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chitoryu12 posted:She was sitting, half-naked, astride a chair in front of the dressing-table, gazing across the back of the chair into the triple mirror. Her bare arms were folded along the tall back of the chair and her chin was resting on her arms. Her spine was arched, and there was arrogance in the set of her head and shoulders. The black string of her brassiere across the naked back, the tight black lace pants and the splay of her legs whipped at Bond’s senses. This description makes me immediately think of the famous photo of Christine Keeler, but it wasn't taken until seven years after the book was published.
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# ? Jan 7, 2019 19:01 |
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# ? Apr 28, 2024 03:45 |
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I have a feeling that Bond using his real name will bite him in the arse later.
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# ? Jan 8, 2019 00:01 |
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I believe Fleming chose "James Bond" (which was the name of an ornithologist he admired) it was a completely boring, average name which anybody could have.
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# ? Jan 8, 2019 00:33 |
Wheat Loaf posted:I believe Fleming chose "James Bond" (which was the name of an ornithologist he admired) it was a completely boring, average name which anybody could have. That is correct. Before he became one of the most popular characters in pop culture history, "James Bond" was a very normal and dull name. Hence Tiffany cracking that he may as well be John Doe.
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# ? Jan 8, 2019 02:00 |
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You've got a few broken quote tags in the middle of that post. So far I've enjoyed the Bond girls as much as I enjoy Bond, or more than him in the case of the previous book. Hopefully this trend continues.
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# ? Jan 8, 2019 09:32 |
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Lord Zedd-Repulsa posted:So far I've enjoyed the Bond girls as much as I enjoy Bond, or more than him in the case of the previous book. Hopefully this trend continues. It's quite remarkable just how much more interesting the women are in the books than they are in the movies. They're certainly far more than just accessories to Bond as they often are in the film versions.
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# ? Jan 8, 2019 13:31 |
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I'm really hoping Bond's "Jew-sense" was just that the secretary and that diamond-seller were wearing traditional Jewish attire. But hey, considering the way the novels describe black people... Also, rereading the start of the thread maybe they had small ears with large lobes.
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# ? Jan 8, 2019 13:49 |
Chapter 6: In Transitquote:It was six o’clock on Thursday evening and Bond was packing his suitcase in his bedroom at the Ritz. It was a battered but once expensive pigskin Revelation and its contents were appropriate to his cover. Evening clothes; his lightweight black and white dog-tooth suit for the country and for golf; Saxone golf shoes; a companion to the dark blue, tropical worsted suit he was wearing, and some white silk and dark blue Sea Island cotton shirts with collars attached and short sleeves. Socks and ties, some nylon underclothes, and two pairs of the long silk pyjama coats he wore in place of two-piece pyjamas. This is definitely a pre-TSA world. The camp shirts made from Sea Island cotton Bond brings were a piece of clothing Fleming himself was fond of. Bond receives a call from the hotel staff, informing him that a "Universal Exports" representative has arrived with a letter to be personally delivered to him. It's one of the MI6 messengers, with instructions for him to read the letter and then take it back to headquarters once he's done. quote:There was a page of blue typewritten foolscap paper with no address and no signature. Bond recognized the extra-large type used in M.’s personal communications. While the Spangled Mob is fictional, the Purple Gang was a real Detroit Jewish gang that operated during Prohibition. After its rise to prominence in the Midwest, violent infighting promptly caused it to dissolve by 1932. The "Cleveland Outfit" is a series of mafia organizations that have existed since the 1900s in Cleveland, under the control of John Scalish from 1944 until his death in 1976. At the time Diamonds are Forever takes place, the Cleveland mafia is at its peak. quote:There was no signature. Bond ran his eyes down the page again, folded it, and placed it in one of the Ritz envelopes. I've posted this before, but here's a Beretta 418 someone modified to be identical to Bond's gun. The front sight is filed down to prevent snagging on the draw, the grip panels are removed to make it even thinner and allow Bond to see how many rounds remain in the magazine, and some tape is wrapped around the grip to both provide a better surface for gripping and hold down the grip safety so the gun can be reliably fired even with a sloppy or incomplete grip. quote:The telephone rang. ‘Your car’s here, Sir.’ The Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire 346 was a very new car at the time this book takes place, with the first model being put on sale in 1952 and the book likely taking place in July and August of 1953. About 7600 of these big, powerful sedans and limousines were made. quote:After the roundabout at the end of the Great West Road, the driver pulled in to the side. He opened the glove compartment and carefully removed six new Dunlop 65’s in their black wrapping paper, and with the seals intact. Leaving the engine idling in neutral, he got out of the front seat and opened the rear door. Bond looked over his shoulder and watched the man unstrap the ball-pocket on his golf bag and, one by one, carefully add the six new balls to the miscellaneous old and new ones the pocket already contained. Then, without a word, the man climbed back into the front seat and the drive continued. As Bond enters the departure lounge, Tiffany Case follows behind and takes up a seat between Bond and the door where she can intercept him if he has second thoughts. He scans the crowd over the newspaper and notes that he doesn't recognize any of the other passengers on his plane, which would be a long shot but still nice to know. He notes that one of the two American businessmen drinking double brandies and water takes what appears to be Dramamine pills. quote:‘Final Lounge?’ Cheerful start to flying the Atlantic, reflected Bond, and then they were all walking across the tarmac and up into the big Boeing and, with a burst of oil and metanol smoke, the engines fired one by one. The chief steward announced over the loudspeaker that the next stop would be Shannon, where they would dine, and that the flying time would be one hour and fifty minutes, and the great double-decker Stratocruiser rolled slowly out to the East-West runway. The aircraft trembled against its brakes as the Captain revved the four engines, one at a time, up to take-off speed, and through his window Bond watched the wing flaps being tested. Then the great plane turned slowly towards the setting sun, there was a jerk as the brakes were released and the grass on either side of the runway flattened as, gathering speed, the Monarch hurtled down the two miles of stressed concrete and rose into the west, aiming ultimately for another little strip of concrete carpet on the other side of the world. Good to know the trend of tacky Irish souvenirs in airports has existed for this long! The Irish coffee Bond has was actually invented in an Irish airport by Joe Sheridan in 1943 when a flying boat to the United States was forced to turn back due to bad weather. Sheridan was asked to return to the terminal at Foynes in western Ireland (35 miles from Shannon Airport, which is where Bond's plane has landed) to prepare food and drinks for the cold passengers, including spiking their coffee with whiskey. When asked if it was Brazilian coffee, he joked "No, it's Irish coffee." quote:Bond slept well and awoke only as they were approaching the southern shores of Nova Scotia. He went forward to the washroom and shaved, and gargled away the taste of a night of pressurized air, and then he went back to his seat between the lines of crumpled, stirring passengers and had his usual moment of exhilaration as the sun came up over the rim of the world and bathed the cabin in blood. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Jan 8, 2019 |
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# ? Jan 8, 2019 16:57 |
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quote:There was the hiss and sickly smell of the insecticide bomb,... Wait, did they routinely bug bomb transatlantic flights back then? While the passengers were still aboard? Huh. Apparently some countries (mostly in tropical regions) still require that arriving planes bug-spray the cabins while the passengers are onboard. Selachian fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Jan 9, 2019 |
# ? Jan 9, 2019 01:28 |
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Selachian posted:Wait, did they routinely bug bomb transatlantic flights back then? While the passengers were still aboard? I was on a plane where they did it last year.
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# ? Jan 9, 2019 01:43 |
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Huh me too, I thought it was air freshner or something though. Makes sense!
