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Sunday, July 23, 2006

YOU ONLY READ YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE ONCE 

(Or, What if Gertrude Stein had written You Only Live Twice?)

Mr. Bond and Mrs. Bond got married in Switzerland and they were very gay there.

Mr. Bond being a secret agent spent many hours days weeks cultivating his witticisms about race and gender. He knew many ways to cheat at cards and he could kill with half a toothpick. And he was very gay spending much time at cultivating his killing talents and his card-cheating talents and his offensive commentary talents.

Mrs. Bond could drive swiftly and gamble recklessly. She was also very good at feeling sorry for herself, and she was very gay in feeling sorry for herself and she spent much time in cultivating her talent at feeling sorry for herself. She was sorry for herself all the time. Why was she sorry for herself. She was sorry for herself because her corsican mafia father would not let her kill herself. Then she met Mr. Bond and he made her very gay and she did not want to kill herself.

So they were married and Mr. Bond and Mrs. Bond were very gay together for a time a short time barely long enough to drive halfway across france. Mr. Bond had many enemies they were evil men but very gay at being evil especially one man named Mr. Blofeld who killed Mrs. Bond but was very gay about it.

Mr. Bond was no longer very gay. His boss was a nice man namd M. He was usually very gay but now he was sad because Mr. Bond was sad. And Mr. Bond had a secretary Miss Goodnight who was usually very gay but now she was sad because Mr. Bond was sad.

They all wanted Mr. Bond to be gay again so they sent him to japan to find out very gay things the japanese knew about the russians who are all up in russia drinking vodka and being very gay.

Mr. Bond was in japan being gay very gay with an australian Mr. Henderson who was very gay and called Mr. Bond a pommy and said Mr. Bond was gay. Then Mr. Bond was still in japan and still being very gay but now he was being very gay with a japanese man named Tanaka-san who called Mr. Bond Bondo-san which is japan's language for Mr. Bond. The quality of the gayness with Tanaka-san was very different from the quality of the earlier gayness with Mr. Henderson who was big and loud and smelly and said Bondo-san was gay. When Bondo-san and Tanaka-san were being very gay together they ate poisonous fish, wrote poetry and plotted to kill an eccentric botanist. It was all very gay. Especially the poetry. Bondo-san wrote:

You only live twice
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face.


Very very gay. Totally gay. Gay gay gay. And not even proper haiku.

Better luck next time, Bondo-san.

In the lovely laughing movie version of you only live twice they give the line to Miss Sinatra and later to Mr. Blofeld which is appropriate because Miss Sinatra and Mr. Blofeld were there in the nineteen sixties and it was very gay. Mr. Blofeld is especially very gay in that movie.

Tanaka-san also known as Tiger because he is gay and because tigers are very gay much more gay than lions Tanaka-san says he will give Bondo-san the information about the russians if Bondo-san will kill an eccentric swiss botanist named Mr. Shatterhand who has come to japan and bought a samurai castle where he has a garden where he grows hundreds of types of poisonous plants and also stocked it with piranhas, spiders, snakes and many other deadly creatures. It doesn't sound very gay but it makes Mr. Shatterhand feel very gay and he is very gay there. And hundreds of suicidal japanese have gone there to be gay there and to die there. For someone who wants to die, it is very gay there.

Bondo-san realizes that Mr. Shatterhand is just a name for Mr. Blofeld, the man who killed Mrs. Bond in on her majesty's secret service. Mr. Bond wore a dress in that one. It was a very good book to be very gay in.

So now Bondo-san who was sad because he could never find Mr. Blofeld is now very gay because he is going to kill Mr. Blofeld.

Bondo-san goes to ninja school and is very gay there cultivating his ninja skills until he is very good at being silent and killing and being very gay and wearing black and many other ninja skills.

He gors to Ama Island, a very good place to be gay there where everybody is a fisherman and the girls dive nude to hunt for japanese oysters. Bondo-san lives in a house with Miss Suzuki and her family and they are very gay there not totally gay there just very gay there while Bondo-san waits for the right moment to swim to the mainland infiltrate the castle and kill Mr. Blofeld. Which he soon does in a very gay fashion and the castle blows up and Bondo-san falls into the sea and he is rescued by Miss Suzuki and he has amnesia and they then have a very gay time together for the last few pages mostly looking at dirty magazines.

(Note: I really liked You Only Live Twice. It might be my favorite Bond novel. But these positive reviews are kind of boring, and this novel largely avoided the racist and homophobic material that fueled some of the criticism in several of the reviews. Admittedly, there is a little fun to be had at the expense of the Japanese but in context, as the attitudes of Bond and other Western operatives, it wasn't offensive especially considering the large roles of Tiger Tanaka and Kissy Suzuki. Tiger especially has no difficulty in holding his own with Bond in the cultural battle between the East and West.

I decided to write this in the style of Gertrude Stein. I have looked over the result and I have no idea how it will go over. It pleases me. But I imagine that the subset of James Bond fans that also know the work of Gertrude Stein is very small.

The movie version of You Only Live Twice was the first film to deviate significantly from the novel. The novel does not have any disappearing missiles, no extortion plot by Blofeld, no SPECTRE, no Aki, no sumo wrestling, no song by Nancy Sinatra, no secret base in a volcano, no Persian cat. Many of the characters - Henderson, Blofeld, Irma Bunt, Kissy Suzuki, Tiger Tanaka - are in the movie and the novel both, but the plot has been significantly altered. Also note that You Only Live Twice was filmed before On Her Majesty's Secret Service, so the film version of You Only Live Twice has no mention of Bond's mission to Switzerland, his marriage, or his desire for revenge against Blofeld.)

For more information on You Only Live Twice, see the wikipedia entry.

For more information on Gertude Stein, see the wikipedia entry and The World of Gertrude Stein.

Next: Gertrude Stein will return in the world is not enough.

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