"Skyfall" and a life in Bond-age. - Part 1

Valya - 120112

I just read a friend's posted review of the newest installment in the James Bond series, Skyfall.   After finishing her well written critique, I wanted to share my own.  It is based on my own Bond history and how I feel about this movie.

I am forty-three years old.  The James Bond movie franchise is fifty.  There have always been Bond movies around me.  I grew up with James as my fantasy uncle that I could live vicarious adventures through.  I love the Bond movies.  I love what he stands for and is.  He is the alter ego I wish I had.

My mom is a huge Bond fan and while raising me, she made sure I was as well.  I can't remember my first Bond movie, but I think it was one of Sean Connery's movies.    My mom has a big crush on that guy, much like her crush on Leonard Bernstein.  I know she enjoyed them both for more than their artistic talents.

My first Bond movies were all from watching TV.  The ABC network would play them on a Sunday night and they would go 2.5 hours instead of the usual 2 that most movies would get.  I had to get special dispensation from mom to stay up to 10:30 to see them.  I watched them for the fantastic action, the exotic scenery, and to try and follow the story.

As I got old enough to watch the movies in the theater with my mom and brother, I saw them on the big screen.  Even though Moonraker was my first in-theater Bond movie, the first one I remember and noticed something new was For Your Eyes Only.  I noticed the women.

Almost every Bond movie has two important bits with women.  The first is the opening title and theme song section where the women are usually naked and silhouetted.  It was the first time I remember seeing a naked woman, or at the negative black field of her, on film.  Seeing that may have been one of the little bits of my sexual experiences that made me appreciate the beauty of women in their natural state.  The second were the Bond women themselves and their silly names.  By my mid-teens, I was rolling my eyes at their horrible character names such as Pussy Galore and Octopussy.



During my young years, Roger Moore was my favorite Bond.  I liked his casual and slightly snarky approach to the character.  As I got older, I went back to liking Connery since he was more of a macho Bond.  In college I watched the subtler Timothy Dalton's Bonds and felt the franchise had gone into a slump.  It wasn't him, it was the stories and over-the-top lines and action sequences.  I had to ask if Wayne Newton should have ever been in a Bond movie (License to Kill).

By the time Piece Brosnan took up the helm, I only watched the Bond movies by renting them on VHS.  He was good, but each story felt like a retread.  Brosnan's Bond was a unique mixture of Moore's snarkiness and a darker side that included hints at James' alcoholism.  While he did well, I lost track and missed the last two or three of his performances.

In 2006*, Daniel Craig took on the Bond role in Casino Royale.  According to a recent Vanity Fair article about him and the role, Brosnan gave him a bit of advice, "Don't fuck it up."  Craig said he learned what that meant after his first movie came out and suddenly felt not only the weight of the role, but also the weight of the whole Bond universe was on him.

Bond's transgressive coming out of the water.

Vesper Lynd from Casino Royale still.

Casino Royale was the first Bond movie I went to see in a theater in over a decade.  I really wanted to see it for many reasons all of which concerned the new Bond, Daniel Craig.  First, he is barely a year older than me.  he is the first Bond my age.  That is important to me.  I feel connected to him because of that.  We were both in our upper 30's when that movie came out.   Second, he is the first blond Bond.  I am a blond too. 

In that movie he broke so many Bond rules.  First, he didn't have the sex with the usual three women in it.  Second, he drove a Ford Focus as his first car.  Third, instead of having a beauty like Ursula Andress or Halle Berry come out the water dripping wet in a swim suit, he came out buff and hot as ever.  I think even every straight man had to feel his privates twitch at that scene.  He represented masculinity and its raw beauty in that magic moment.  Fourth, he was rough.  In the famous parkour scene where he is chasing a villain through a building site, the baddy vaults over a half wall, Bond runs through it.  As M says in that movie to him, "You are a blunt weapon".  Fuck subtlety.  Sometimes you have to break through to the other side.   Fifth, Bond fell in love.  Vesper (which inspired the invention of a great and butt-kicking drink) was played by the unbelievable beautiful Eva Green who becomes his love and his heartbreak loss as well.  Her loss hardened his heart.  You could feel this happen with him and understood why he went cold to love and emotion after that.  This movie soon became my favorite Bond movie staring my favorite Bond movie.

A few years later, Craig's second Bond movie came out, Quantum of Solace.  It sucked for so many reasons I wont go into.  I was worried for the franchise after seeing it.  The only saving bit was Jack White and Alicia Key's them song, Another Way to Die.

In my next post, I will finally write about Skyfall. 

*I always wondered why they didn't wait to release the movie in 2007... as in 007 in 2007!

Little deaths.

Leila and Hana - 111612

Little deaths around me.
This memory, that relationship, those opportunities.
Some die slow and quietly from neglect or lack of need or use.
Others snuff out instantly, screaming or just a soft whimper.
Some by my hands, some theirs'.
Leaves falling from a tree can't go back.
 

Sex and death

Valya - 111012

Memento mori is a Latin phrase translated as "Remember your mortality", "Remember you must die" or "Remember you will die". It refers to a genre of artworks that vary widely but which all share the same purpose: to remind people of their mortality, an artistic theme dating back to antiquity. - Wikipedia

Maybe it is watching the dead leaves fall from the trees.  I am feeling the connections between life and death more and more.  I've written about the connection between sex and the universe, spirituality, and connection to the greater.  I also wrote briefly about the French term for orgasm, le petit mort, "the little death" or the "...spiritual release that comes with orgasm or to a short period of melancholy or transcendence as a result of the expenditure of the 'life force'" (Wikipedia, again)

I am now going to write about the connection I feel between sex and death.  It isn't that sex can kill or lead to death for me,  but more of an overall acceptance of both in my life.  Sex is a part of me as much as my heart, my eyes, my penis, and my soul.  It is part of me and I am part of it.  For me, sex is life and life is sex, but also a cousin to death. 