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# ? Jan 9, 2019 13:29 |
Chapter 7: 'Shady' Treequote:The customs officer, a paunchy good-living man with dark sweat marks at the armpits of his grey uniform shirt, sauntered lazily over from the Supervisor’s desk to where Bond stood, his three pieces of luggage in front of him, under the letter B. Next door, under C, the girl took a packet of Parliaments out of her bag and put a cigarette between her lips. Bond heard several impatient clicks at the lighter, and the sharper snap as she put the lighter back in her bag and closed the fastening. Bond felt aware of her watchfulness. He wished that her name began with Z so that she would not be so close. Zarathustra? Zacharias? Zophany ...? Bond's efforts at small talk are in vain. He asks what the next step is and is only told "Shady wants you", which makes him impatient to start throwing his weight around. The car drives to 46th Street in Midtown Manhattan, which Fleming compares to Hatton Garden (the major jeweler's district in London); I can't comment on how accurate this is for the 1950s. They park in front of a very discreet little shop, House of Diamonds Inc. Another gangster is already waiting on the sidewalk for them. After checking with the driver, the driver takes the golf bag and the new man drives the car away. Inside, they leave the golf clubs with a porter and continue further into the building. quote:The driver, with Bond’s clubs over his shoulder, waited for Bond beside the doors of an elevator across the hall. When Bond followed him inside, he pressed the button for the fourth floor and they rode up in silence. They emerged into another small hallway. It contained two chairs, a table, a large brass spittoon and a smell of stale heat. In the film, Shady Tree is played by stand-up comedian Leonard Barr. Because the film moves the action exclusively to Las Vegas, Shady Tree is recast as an old Vegas stand-up comic and part of the diamond smuggling pipeline. The Spangled Mob is also replaced by a reappearance of the infamous Blofeld and SPECTRE, who has Shady Tree killed off as part of his ultimate plan to use the diamonds to make a giant laser satellite. The book isn't quite as grandiose. quote:Bond smiled politely. Bond sits down across the desk from Shady Tree and lights up a cigarette, asking for his $5000. Along with promising Bond a chance at more money, he informs him that his method of payment will also be disguised to avoid the suspicion of a criminal suddenly becoming flush with cash. quote:‘So,’ said the hunchback, ‘I and my friends pay only very seldom and in small amounts for services rendered. Instead, we arrange for the guy to make the money on his own account. Take yourself. How much money have you got in your pocket?’ Bond makes his move, asking if the mob has any extra work available to keep him out of England for a bit. Shady Tree thinks about it, then gives him a solid maybe and asks him to call after betting on the horses. Bond makes the usual shrug and tells the gangster that he's got no problem with whatever work they give as long as the pay's good. quote:For the first time the china eyes showed emotion. They looked hurt and angry and Bond wondered if he had overplayed. The phone number's a bit weird, right? Before area codes, each phone would have its own number and an exchange that it was tied to. If you were already in the area you would just dial 73697 to get Shady Tree. If you had to call long distance, you'd dial the operator and ask for Wisconsin 7-3697, where the woman on the other end would connect you to the Wisconsin exchange so your call could go through. Starting in 1955, AT&T began working on coming up with standardized abbreviations for the exchanges to make the process easier. Bell engineers quickly realized that human operators were rapidly being stretched to their limit and there wouldn't be enough people to hire as operators, leading to the development of automated exchanges (initially acoustic-based, later computerized) where you could simply dial an area code to be automatically connected to the correct exchange. quote:‘Okay,’ said Bond, a pencil poised obediently over his note-book.
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# ? Jan 9, 2019 16:22 |
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chitoryu12 posted:The phone number's a bit weird, right? Before area codes, each phone would have its own number and an exchange that it was tied to. If you were already in the area you would just dial 73697 to get Shady Tree. If you had to call long distance, you'd dial the operator and ask for Wisconsin 7-3697, where the woman on the other end would connect you to the Wisconsin exchange so your call could go through. Starting in 1955, AT&T began working on coming up with standardized abbreviations for the exchanges to make the process easier. That's also why there are letters on phone keypads/dials. When they switched over to the area code-exchange-local number system...the standard ten digit system we have today, the exchanges all got converted to numbers. So Shady's number as we'd know it is 947-3697. The 947 is the Wisconsin 7 exchange.
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# ? Jan 9, 2019 17:05 |
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Epicurius posted:That's also why there are letters on phone keypads/dials. When they switched over to the area code-exchange-local number system...the standard ten digit system we have today, the exchanges all got converted to numbers. So Shady's number as we'd know it is 947-3697. The 947 is the Wisconsin 7 exchange. Specifically, it's only the first two letters of the word (WI) that matter, the rest is just for mnemonic purposes. So the number might frequently have been written as WIsconsin-7-3697. IIRC, the system was eventually phased out when there were so many exchanges popping up that it was impossible to come up with words that fit them.
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# ? Jan 9, 2019 17:44 |
Chapter 8: The Eye that Never Sleepsquote:It was 12.30 when Bond went down in the elevator and out on to the roasting street. Bond is an experienced spy, and he has a good sense for when he's being tailed even if he can't necessarily identify why. He takes a look around and doesn't see anyone suspicious, but he just feels it. Turning right onto the Avenue of the Americas (what we normally call 6th Avenue), Bond ducks into the first doorway where a man in a tan suit is examining the mannequin in the front of a women's underwear store and starts glancing down the street. quote:And then something gripped his pistol arm and a voice snarled: ‘All right, Limey. Take it easy unless you want lead for lunch,’ and he felt something press into his back just above the kidneys. Here's the canon image of Book Felix that I couldn't post in his actor profile earlier, for obvious reasons. In the movies, this disfigurement was moved to License to Kill; it created an odd problem when attempts were made at novelizations of the movies that fit into the Fleming canon, forcing poor Felix to get chomped again with the exact same note placed on his body. The same book also has the reappearance of a character who's killed off in one of the short stories due to the movie incorporating him, which Bond fails to comment on. quote:Leiter avoided the fashionable room at the famous actors’ and writers’ eating house and led Bond upstairs. His limp was more noticeable and he held on to the banisters. Bond made no comment, but when he left his friend at a corner table in the blessedly air-conditioned restaurant and went off to the wash-room to clean himself up, he added up his impressions. The right arm had gone, and the left leg, and there were imperceptible scars below the hairline above the right eye that suggested a good deal of grafting, but otherwise Leiter looked in good shape. The grey eyes were undefeated, the shock of straw-coloured hair had no hint of grey in it, and there was none of the bitterness of a cripple in Leiter’s face. But in their short walk there had been a hint of reticence in Leiter’s manner and Bond felt this had something to do with him, Bond, and perhaps with Leiter’s present activities. Certainly not, he thought as he walked across the room to join his friend, with Leiter’s injuries. Ahhh, Sardi's. How far you've fallen. Sardi's is the successor to The Little Restaurant, opened in the basement at 246 W. 44th Street in 1921 by Italian immigrants Melchiorre Pio Vincenzo "Vincent" Sardi Sr. and his wife Eugenia Pallera. When the building was demolished to build the St. James Theatre, the Shubert brothers gave them space in another building down the block. Sardi's opened on March 5, 1927 at 234 W. 44th Street and has remained there ever since. Sardi's has a storied history. The Tony Awards were conceived there as a way to honor the deceased Antoinette Perry, and for years the nominations were announced there. Sardi's is very famous for over 1000 celebrity caricatures on display, about half of which were made by Alex Ward before his death in 1948. The restaurant (unusually serving predominately Continental European cuisine rather than Italian) was the quintessential Broadway hangout, especially for actors to get dinner and drinks after their performance. Unfortunately, the food quality had already been slipping decades ago. Ever since the 1980s Sardi's has been in a constant cycle of closures and re-openings as they fail to make their monthly payments, including