The Explorers Club
No. CLXIV - Beau Brummell (1778-1840), the dandiest dandy.







Project PANDORA
I've decided to give this intriguing new girl the Secret Base codename Love/Hate because her surname is the German word for "hate," something she brought to my attention. My original thought was to call her The Hater, and then switch to Love/Hate if anything romantic developed between us, but that now strikes me as pointless. From the first time we met approximately a month ago, we've been flirting. Initially, I thought of this as faux-flirting, little more than repartee bolstered by an undeniable, instantly formed rapport, but as soon as that thought had formed in my head I began to ask how much was faux and how much was genuine flirting. Love/Hate it is, regardless of what happens next.

I suppose I took the first small, very small step toward moving us beyond being only speech & debate teammates when, after she missed practice last week, I sent her a text message saying I was chagrined at having been deprived of her company. But she really initiated things when she invited me to accompany her to the bonfire on Tuesday. She asked if she should also invite our speech & debate teammate The Most Dangerous Game; by no means did I say no, but my effort to communicate my lack of enthusiasm for that suggestion was successful. Love/Hate leveled the friendly accusation that I just wanted to be alone with her, to which I replied that she'd discovered my "not-so-secret secret plan."

She has a boyfriend with whom she is not contented and we have discussed openly the idea of she and I dating, as we each admit to be strongly attracted to the other. Two sticking points: {a} I am a practicing (though wicked & sinful) Catholic, while Love/Hate is an atheist. My Catholicism is not itself a problem for her (so she says) nor is her atheism a problem for me (as Puddy said to Elaine, "I'm not the one who's going to Hell."), but Tuesday night ended on something of a down note, as in our discussion of religion (at her insistence, I'd have rather not) I apparently said something that made her feel "looked down upon" and "defensive." I have apologized, because such was certainly not my intent, but we shan't have the chance to discuss what went wrong before she departs for a lengthy holiday. {b} She's knows that I'm a religiously-motivated virgin and I've told her I will do my level best not to sleep with her, however much I want to. (And I've admitted to her, "I want to have lots and lots and lots of sex with you.") Love/Hate views virginity as a sociological construct with no medical basis; I don't dispute that, but we place exactly opposite emphasis on the importance of that sociological construct. But even with all that, I'm still tremendously tempting to her. And she to me.

Updates as events transpire.

Coming Project PANDORA Attractions
"The Other Woman, Part Deux"
Whatever happened to The Impossible Ingenue?
Who is Comrade Coquettish?
The ethics of stealing another guy's girl.

This Week in Motorsport
It's easy to be a fan of Red Bull, because when they don't shoot themselves in the foot they are the team to beat in 2010 and everyone loves a winner. I suppose it's also easy to be a fan of Lotus, because they are expected not to be even remotely competitive this year, being a brand-new team, and yet at the same time they've got the advantage of the emotional connection to the classic Lotus of old. That said, my sense is that my instant embrace of Lotus Racing is genuine, visceral and thus enduring. Reading anything about Lotus puts a broad grin on my mug: More of the Lotus Eaters.

Also, with the 78th running of the 24 Heures du Mans now a memory—a treasured memory, but a memory all the same—no Formula One grand prix this weekend, and the next American Le Mans Series (A.L.M.S.) race three weeks away, I shall try to watch Saturday's Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series race from the Mid-Ohio road course. Daytona Prototypes look preposterously blunt and bulbous compared to Le Mans Prototypes, but I'm principally curious to see how the G.T. racing compares to that found in the A.L.M.S. (G.T., Grand Touring, heavily modified versions of street cars like the Chevrolet Corvette, B.M.W. M3, Porsche 911, and Ferrari F430; very heavily modified, but not frauds like silhouette racing cars.)

The Queue
One hundred pages into Devil May Care, I can say that Faulks "writing as Ian Fleming" is utter poppycock. I understand that Sebastian Faulks couldn't write a novel exactly as Ian Fleming would have, nor would he particularly wish to, I'd wager, but his James Bond is distinct from any of the Bonds seen in Fleming's stories and the universe this Bond inhabits is far more akin to the cinematic Bond than anything Fleming concocted. "Writing as Ian Fleming" is then not the tribute one would suppose it to be given that the raison d'être for Devil May Care's publication was to commemorate the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth, but a crass marketing ploy, one that succeeded in hooking this particular maroon.

Also, on a trip to Barnes & Noble I perused their selection of Ian Fleming's works and was surprised to find a book titled Quantum of Solace: The Complete James Bond Short Stories. What the hey? "Quantum of Solace" is a short story from the collection For Your Eyes Only. Of course, every Bond film has a book tie-in, usually a novelization of the screenplay, but to coincide with the 2008 release of Quantum of Solace Penguins Books decided instead to publish all the short stories in both For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy & The Living Daylights in one volume, titled, appropriately enough, Quantum of Solace. ("For Your Eyes Only," "Octopussy," & "The Living Daylights" are all individual short story titles repurposed into book titles; so, why not "Quantum of Solace," too? What puzzled me though was that at the time I was reading For Your Eyes Only and yet Quantum of Solace didn't seem very much larger, certainly not larger enough to incorporate the tales from Octopussy & The Living Daylights, too. Having now read Octopussy…, I understand. The font for the stories in Octopussy… is significantly larger than any of the other books, and yet the page count is significantly lower. "007 in New York" is only a few pages long; "The Property of a Lady" feels utterly incomplete, like a scene lifted whole from a larger work; and both "Octopussy" and "The Living Daylights" are shorter than "Quantum of Solace," the shortest piece in For Your Eyes Only. Octopussy & The Living Daylights was published after Ian Fleming's death, and I suspect solely so that all of his 007 yarns would be available in book form, not scattered in magazines and anthologies as those stories were previously published, but it is not really long enough to justify being its own book. The best course really is to combine For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy & The Living Daylights into a single volume, Quantum of Solace.

Recently
Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice
Ian Fleming, The Man with the Golden Gun
Ian Fleming, Octopussy & The Living Daylights

Currently
Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming, Devil May Care

Presently
W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden, or: The British Agent
Len Deighton, Horse Under Water
Karen E. Olson, Pretty in Ink