Evanston: James Bond as role model
Evanston: James Bond as role model
James Bond as role model? Not actually; but I couldn’t resist the previous entry’s heading, though I suppose Ulysses and Bond have in common that both are tricky men of action and that Dante would have also placed Bond in one of the lower circles of Hell.
The James Bond movies have exactly spanned my adult life.
I saw the first, DOCTOR NO, in May 1963, a few days before I graduated from college and drove away from the Midwest for what I thought would be permanently.
Carol and I watched the most recent, CASINO ROYALE, last night on a DVD from Netflix.
I checked and there have now been 21 Bond films, grossing more than three billion dollars. This makes it the second most lucrative series ever, exceeded only by the combined earnings of the six Star War movies.
Over the decades I think I have seen them all. Taken as what they are: adult comic books, they are mostly entertaining. Reviewers have been almost unanimous that CASINO ROYALE is one of the best and that Daniel Craig is the best Bond since Sean Connery. I completely agree.
The movie includes one of the most athletic pursuit scenes I can recall and a sailboat improbably on the Grand Canal in Venice.
From sailinganarchy.com I already knew that it was a Spirit Yacht.
These are to my eye beautiful boats, with narrow hulls of laminated wood reminiscent of old meter boats, and modern underbodies. They are very light-weight and very expensive. I’m not sure they could stand up to Cape Horn or even a conventional trade-wind circumnavigation. I am sure I can’t afford one. But they are so elegant that if I ever won the lottery--which I don’t play--I’d fly to England and look them over. You can do on online at www.spirityachts.com.
This site was down for a few hours yesterday afternoon. I doubt this caused anyone undue distress, but if so I apologize. I was rearranging the journal archives, which can now be accessed by year at the top of the journal opening page. iWeb, the Apple program I use to create the site, is very easy and intuitive, but has certain cumbersome procedures, such republishing the entire site every time the slightest change is made. I have found workarounds for these; but hope they will be improved in the next version of the software.
Speaking of this, I have not yet been able to get the RSS feed to work. On the journal opening page I’ve tried again.
The photo is of Evanston’s South Beach taken last Tuesday when the temperature reached a record 73ºF.
Friday, March 16, 2007