a dramatic closure in 2016 when their cooking equipment was confiscated due to lack of payment. Even as I visited, they were temporarily closed during my stay in the city! I ate in the same upstairs room as Bond and Leiter and had the most incompetently prepared vodka martini of my life, along with very average smoked salmon heaped onto an undressed hunk of lettuce to make it look like there was more on the plate. The menus were clearly printed hastily on folded paper and missing items. As much as Fleming heaps praise on Sardi's, that heyday is long gone. quote:There was a medium dry Martini with a piece of lemon peel waiting for him. Bond smiled at Leiter’s memory and tasted it. It was excellent, but he didn’t recognize the Vermouth. Occasio Winery has made an effort at recreating Cresta Blanca, which has been out of production for decades. They theorize that Fleming had seen a martini recipe using it in a New York Times ad in 1953 and decided to namedrop it. Brizzola is a cut of beef so obscure today that many have assumed it's a fictional creation of Fleming, but I brought it up to a chef friend of mine and he immediately recognized it and there's contemporary accounts naming it as well (such as the 1927 menu at the Hotel Astor). Brizzola is a simply charcoal-broiled cut of prime rib with the bone intact. quote:‘I’ve told them not to hurry,’ said Leiter. He rapped on the table with his hook. ‘We’ll have another Martini first and while you drink it you’d better come clean.’ There was warmth in his smile, but his eyes were watching Bond. ‘Just tell me one thing. What business have you got with my old friend Shady Tree?’ He gave his order to the waiter and sat forward in his chair and waited. How could Bond ever say no to his old flame? Bond tells Leiter about how he's been told by Shady Tree to back Shy Smile in Saratoga as payoff for his diamond smuggling. Leiter is coincidentally on the Shy Smile case as part of a race fixing investigation: Shy Smile got himself sent to the glue factory and been replaced by the nearly identical but much faster Pickapepper. They've even grafted Shy Smile's tattooed lips onto Pickapepper to further stymie investigation. According to a Spang gangster that gave up the plan to avoid drug charges, the Spangs plan to bet a ton of money on "Shy Smile" to fund their operations. Since Leiter and Bond are coincidentally going to Saratoga at the same time for the same reason, Leiter offers to drive up together and let him stay at the fictional Sagamore Motel with him (there's a real Sagamore resort upstate, but it's 36 miles from Saratoga). quote:The smoked salmon was from Nova Scotia and a poor substitute for the product of Scotland I'd call it a poor substitute for food. quote:but the Brizzola was all that Leiter had said, so tender that Bond could cut it with a fork. He finished his lunch with half an avocado with French dressing and then dawdled over his Espresso. Whew, that's a paragraph! Keep in mind any time Bond gets aggressively flirty with Tiffany that she's a victim of rape from when she was a teenager. quote:Bond saw again the eyes gazing sullenly at him out of the mirror, and he heard the record playing ‘Feuilles Mortes’ in the lonely room. ‘I like her,’ he said briefly. He felt Felix Leiter’s eyes watching him speculatively. He looked at his watch. ‘Well, Felix,’ he said. ‘It looks as if we’ve got hold of the same tiger. But by different tails. It’s going to be fun pulling at them both at the same time. Now I’m going to go and get some sleep. Got a room at the Astor. Where shall we meet on Sunday?’
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# ? Jan 10, 2019 16:17 |
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chitoryu12 posted:As much as Fleming heaps praise on Sardi's, that heyday is long gone. I don't drink and I'm not much of a foodie but this legit makes me sad.
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# ? Jan 12, 2019 05:09 |
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What places mentioned in Bond’s NYC is still worth a visit?
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# ? Jan 12, 2019 15:35 |
poisonpill posted:What places mentioned in Bond’s NYC is still worth a visit? It's legitimately hard to say, unless you're quite wealthy. I never managed to get into 21 so I can't speak on the quality of their food (I'll try to get in next time I'm in the city, probably in the summer), but the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis is decent drinks at a very high price point. I simply can't call any of those cocktails worth the $20+ they charge, especially not the very adequate vodka martini. The best thing there would be the selection of rare spirits, which appeal almost entirely to the wealthy clientele of the hotel. The Grand Central Oyster Bar is also fine, and my dislike of the oyster stew may have been personal preference rather than it being cooked poorly, but that's all it is. Fine. And every single place that Bond visited in Harlem is long since closed, often torn down completely. The world has mostly left Fleming's time behind and only a few relics remain, often outpriced and outdone by newer establishments.
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# ? Jan 12, 2019 17:33 |
Chapter 9: Bitter Champagnequote:‘I’m not going to sleep with you,’ said Tiffany Case in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘so don’t waste your money getting me tight. But I’ll have another and probably another one after that. I just don’t want to drink your Vodka Martinis under false pretences.’ The 21 Club on 52nd Street holds the distinction of being one of the very few authentic Prohibition-era speakeasies to still be operating in the modern day. It went through several incarnations after its founding in 1921, settling into its current location in 1929. When Prohibition ended in 1933, the exclusive club smoothly transitioned into a proper restaurant and is still decently regarded to this day. Every president since FDR except George W. Bush has dined there, along with numerous celebrities and politicians. Until 2009, men were required to wear a necktie for dinner; jackets are still required. The jockey statues appeared in the 1930s as affluent customers began honoring the restaurant by giving them statues in the livery of their stables. Again, more horse racing themes in this book. quote:‘Listen, Bond,’ said Tiffany Case, ‘it’d take more than Crabmeat Ravigotte to get me into bed with a man. In any event, since it’s your check, I’m going to have caviar, and what you English call “cutlets”, and some pink champagne. I don’t often date a good-looking Englishman and the dinner’s going to live up to the occasion.’ Suddenly she leant towards him and reached out a hand and put it over his. ‘Sorry,’ she said abruptly. ‘I didn’t mean that about the check. The dinner’s on me. But I did mean it about the occasion.’ She's not that far off about the price. I did an estimate of how much money it would take to recreate just Tiffany's meal with the closest approximations on their current menu and it would be $300+ in modern money. Sauce ravigote is a warm French sauce based on a broth or velouté sauce seasoned with herbs and thickened with chopped shallots and capers. quote:The waiter brought the Martinis, shaken and not stirred, as Bond had stipulated, and some slivers of lemon peel in a wine glass. Bond twisted two of them and let them sink to the bottom of his drink. He picked up his glass and looked at the girl over the rim. ‘We haven’t drunk to the success of a mission,’ he said. I've had a lot of lemon twists in my drinks and I've never once seen one sink to the bottom, unless maybe you're tying fishing weights to it. quote:The girl’s mouth turned down sarcastically at the corners. She drank half the Martini at a gulp and put the glass down firmly on the table. ‘Or to the heart-clutch I only just survived,’ she said dryly. ‘You and your drat golf. I thought you were going to tell that man all about the chip shot you holed in oughty-ought. A little encouragement and you’d have taken out a club and one of those balls and shown him your swing.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkvtrISLTyM quote:‘I haven’t started to shake it yet. You won’t let me get my arms round the trunk.’ The trains she's taking, the 20th Century Limited and the Super Chief, were two of the top express trains of the day. Fancy service, red carpets, gourmet meals for its celebrity clientele, the works. Neither are operating any longer, but Tiffany is clearly not one to spare expenses on herself. quote:The waiter had gone. For a while they ate their caviar in silence. There was no need to answer the question immediately. Bond suddenly felt they had all the time in the world. They both knew the answer to the big question. For the answers to small ones there was no hurry. Bond tries to push her for more information about her work, but she closes the subject off for obvious reasons. The most she can do is warn him about what kind of danger he's getting into by trying to work for them. quote:They were interrupted by the arrival of the cutlets, accompanied by asparagus with mousseline sauce, and by one of the famous Kriendler brothers who have owned ‘21’ ever since it was the best speak-easy in New York. Lieutenant Colonel Maxwell Arnold Kreindler is the "Mac" here, the younger brother of 21 founder Jack Kreindler. Mac returned from the war and took over the restaurant from 1947 until 1955 before moving to their liquor distributor 21 Brands next door. In 1963 he became the chairman of their board of directors and remained as a consultant for 21 Brands before dying in 1973 at the age of 65 (which makes this "young man" around 45 when he meets Bond). I'd imagine Fleming met him during his own dinners at 21. quote:Tiffany ordered a Stinger made with white crème de menthe and Bond ordered the same. The Stinger is a dessert cocktail made from cognac and white crème de menthe, giving a minty flavor to the brandy without affecting the color. It originated in the decades before Prohibition as an upper-class drink to have after dinner, though today you can obviously have one at any point in the day. Some people serve it on ice, but I find it to be the best when served straight up in a cocktail or coupe glass without excess dilution from melting ice. quote:When the liqueurs and the coffee came, Bond took up the conversation where they had left it. ‘But Tiffany,’ he said. ‘This diamond racket looks easy enough. Why shouldn’t we just go on doing it together? Two or three trips a year will get us good money, and that won’t be often enough to make Immigration or Customs ask any awkward questions.’ The Hotel Astor is another place from Bond's time that no longer exists. It was located in Times Square and served a major part in making it "the Crossroads of the World". Contrary to what you might expect, it was surprisingly gay-friendly for the time as long as the patrons stuck to one side of the bar and didn't make a scene. It was common knowledge and nobody would dare cause a fuss about homosexuals in such a high profile upper-crust place. The hotel was closed and demolished in 1968. The building is now One Astor Plaza, a 54-story skyscraper that serves as the headquarters for Viacom and the MTV studios. quote:They got their keys at the desk and she said ‘five’ to the boy on the elevator. She stood with her face to the door as they rode up. Bond saw that the knuckles of the hand that held her evening bag were white. At the fifth she walked quickly out and made no protest when Bond followed her. They walked round several corners until they came to her door. She bent down and fitted the key into the lock and pushed the door open. Then she turned in the entrance and faced him. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Jan 14, 2019 |
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# ? Jan 14, 2019 15:55 |
Chapter 10: Studillac to Saratogaquote:James Bond spent most of Saturday in his air-conditioned room at the Astor, avoiding the heat, sleeping, and composing a hundred-group cable addressed to the Chairman, Universal Export, London. He used a simple transposition code based on the fact that it was the sixth day of the week and that the date was the fourth of the eighth month. At exactly 9:00 the next morning, Leiter pulls up in a black Studebaker convertible. Leiter lowers the top with a button press (a fancy add-on back in the early 50s) and puts his hook on the wheel for the drive to Saratoga. quote:‘It’s about two hundred miles,’ said Leiter when they were down on the Hudson River Parkway. ‘Almost due north up the Hudson. In New York State. Just south of the Adirondacks and not far short of the Canadian border. We’ll take the Taconic Parkway. There’s no hurry, so we’ll go easy. And I don’t want to get a ticket. There’s a fifty-mile speed limit in most of New York State, and the cops are fierce. But I can generally get away from them if I’m in a hurry. They don’t book you if they can’t catch you. Too ashamed to turn up in court and admit something is faster than their Indians.’ The Studillac was a custom car produced from 1953 to 1955; Leiter's vehicle would have been $1500 (about $14,000 today) if it was a conversion. You take a Studebaker Starliner and fit it with a Cadillac V8 engine, creating a powerful sports car out of what was ordinarily a standard coupe. The black Studillac is the car that William Woodward Jr. let Fleming ride in before his murder. quote:They wrangled cheerfully over the respective merits of English and American sports cars until they came to the Westchester County toll and then, fifteen minutes later, they were out on the Taconic Parkway that snaked away northwards through a hundred miles of meadows and woodlands, and Bond settled back and silently enjoyed one of the most beautifully landscaped highways in the world, and wondered idly what the girl was doing and how, after Saratoga, he was to get to her again. Miller High Life is an unusual choice for someone who's normally a huge foodie, but it was viewed very differently in 1950s America than it is now. It was the first mass produced bottled beer (rather than being sold exclusively on tap for dispensing into glasses or buckets) and was packaged in clear bottles with foil on the necks to resemble golden champagne. After Prohibition set back American alcohol development practically a century, the only beers really available in America were cheap lagers, often padded out with rice and corn to reduce the price and flavor. Better beers were European, and it wouldn't be until Michael Jackson's work in the 1970s that beer really got categorized into identifiable styles. Right now, Miller High Life really is the best Bond can get on the way to Saratoga! quote:‘Eleven months of the year,’ explained Leiter, ‘the place is just dead. People drift up to take the waters and the mud baths for their troubles, rheumatism and such like, and it’s like any other off-season spa anywhere in the world. Everybody’s in bed by nine, and the only signs of life in the daytime are when two old gentlemen in panama hats get to arguing about the surrender of Burgoyne at Schuylerville just down the road, or about whether the marble floor of the old Union Hotel was black or white. And then for one month – August – the place goes hog-wild. It’s probably the smartest race-meeting in America, and the place crawls with Vanderbilts and Whitneys. The rooming houses all multiply their prices by ten and the race track committee lick the old grandstand up with paint and somehow find some swans for the pond in the centre of the track and anchor the old Indian canoe in the middle of the pond and turn up the fountain. Nobody can remember where the canoe came from, and an American racing writer who tried to find out got as far as that it was something to do with an Indian legend. He said that when he heard that he didn’t bother any more. He said that when he was in fourth grade, he could tell a better lie than any Indian legend he ever heard.’ The newspaper clipping is a real one from 1954, in case you want to read the whole story about mob influence in racing. Jimmy Cannon describes Saratoga as "the Coney Island of the underworld", practically governed by mobsters involved in horse racing until Estes Kefauver's highly publicized investigation in the early 1950s led to them fleeing for less obvious rackets. The article (and Fleming by extension) paints Saratoga as a rough town full of illegal bookies and thugs robbing them in the parking lots. quote:Bond folded the cutting and put it in his pocket.
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# ? Jan 16, 2019 20:12 |
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The Hopeful is still run. The reason it's called The Hopeful is because it was, and still is, the first major race for two year olds. A horse that does well in the Hopeful is generally considered to be one to keep an eye on. Some of the other trivia about Saratoga mentioned...the canoe in the middle of the lake at the race course is a real thing, and it's true that nobody knows the story behind it. It used to be painted blue, but now they paint it the colors of the horse that won the last years Travers. (The Travers is the biggest race at Saratoga, run at the end of the season). Regarding the Grand Union hotel, it was founded in 1802 and demolished in 1952, and was the fanciest and most expensive hotel in Saratoga, famous for its exclusive clientele and the quality of its restaurant and social gatherings. Millionaires and celebrities stayed there, when an opera house was built on the premises, it was dedicated by President Grant, and the New York State Republican convention was held there four times. It also triggered a nationwide controversy, when millionaire investor and banker Joseph Seligman was denied admittance because he was Jewish. Up until it was torn down, the hotel wouldn't admit Jews.
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# ? Jan 16, 2019 23:32 |
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I love this thread can you do ohmss next? That was always my favorite, and it has one of the more movie like plots.
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# ? Jan 17, 2019 01:12 |
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sebmojo posted:I love this thread can you do ohmss next? That was always my favorite, and it has one of the more movie like plots. I think the let's read is going in release order.
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# ? Jan 17, 2019 05:59 |
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Saratoga horse racing made me think of this song, which is not unfitting for Mister Bond: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xry0_-1kqdk
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# ? Jan 17, 2019 06:11 |
MonsterEnvy posted:I think the let's read is going in release order. For the most part. We’re doing the short stories before we do Man with the Golden Gun.
