Posting during class, just to record my relief over having finished and turned in my 15-page digital preservation case study die, Australian Recordkeeping Metadata Standard, die.

I have to get up and do my presentation to the class on it in about half an hour.

On the positive side, thanks to a used book sale held on the steps of the History building, I am now the proud owner of nine Ian Flemming novels in hardback (I almost bought eleven, but there was a guy right behind me in the checkout line who was lamtening the fact no one had ever told him there were books about Bond, so I gave him Goldfinger and Casino Royale, because I have cheap 70s pulp paperbacks of those).

I hadn't read Live and Let Die since I was seventeen (my highschool lobrary had it, but the local library system only had Thunderball, Diamonds are Forever, and Dr.No) -- somehow, I had managed to forget just how mind blowingly slashy it is. Seriously, Bond shows up in NYC and walks into his hotel room to see Felix there, and he's all "Felix! How wonderful to find you here in my bedroom!" while Felix is all "James! We get to work together again, how cool is that?" while looking at him "affectionately." (meanwhile, the FBI guy along for the ride is kind of standing there, looking at them funny).

Then, several chapters later and post-shark-&-barracuda-tank, Bond is actually sitting next to Felix's bedside petting his hair (for extra blatant subtext, he's actually able to recognize it's Felix despite all the bandages by touching said hair).

Also, my memories of book vs. movie are confirmed. There is most definately no look-the-evil-black-people-are-going-to-use-the-white-heroine-as-a-voodoo-sacrifice scene in the book (alas, the same cannot be said for the movie. WTF, 70s filmmakers?). The depiction of African Americans suffers somewhat from the fact that Flemming seems to conclude that American blacks are culturally the same as black people from the Caribbean, and naturally, being a Bond book, the latent British colonialism is all over the place, but there is definately no "sacrifice the white chick to the voodoo gods" scene. When a movie from the 70s has sketchier treatments of race in it than a book from the 50s, it is Epic Fail time.
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