For decades, James Bond was untouchable. He didn’t evolve. That’s because he didn’t have to. Bond wasn’t just a spy; he was a fantasy, a cultural anchor, a mirror reflecting what the West wanted to believe about itself. Bond showed…
Deceive my parents? On the contrary, I was the most well-behaved of teens. But in a desperate moment as a 15-year-old, I deliberately disobeyed my mother. I’d been dropped off at Atlanta’s new multiplex movie theater — “multiplex” in those…
Over the years, Jeff Bezos has undergone a rather striking evolution — physically, mentally, and culturally. Once a pale, nerdy book salesman, he has transformed into “Buff Bezos,” a figure emblematic of discipline and reinvention. Today, his biceps are as…
Like the United States itself, the opaque world of espionage is now badly polarized. While no official confirmation has been issued, there are various reports that British actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 33, will be the next James Bond, the successor in this…
There is a probably apocryphal anecdote about the two greatest authors of French literature, who just happened to be close friends. Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas were strolling by the Seine River one day in 1865, when the bells of…
A friendly warning: After I die, no matter how many centuries have passed, I will return to earth in the form of a bloody whirlwind to rain lava down on any imbecile who dares to remove sentences from any of…
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. — Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night In the 21st…
The franchise of Bond, James Bond has suffered the same fate as some other companies in corporate America: it has lost its brand identity due to a lack of focus. It is both confused and confusing. And the franchise has…
Time to take a break during the holidays — impossible during last year’s kerfuffle after the 2020 election — and hence the delay in publishing this piece on a legend who left us on Halloween 2020; and quite a bio he…