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# ? Jan 17, 2019 14:24 |
Chapter 11: 'Shy Smile'quote:The first thing that struck Bond about Saratoga was the green majesty of the elms, which gave the discreet avenues of Colonial-type clapboard houses some of the peace and serenity of a European watering place. And there were horses everywhere, being walked across the streets, with a policeman holding up the traffic, being coaxed out of horse-boxes around the sprawling groups of stables, cantering along the cinder borders of the roads, and being led to work on the exercise track alongside the race-course near the centre of the town. Stable-boys and jockeys, white, negro and Mexican, hung about at the street corners and there was the whinny and the occasional trumpeting scream of horses in the air. This is an old 1950s postcard of Saratoga, which should show what Bond's witnessing here. quote:Leiter dropped him at the Sagamore, which was on the edge of the town and only half a mile from the race-track, and went off about his business. They agreed to contact each other only at night or casually in the crowds at the races, but to pay a dawn visit to the exercise track if ‘Shy Smile’ was being given a last workout at sunrise the next day. Leiter said he would know about this, and much more, after an evening around the stables and at ‘The Tether’, the all-night restaurant and bar that was the home of the racing underworld when they came up for the August meeting. Leiter joins Bond in his room. He wants them to head out to the track at 5:30 the next morning to observe "Shy Smile" doing a test ride around the track. He's identified the listed owner as "Lame-Brain" Pissaro, a mobster who used to run the Spangled Mob's drug smuggling across the Mexican border before being left mentally deficient after a stay in San Quentin. The jockey, "Tingaling" Bell, is a legit rider who's just crooked enough that he could be paid off to fix a race. The trainer, "Rosy" Budd, is a habitual criminal from Kentucky who only stopped mugging and raping long enough to help Spang with this fraud. quote:Bond was mystified. ‘But why don’t you just turn them over to the Stewards? Who are your principals in all this? Who pays the bills?’ I've never actually seen a horse race, or been to Saratoga for that matter. Ridden plenty of horses through the forest and on the beach though. After discussing their plan over breakfast, Bond and Leiter go their separate ways and Bond gets to spend his day idling around and watching the weaker races on that first afternoon. Here's an example of that canoe painted in last year's winner's colors. quote:Bond tried out the system made famous by ‘Chicago’ O’Brien. He backed every firm favourite for a place, or ‘to show’ as his first ticket-hatch told him to call it, and he had somehow made fifteen dollars and some cents by the end of the eighth race and the day’s meeting. He walked home with the crowds, had a shower and some sleep and then found his way to a restaurant near the sales ring and spent an hour drinking the drink that Leiter had told him was fashionable in racing circles – Bourbon and branch-water. Bond guessed that in fact the water was from the tap behind the bar, but Leiter had said that real Bourbon drinkers insist on having their whisky in the traditional style, with water from high up in the branch of the local river where it will be purest. The barman didn’t seem surprised when he asked for it, and Bond was amused at the conceit. Then he ate an adequate steak and, after a final Bourbon, walked over to the sales ring, which Leiter had fixed as a rendezvous. Yeah, this is a real thing. Nowadays if you ask for "bourbon and branch" you'll just be given bourbon with some water, but the most particular bourbon nerds will go so far as to get branch water from the stream or river the distillery was built on so they can water it down with the same water used to make the bourbon. I personally don't water down my whiskey with more than a few drops at best, and if you're watering it down enough that the taste of the water affects it you're either using really hard/dirty water or you're using way too much water. Bond heads over to the white wooden overhang where horses are brought up one at a time for auctioning. Sitting behind a scrawny old woman whose wrists are covered in clanging bangles, he observes the horse sales while waiting for Leiter. quote:A pause, a bang of the hammer, a look of sincere reproach towards the ringside seats where the big money sat. ‘Folks, this two-year-old is too cheap. I’m selling more winning colt for this amount of money than I’ve sold all summer long. Now, eight thousand seven hundred and who’ll give me nine? Where’s nine, nine, nine?’ (The mummified hand in the rings and bracelets took the gold-and-bamboo pencil out of the bag and scribbled a calculation on the programme which Bond could see said ‘34th Annual Saratoga Yearling Sales. No. 201. A Bay Colt.’ Then the leaden eyes of the woman looked across the silver ropes into the electric eyes of the horse and she raised the gold pencil.) ‘And nine thousand is bid nine will yer give me ten will yer do it? Any increase on nine thousand do I hear nine one nine one nine one?’ (A pause and a last questing look round the crammed white seats and then a bang of the hammer.) ‘Sold for nine thousand dollars. Thank you, ma’am.’
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# ? Jan 17, 2019 16:02 |
Chapter 12: The Perpetuitiesquote:Bond sat high up in the grandstand and through hired glasses watched ‘Shy Smile’s’ owner eating soft-shell crabs. Bond is consistently mocking these gangsters and showing how little respect he has for them or how dangerous they can be. He's even delighted in the opportunity to throw his big dick secret agent weight around and gently caress with them. I'm sure this won't come back to bite him any time soon! He looks at the racing program. "Shy Smile", #10 on the roster, is forecast at the lowest 15-to-1 odds. The big light-up board keeps updating with the odds as bets come in, with the fake Shy Smile going as low as 20-to-1. Before the race, Leiter had quietly blackmailed the mafia jockey with knowledge of the horse swap to throw the race. Leiter wants him to come in first place but get disqualified, which will help cover him from reprisals from Pissaro. He gave Bell $1000 and Bond is going to meet him after the race at the Acme Mud and Sulfur Baths to give him another $2000. quote:Bond picked up his glasses and swept them round the course. He noted the four thick posts at the quarter miles that held the automatic cameras that recorded the whole race and whose film was available to the Stewards within minutes of each finish. It was this last one near the winning post whose eye would see and record all that happened at the final bend. Bond felt a tingle of excitement. Five minutes to go and the starting-gate was being pulled into position a hundred yards up to his left. Once round the course, plus an extra furlong, and the winning post was just below him. He put his glasses on the big board. No change in the favourites or in ‘Shy Smile’s’ price. And now here came the horses, cantering easily down to the start. First came No.1, ‘Come Again’, the second favourite. A big black horse carrying the light blue and brown colours of the Whitney Stable. And there was a cheer for the favourite, ‘Pray Action’, a fast-looking grey carrying the Woodward white with red spots of the famous Belair Stud, and, at the tail of the field, there was the big chestnut with the blaze face and four white stockings, and the pale-faced jockey wearing a jacket of lavender silk with a big black diamond on chest and back. The race comes to an end. Bell barely has enough time to remove his saddle before "OBJECTION" pops up next to "Shy Smile's" name on the board. A notice comes over the loudspeaker to the betters not to destroy their tickets and that an investigation is beginning into the race conduct. quote:Bond took out his handkerchief and wiped his hands. He could imagine the scene in the projection room behind the judges’ box. Now they would be examining the film. Bell would be standing there looking hurt, and, beside him, No. 3’s jockey looking still more hurt. Would the owners be there? Would the sweat be running down Pissaro’s fat jowls into his collar? Would some of the other owners be there, pale and angry?
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# ? Jan 21, 2019 16:00 |
So, fun thing about horse racing: every name can only be used once. As soon as a name is taken, it's permanently on the register and can never be used again for another horse. 140 horses have won the Kentucky Derby with names like Burgoo King, Dust Commander, Mine That Bird. This website is the largest compilation of horse names in the world if you want to go hunting for the truly ridiculous, from Daddy's Overdraft and Mr. Blobby to My New Nikes and Fat Chance Cinnamon. I read once about a man who submitted an entire list of possible horse names along with an angry screed at the bottom, only to find out that all of the names were taken when his horse was registered as something like "I Hope One Of These Goddamn Names Isn't On The List."
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# ? Jan 21, 2019 16:13 |
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Love these historical tidbits. You’re doing great work! Is there still horse racing in Saratoga? Is it worth going?
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# ? Jan 21, 2019 16:52 |
It’s still the big thing for the region, but my entire knowledge of horse racing is basically what I posted here and the popularity of Mint Juleps at the Kentucky Derby so I can’t describe how worthwhile it is.
