Charles Manson is also always depicted with a beard.
I agree; there are other ways in which she could have made her point.
Jesus is also always depicted with a beard. And usually God, too. And Paul Bunyan. And Abraham Lincoln. And Abraham.
True. If Mike goes for full on manson/jesus/roman god facial hair, that will sure be something.
Agree with Julie re: point 1.
I was going to say that I'm working on it, but that sounded a lot like "I'm trying," and then all I could hear in my heard was Yoda, "Do or do not, there is no try." A treatise, or rather something far, far less grand, on the influence of Casino Royale upon Project PANDORA (a sort of sequel to Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power Upon History?) is forthcoming.
Perhaps I will dedicate a blog post to my thoughts on the Bond books. Thank you for the nudge, and I'm glad you're enjoying them.
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