Thursday, November 15, 2012

The Always Inevitable and Untimely Demise of the Bond Girl

For the first ten years of my life, I was convinced that my father was Sean Connery, though that was not the name by which I knew him. My real father (depending on what unit you use to measure authenticity) was present, affectionate even--offered encouraging words in times of emotional distress, watched basketball games with me, cheering when I cheered and shouting angrily when I shouted angrily, was concerned about my grades, about my future, about my general well-being--but he was tangible, thereby lacking the mystique of my real real father. I had his nose, his tendency to stand with arms hidden behind the back and to sit leaning backward, crossing legs, his gut, protruding but not too much so, his passive-aggressive manners, but that, to me, meant as much as it might mean to you if I were to tell you that that man, any man, strange in just how normal they seemed, was your father too. As a child who watched his VCR copy of The Lion King into oblivion, I expected a father to be the wise sage in the clouds, James Earl Jones, someone suave who could in one breath offer wisdom and in the next disappear. I grew up watching my mother swoon over Mr. Bond as well and so the two entities blurred in my mind. There was a brief period where her affections switched to Roger Moore’s incarnation of the character that confused me, but she found her way back to the true father and all was made well.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Brief Moments of Honesty from Otherwise Dishonest People


            Your band sucks. Even through cell phone speakers, barely audible in a crowded bar, she realizes this truth, but her mouth is bound by courtesy. Your band is fucking terrible. It’s all she can think, anticipating the moment when the timer on his iPhone playlist reaches 0:00. She no longer notices the smell of sweat, the distressing and dank atmosphere of her surroundings, the heat, the discomfort of the wooden stool beneath her. All other senses are overridden by the noise, the clamor of countless other conversations around her and the I-IV-V chord progression playing faintly underneath them. Is he bobbing his head to his own song? He can’t be …
           
“What do you think”
            “What do I think?”
            “Of the song?”
            “I can’t really hear it.”
            “Do you like it?”
            “It’s good.”