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# ? Jan 21, 2019 17:02 |
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There's still horseracing in Saratoga. The season runs from the end of July to Labor Day, six days a week (They're closed on Tuesdays). Is it worth going? It is if you like racing. There are some major races there...the most famous is the Travers, a race for three year olds with a $1.25 million purse, but there are some other big races; the Hopeful, the Alabama, the Diana, and the Sworddancer are some of the most famous. Over the past couple of years, they've been making improvements, installing new roofs on the clubhouse and fixing up the floors, and they just added a new seating area and restaurant, with more work being done that should be done by the 2019 season. Plus, Saratoga Springs itself is a nice place to visit, and very much caters to the summer crowd. If you like, say, boutiques, restaurants and bars, it's a nice plce to walk and windowshop. It also has some nice museums; a racing museum, an automobile museum, and a millitary museum, and is close to the Saratoga battlefield, if you're interested in that.
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# ? Jan 21, 2019 17:37 |
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quote:Pissaro [...] had a round bladder-like head
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# ? Jan 21, 2019 21:35 |
Pee is stored in the Pissaro.
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# ? Jan 21, 2019 21:36 |
Chapter 13: Acme Mud and Sulphurquote:In the small red bus there was only a negress with a withered arm and, beside the driver, a girl who kept her sick hands out of sight and whose head was completely shrouded in a thick black veil which fell to her shoulders, like a bee-keeper’s hat, without touching the skin of her face. This scene was based on the road trip Fleming had taken to Saratoga, where he and his friends got lost trying to find a high quality mud bath spot and accidentally ended up at a budget spot. Mud baths (or "mineral baths") are still around in Saratoga thanks to the supposed healing and invigorating qualities of the naturally carbonated spring water. While the movie never visits Saratoga, it keeps the mud baths in the sense of having Bond hunting down Blofeld as he puts him and his plastic surgery clones through them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RUTuW44YOk quote:Outside the bus the smell of sulphur hit Bond with sickening force. It was a horrible smell, from somewhere down in the stomach of the world. Bond moved away from the entrance and sat down on a rough bench under a group of dead-looking firs. He sat there for a few minutes to steel himself for what was going to happen to him through the screen doors and to shake off his sense of oppression and disgust. It was partly, he decided, the reaction of a healthy body to the contact with disease, and it was partly the tall grim Belsen chimney with its plume of innocent smoke. But most of all it was the prospect of going in through those doors, buying the ticket, and then stripping his clean body and giving it over to the nameless things they did in this grisly ramshackle establishment. I get the feeling that Fleming was viscerally offended by showing up at a low-rent mud bath place. quote:A faded woman with a screw of orange hair above a face like a sad cream-puff raised her head slowly and looked at him through the bars, keeping one finger on her place in True Love Stories. *deep sighing* quote:It was a square grey concrete room. From the ceiling, four naked electric light bulbs, spotted with fly droppings, threw an ugly glare on the dripping walls and floor. Against the walls were trestle tables. Bond automatically counted them. Twenty. On each table was a heavy wooden coffin with a three-quarter lid. In most of the coffins the profile of a sweating face showed above the wooden sides and pointed up at the ceiling. A few eyes were rolled inquisitively towards Bond, but most of the congested red faces looked asleep. I've never had a mud bath and have no intention of having one, but you can see the similarities to the contraption in the film. I'm assuming Fleming's descriptions are not meant to endear the reader to the concept. Because Bond is new, the attendant starts him at 110 degrees, still hot enough for the mud to sting when he gets in. After he gets in, he starts slapping mud all over Bond's body. quote:The mud was a deep chocolate brown and it felt smooth and heavy and slimy. A smell of hot peat came up to Bond’s nostrils. He watched the shining, blubbery arms of the negro working over the obscene black mound that had once been his body. Had Felix Leiter known what this was going to be like? Bond grinned savagely at the ceiling. If this was one of Felix’s jokes … At least it's not as bad as Live and Let Die.... quote:The door opened again and one of the card players put his head in. Bond's underestimating of the mob picked possibly the worst time to come back to bite him. One of the men pistol whips the black attendant with his revolver to force him to say where Bell is. As he walks over to Bell's box, he stops and noticeably takes a hard look at Bond's face. Instead of doing anything, however, he jumps onto the lid of Bell's box. quote:‘Well, well. Damifitaint Tingaling Bell.’ There was a ghastly friendliness in his voice. quote:The man stepped swiftly aside and hurled the empty bucket at the man with the cauliflower ear, who stood still and let it hit him. Then he moved fast across the room to where the other man with the gun stood near the door. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Jan 22, 2019 |
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# ? Jan 22, 2019 16:18 |
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Honestly the guy is lucky they just tortured and maimed him rather then torture and killed him.
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# ? Jan 23, 2019 05:50 |
Chapter 14: 'We don't like mistakes'quote:‘Then what happened?’ Hm. I wonder who we've seen before who was terrified of traveling? I mentioned them before, but Wint and Kidd appeared in the film adaptation played by Bruce Glover (Crispin Glover's father) and Putter Smith (a prominent jazz bassist) respectively. The film sticks with only implying the homosexuality that the book tries to make explicit. As the films are generally far campier than the books at this point, they're essentially a comedic duo. quote:Bond stripped and spent ten minutes under the shower, lathering himself all over and washing his hair to get rid of the last filthy memory of the Acme Baths. Then he dressed in trousers and shirt and went over to the telephone booth in the reception hall and put in a call to Shady Tree. Bond is amused by the constant use of gambling to cover up his payment, but realizes that it makes sense as a cover. As he sees how many steps in the illegitimate operation are given legitimate alibis, he's starting to recognize how meticulous these gangsters are. They're not just playing a part for their egos like he expected. Shady Tree calls back. Bond is heading to Vegas from New York City, where he'll have a reservation at the Tiara waiting for him. At 10:05 PM he goes to the central blackjack table in the side room by the bar, plays the maximum of $1000 five times to win rigged hands, and gets his check from the casino bank. quote:‘Check,’ said the hunchback. ‘Don’t talk and don’t make a mistake. We don’t like mistakes. You’ll find that when you read tomorrow’s paper.’ Caruso sauce (or Salsa Caruso) actually originates from Uruguay, of all places. It's a warm cream sauce with ham, cheese, nuts, and mushrooms. The sauce was invented in the 1950s in the Mario and Alberto restaurant in Montevideo, so seeing it all the way up in Saratoga at this time would be highly unusual. I'm wondering if Fleming may have encountered it on his recent travels or reading and decided to incorporate it despite the improbability for the setting. I can't find an easy record of a Pavilion restaurant existing in Saratoga, but there's the big Pavilion Grand Hotel on Lake Avenue that's been open since 1819. It might be a reference to that hotel or a restaurant inside it. quote:It was late and most of the diners had finished their meal and gone off to the sales ring. They had a corner table to themselves and Leiter told the head waiter not to hurry with the lobsters but to bring two very dry Martinis made with Cresta Blanca Vermouth. It's hard to imagine Sean Connery cackling over "Baby needs a new pair of shoes!" over a drink with Jack Lord. Even harder to imagine Roger Moore doing it. I spent two nights in Vegas a few months ago on my big trip out west. The Strip is basically decadence personified, right down to very relaxed public drinking laws. Strippers and burlesque are advertised openly right next to the McDonalds full of kids, pedestrian bridges have you taking roundabout routes to cross the street, and every inch is full of advertisements, neon, buskers, and girls dressed up as stereotypical "showgirls" trying to get people to pay for pictures with them. Everything is more expensive than it needs to be. It's a sensory overload designed to