While some may argue that the opposite of life is death, death comes only from a life ending.  Life has no real meaning if we don't face death.  Sex is part of it all.  Sex creates life.  Life leads to death.  The circle seems a perverse threesome. 

Death is just a tad bit younger than life and it is one of the oldest organic conditions in our existence. Maybe by connecting sex to creating new life, the opposite of death, the orgasm gives us a taste of both in the blissful moment.- me

Sex makes me feel more alive than ever, especially during it.  Afterward though, during the post-glow quietness, I feel closer to my mortality.  It is an acceptance and a reminder that I am a little closer to it, at least one orgasm closer.  It is not a morose feeling, just an acknowledgement and acceptance of it being in my future.  Maybe that is why I feel closer to the universe during and after sex.  A small part of sex plays a role in the painting of my life.  It is the little skull in the corner acting as my momento mori.  It is me feeling alive and in some small way dieing just a little bit inside me.

Our American City - New York

From Hoboken, NJ - 111012

If you read my stuff, you know I love, am in love with, and have an infatuation with New York City.  I've walked the streets, ate the food, photographed the place, and always feel a longing to return.  I can't claim I know it or am from there though although I feel myself desiring it again.

Valya - 111012

When the news kept coming back about Sandy's devastation to it, I instantly felt my heart sink.  I was there almost exactly a year ago and enjoyed the brisk November weather.  Now, I worried about all the people I know there.  Some had damage, some are cold and in the dark, but all are holding up.   I emailed Valya and she said her power was out, but she and her family were OK out in Brooklyn.

New York has a resilience that is unique to itself.  It can take one right on the chin, get up, tell the hurricane to, "go fuck itself", and then eventually go back to being New York.

New York - once you get back up again, I will be back.  I love you.

Does size matter?

Tiana and Truck - 110912

What is the right length for a blog post?  Should it be as long as the stories published in Vanity Fair" that go on for pages with densely written text deeply exploring a topic?  Should it be closer to a newspaper article that provides a solid overview of a topic, but not going into depth?  Should it be closer to a Facebook update that pretty much is status update?  Should I even be comparing it to written things and look to other expressive outlets like tv, movies, podcasts and vodcasts?

A good friend of mine from high school and I are thinking of starting a blog.  It will be for artistic growth and sharing knowledge and will also be for promoting our collaborations with commercial goals.  I've never done a partnership blog and am very excited about this opportunity.  One aspect we need to address is what is the best way to lure in readers, viewers, and potential customers with content that is rich, valuable, and appreciated without either giving away too much or going too deep without being too shallow and vapid?

We are at the very beginning stages of all this.  One thing we need to work on is defining our audience.  This will help us determine what we write and share.  We want smart, sexy, people that appreciate art, erotica, and are not afraid of exploring edgy issues and will want more.  What are the right hooks to attract them?

We need to think about how much do we give out and how much do we sell.  If we create a book, we would be stupid to show all the images online and give it away.  If we have erotic stories or essays about the topic that will be compiled into something more, we can't give it all away either.

This morning, I watched a trailer for the new Bond movie, Skyfall.  It is a very good trailer.  It showed just enough to get the idea of what the movie promises without giving away the story by showing all the key developments.  I hate seeing  movie trailers that pretty much synopsizes the whole movie by showing all the good bits.  While this trailer is great for a singular offering of one movie, an online equivalent for a blog requires a bit more than a tease.  Blogs are periodicals, movies are events.  We will need to find that balancing point of giving richness to our readers and yet leaving them wanting to go beyond the blog and explore what we created and buy it.  Where is that fine line between just stringing someone along vs. giving away the whole cow?

Where have you been?

Tiana - 110912

I've been a busy boy/photographer.  I wont bore you by regaling you with all the arduous details.  The big thing is that I have my photos up in two galleries and a local coffee shop.  They are three very different series out there, so I am proud to have so many different pieces out there.

ECHO Gallery - Calistoga, Ca

I am excited that I am getting my stuff out there.  It feels good that others are seeing them.  While they are my tamer photos, some still have an edge to them.   I need to find venues for sharing my nude/erotic work. 

In other news, I got a new Epson 3880 printer.  There is something rich about holding a physical print rather than just seeing its pixel sibling.

None of this post is too deep or profound.  I need to get into some meaty topics in the near future.  I also hope to have my "I Objectify Women..." series completed in the next month and will have to share some of it here.  There is also the election to write about.  Oh  yeah, erotica, sex, sensuality, and carnal mayhem are always fun too.

 

Java Jax - Vallejo, CA

Java Jax - Vallejo, CA

Photo note - Tiana was a great model.  I hope to work wither her again in the new year.

I love the energy of this song.

Sunshine on my shoulders...

Tiana -  101712

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high. - John Denver

John Denver's somewhat sappy song makes sense at times.  I grew up listening to my mom's John Denver album and always paused to soak in this song.  It wasn't so much that the lyrics had meaning to me, but the Taize nature of the song pacified me for the moment.

If you know me, you know I am not a big fan of standing out in the sun.  I actually hate just standing or sitting in the sun.  It is hot and it makes me cranky.  With that said, there are times though I appreciate turning my face to the source of all organic energy on earth and relishing in its warmth.