siphon your wallet. The funny part is that Vegas was literally nothing just decades before this book takes place. There was a Mormon fort there in the 19th century, but it was abandoned after only a few years. It wasn't founded until 1905 or incorporated as a city until 1911, and it was nothing but a few wooden buildings in an empty patch of desert. Even now, Vegas is surrounded by desert for miles. I don't know of any major city that's more isolated from the rest of civilization. What changed was 1931. Nevada legalized gambling, reduced residency requirements, and began construction of the Hoover Dam nearby. All of this meant that a gigantic amount of cash suddenly flowing into the town, which rapidly opened up casinos and restaurants to take advantage of the booming population. The economic boom after World War II expanded the city even further, and by the 1950s it was firmly established in popular culture as the city it is today. In the 1950s, Vegas is also known as a town of mobsters. The mafia rapidly moved in when opportunity came a-knockin', establishing casinos or getting involved in existing ones. It's an open secret that much of the city's profits go into gang pockets. In a way that only America could ever be, it's also the town of nuclear explosions! Nuclear testing was done in Nevada from 1951 to 1963, close enough to the city that anyone in a tall building or on one of the mountains surrounding the city could see the bright flash and mushroom clouds going off from the 100 bombs they detonated above ground. This was immediately seized as a tourist attraction as bars, restaurants, and hotels created atomic-themed merchandise and cocktails. Tickets were sold for viewing parties when a test was scheduled so you could put on sunglasses and watch the atom get split with an Atomic Cocktail in hand (made from vodka, brandy, sherry, and champagne). There were beauty pageants where the girls wore dresses resembling mushroom clouds. America, right? quote:‘Must have been good publicity.’ Leiter takes advantage of Fleming's research on casino security: quote:‘Mark you,’ said Leiter between mouthfuls of broiled lobster. ‘The dealer should have known better than get caught with his duke in the tambourine. They’ve got a good trick in these Vegas casinos. Take a look at the ceiling lights. Very modern. Just holes in the ceiling with the light beamed through on to the tables. They throw a very strong light with no sideways glare to upset the customers. Take another look and you’ll see there’s no light coming from the alternate holes. They just seem to be there to make a pattern.’ Leiter slowly shook his head from side to side. ‘Not so, my friend. Up on the floor above, there’s a television camera on a dolly that moves around the floor taking an occasional peek through those empty holes. Kind of a spot-check on the play. If they’re wondering about one of the dealers, or about one of the players, they’ll take a picture of the whole of one session at that particular table and every drat card or throw will be watched by the guys sitting quietly upstairs. Smart, hn? These dumps are wired for everything except smell. But the dealers know it, and this guy just hoped the camera was looking somewhere else. Fatal error. Too bad.’ Video surveillance was a very new thing at the time. Some of the first closed-circuit television cameras were used by the Germans in World War II for watching rocket tests from afar. Commercial security cameras were fewer than 10 years old at the time this book was written. quote:Bond smiled at Leiter. ‘I’ll watch out,’ he promised. ‘But don’t forget I’ve somehow got to get another step down the pipeline. To the tap at the end of it. In fact, I’ve got to get right up close to your friend Mr Seraffimo Spang. I can’t do that by just sending up my card. And I’ll tell you something else, Felix.’ Bond’s voice was deliberate. ‘I’ve suddenly taken against the brothers Spang. I didn’t like those two men in hoods. The way the man hit that fat negro. The boiling mud. I wouldn’t have minded so much if he’d just beaten the jockey up – ordinary cops-and-robbers stuff. But that mud showed a nasty mind. And I took against Pissaro and Budd. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve just taken against all of them.’ Bond’s voice was apologetic. ‘Thought I ought to warn you.’
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# ? Jan 23, 2019 16:49 |
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chitoryu12 posted:Chapter 14: 'We don't like mistakes' https://twitter.com/dril/status/378438407870877696
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# ? Jan 23, 2019 18:01 |
Chapter 15: Rue De La Payquote:The plane made a big curve out over the sparkling blue Pacific and then swept round across Hollywood and gained height so as to make the Cajon Pass through the great golden cliff of the High Sierras. Few things date a work so fast. This is a view of part of Las Vegas Boulevard (better known as the Strip) around the same time as the book. You can see how the desert just stretches for miles out of the city before you hit mountains. Once you leave town, it gets very desolate very quickly. In general, that part of the United States is extremely underpopulated and it's common on the interstate to go an hour or more between even the tiniest towns or individual houses. There's large swathes of Utah, Arizona, Texas, etc. with little to no cell service even now. quote:The heat hit Bond’s face like a fist, and he had begun to sweat in the fifty yards between his cool plane and the blessed relief of the air-conditioned terminal building. The glass doors, operated by seeing-eye photo-electric cells, hissed open as he approached and slowly closed behind him, and already the slot-machines, four banks of them, were right in his path. It was natural to bring out the small change and jerk the handles and watch the lemons and the oranges and the cherries and the bell-fruits whirl round to their final click-pause-ting, followed by a soft mechanical sigh. Five cents, ten cents, a quarter. Bond gave them all a try, and only once two cherries and a bell fruit coughed back three coins for the one he had played. This isn't an exaggeration. In McCarran Airport, there are slot machines everywhere. Even the baggage claim area has banks of them, all run by their own professional gaming organization. Vegas is literally trying to take your money from the moment you set foot in it. quote:As he moved away, waiting for the baggage of the half-dozen passengers to appear on the ramp near the exit, his eyes caught a notice over a big machine that might have been for iced water. It said: ‘OXYGEN BAR’. He strolled over to it and read the rest: ‘BREATHE PURE OXYGEN’, it said. ‘HEALTHFUL AND HARMLESS. FOR A QUICK LIFT. EASES DISTRESS OF OVER-INDULGENCE, DROWSINESS, FATIGUE, NERVOUSNESS AND MANY OTHER SYMPTOMS.’ And yes, the oxygen bars are real too! Today they're actually set up as a proper "bar" and have different flavors. quote:The loudspeaker asked passengers to collect their luggage and Bond picked up his case and pushed through the swing doors of the exit into the red-hot arms of noon. He's also a friend of Ian Fleming! Ernest Cuneo was an American lawyer who was appointed as a liaison officer between the OSS, British Security Coordination of MI6, FBI, US Department of State, and Franklin D. Roosevelt himself. Along with abusing his position to selectively leak stories and damage the reputation of officers he and his friends didn't like, Cuneo became friends with all of the British celebrities who worked in intelligence like Noel Coward, Roald Dahl, and Fleming himself. He contributed the basic plot of Thunderball and over half of Goldfinger to Fleming and outlived him by 24 years. quote:‘Sure,’ said the driver, over his shoulder. ‘Nice guy. Told me to watch out for ya. Be glad if I can do anything while ya’re here. Staying long?’ Bond has a habit of getting exposed really easily. quote:They were just entering the famous ‘Strip’. The desert on both sides of the road, which had been empty except for occasional hoardings advertising the hotels, was beginning to sprout gas stations and motels. They passed a motel with a swimming pool which had built-up transparent glass sides. As they drove by, a girl dived into the bright green water and her body sliced through the tank in a cloud of bubbles. Then came a gas station with an elegant drive-in restaurant. GASETERIA, it said. FRESH-UP HERE! HOT DOGS! JUMBOBURGERS!! ATOMBURGERS!! ICE COOL DRINKS!!! DRIVE IN, and there were two or three cars being served by waitresses in high-heeled shoes and two-piece bathing suits. This is so 50s it's painful. The motel with the glass-sided pool is the Mirage, no relation to the modern Mirage that was built in 1989. As fancy was it was, it suffered from leakage problems and increasing amounts of money were needed to keep it renovated over the decades. After Steve Wynn purchased the rights to the name, it was renamed the Glass Pool Inn, closed in 2003, and demolished. The site is still a vacant lot today, just a few blocks from the famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign. quote:‘On ya right, The Flamingo,’ said Ernie Cureo as they passed a low-lying modernistic hotel with a huge tower of neon, now dead, outside it. ‘Bugsy Siegel built that back in 1946. He came over to Vegas from the coast one day and took a look round. Had a lot of hot money looking for investment. Vegas was goin’ great guns. Town wide open. Gambling. Legalized cat-shops. Nice set-up. It didn’t take long for Bugsy to catch on. He saw the possibilities.’ The Flamingo is still open and bigger than ever. It was originally an empty 40-acre plot of land owned by Charles "Pops" Squire, one of the first settlers of Las Vegas. It changed hands until it came into the possession of Billy Wilkerson, owner of The Hollywood Reporter and popular Sunset Strip nightclubs. When he had difficulty getting funding to develop the huge resort he wanted, Bugsy just so happened to be in town looking for a place outside the city limits where he could get mafia money involved in Vegas. Posing as a legitimate businessman, he bought a 2/3 stake in the project and provided the money to keep it going. The casino hemorrhaged money and Bugsy was suspected of skimming the profits, so he got a few .30 Carbine rounds in the head for his troubles. Moe Sedway and Gus Greenbaum of the nearby El Cortez took over ownership and revamped the concept, turning the failure that killed Bugsy Siegel into an incredibly profitable enterprise. In 1953 when Bond is visiting, the Flamingo has just gotten a gigantic remodeling giving it that neon sign and tower. The Sands is another one that's closed, being demolished in 1996 and replaced by The Venetian (where I got incredibly drunk, ate empanadas, and had to navigate a whole maze of passageways to find the parking garage for my Lyft). The Rat Pack and Jerry Lewis performed here constantly, to the point where the Sands is forever associated with Sinatra and the gang. October of 1953 is actually when Frank Sinatra makes his first performance at the Copa Room. The Sands is also where Sinatra would start the process of racial integration in Las Vegas. In 1955 (after he had bought a minor share in the hotel), he witnessed Nat King Cole eating alone in his dressing room because blacks weren't allowed in the dining room. Sinatra blew a gasket and threatened to have every waiter and waitress fired if he wasn't allowed in. In 1961, he and Sammy Davis Jr. witnessed a black couple being denied booking; Sinatra personally made the bouncers stand down and erupted on the phone to casino manager Carl Cohen to finally integrate the hotel. Sinatra had a rather volatile relationship with the rest of the casino (especially new owner Howard Hughes, who had a rivalry with him over Ava Gardner) and threw a tantrum when his gambling addiction was stymied by attempts to limit his credit, resulting in him tripping waiters and harassing staff. It finally came to a head when Sinatra crashed a golf cart through the window of a coffee shop, began screaming anti-Semitic insults at Cohen, and got into a fistfight with him. He wouldn't perform at the Sands again until the 1980s. quote:‘Well then, here’s The Desert Inn. Wilbur Clark’s place. But the money came from the old Cleveland-Cincinatti combination. And that dump with the flat-iron sign is The Sahara. Latest thing. Listed owners are a bunch of small-time gamblers from Oregon. Funny thing, they lost $50,000 on their opening night. Would ya believe it! All the big shots come along with their pockets full of dough to make some courtesy play, make the fust night a success, y’unnerstand. It’s a custom here for the rival outfits to gather round at an opening. But boy, the cards just wouldn’t co-operate and the opposition guys walked off with fifty Grand! Town’s laffing about it still. Then,’ he waved to the left where the neon was wrought into a twenty-foot covered wagon at full gallop, ‘Ya get The Last Frontier. That’s a dummy Western town on the left. Worth seein’. And over there’s The Thunderbird, and across the road’s The Tiara. Snazziest joint in Vegas. Guess ya know about Mister Spang and all that?’ He slowed down and halted opposite the Spang hotel, which was topped by a ducal coronet of brilliant lights that winked on and off in a lost battle with the glaring sun and the reflections from the highway. The Desert Inn is relatively new at this time, having been built in 1950. Frank Sinatra made his debut in Vegas at the Painted Desert Room (later the Crystal Room) in 1951. It was known for its high profile clientele and opulence; Howard Hughes rented out the top two floors in 1966 for 10 days, and when he was asked to stop staying past his reservation so they could rent the rooms out he simply bought the hotel. The money for the hotel came from Moe Dalitz of the Mayfield Road Mob in Cleveland, the original "Mr. Las Vegas". Dalitz was never convicted of a crime in his life despite being widely known as a gangster and was so influential in the development of Las Vegas that the Anti-Defamation League awarded him the Torch of Liberty in 1982, presented by Joan Rivers. 4 months after the resort's 50th anniversary, new owner Steve Wynn closed it down. The building was imploded and replaced with the Wynn Las Vegas, the 7th largest hotel in the world. The Sahara opened in 1947 as Club Bingo, then got renamed in 1952. It's still too new at the time Bond is visiting to be of major importance, but over the decades it would get a very popular Don the Beachcomber restaurant location and have just about every major Vegas performer (Rat Pack and The Beatles included) play or stay there. It shut in 2011, but reopened as the SLS Las Vegas in 2014. The hotel is expected to be rebranded this year, possibly as another Sahara incarnation. The Last Frontier started out as the Pair-O-Dice nightclub in 1930. By 1942 the nightclubs on the area had been rebuilt as the Last Frontier, a resort themed around the Old West. Elvis Presley had his first ever Vegas appearance in 1956, a year after it had been renamed yet again to the New Frontier. After some trials of mafia members who had been secretly controlling the casino (during which it was renamed again to just The Frontier), it was purchased by Howard Hughes. In the 90s, the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 had a strike that lasted over 6 years and (after returning the name to New Frontier) the troubled resort was finally closed in 2007 and demolished. The site remains undeveloped. The Thunderbird was the fourth hotel on the Strip to open. It featured a Navajo theme and the only bowling alley on the strip, as usual secretly controlled by mobsters like Meyer Lansky. Rosemary Clooney (aunt of George Clooney) made her first singing appearance in Vegas at the Thunderbird in 1951 and Judy Garland made her last in 1965. It was renamed the Silverbird in 1976, then El Rancho in 1982. Despite Rodney Dangerfield opening a comedy club inside, the hotel closed permanently in 1992. There were fights over who would take ownership, but by the time any of the property owners had managed to raise funding for a new hotel the property was rotting and filled with chemicals and asbestos. The site was used for the development of the Fontainebleau Las Vegas in 2007, only for the project to go bankrupt. The building is now planned to open as the Drew Las Vegas (presumably named in honor of Steve Witkoff's son Andrew, who died of an OxyContin overdose) in 2020. Okay NOW we can get on with the book. quote:‘Yes, I know the outlines,’ said Bond. ‘But I’d be glad for you to fill them in some time. And now what?’ chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Jan 25, 2019 |
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# ? Jan 25, 2019 15:34 |
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quote:The day was as hot and sultry as a fire opal. The swollen sun burned straight down the middle of the frying concrete and there was no shade anywhere except under the few scattered palms in the forecourts of the motels. A glittering gunfire of light-splinters shot at Bond’s eyes from the windscreens of oncoming cars and from their blaze of chrome styling, and he felt his wet shirt clinging to his skin. That's some really nice prose. Thanks for this thread, chitoryu. I did read all the Ian Fleming bond novels (and quite a few of the Gardner ones) back when I was younger, but it's getting on towards 20 years since then and I don't remember a lot of it. Having your commentary on the background and the surroundings is really cool.
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# ? Jan 25, 2019 16:08 |
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# ? Apr 28, 2024 03:45 |
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This is once again better than reading just the book. It’s like the critical edition with commentary and historical footnotes. Vegas and it’s history always amuses me, it’s great looking at the casinos and the various monies interests behind them. Today almost all of the original mob joints are gone, except the Tropicana. Everything else is sanitized, corporatized and rebuilt. I also never realized how much these books are escapist travelogues for poor post-war Brits. Half of each book is describing exotic locations and luxury meals.
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# ? Jan 25, 2019 16:22 |