The Name Is Bond…Jane Bond. And She Is a Lesbian.

Jane Bond...has the world shaken and stirred

She is sleek, she is chic. She is a cold hearted cold blooded spy-assassin. She is not a Thespian, but she is most definitely a lesbian. A lipstick lesbian.

A few days ago I was watching a very interesting documentary on Ian Fleming and how James Bond became the character and the movie franchise we all know and some of us love so much. In James Bond Fleming had incorporated his own alter ego, turning him into an ultimate “heterosexual adult male, not for school kids”. He believed that the world of tomorrow would see many villains who want to single-handedly destroy the world and a strong man with the wits and strengths of a spy and cold blooded ruthlessness of a killer would be needed to keep the world going to hell in a hand basket.

Even though many of the elements of the Cold War and conflict have changed since Fleming’s 1940s, many also remain as present as ever. But one thing Fleming could have not foreseen was the extent to which mores and ethos of societies, particularly in the Western World, would change. 

From the feminist movement and the sexual revolution all the way to the identity politics of gay rights and ethnic minority rights the world is no longer enough. Bond has managed to re-invent himself in the post-cold war era but I have a feeling the end of Bond as we know him is near. The original vision of Fleming for Bond as a quintessential heterosexual male is under threat more than ever. Who is to say, after all, that only a man can save the world? Why can’t a woman live and let die? Why can’t a bi-sexual man be the spy who loved (someone!) and on what basis shouldn’t a lesbian Bond be the one trying to save the planet so that tomorrow never dies? And what about Octopussy? Frankly, I never figured that one out!

I can already see the next generation of Bond being under review and meticulous re-design. The new Bond will be a lesbian female, against the use of force with a Starbucks membership and a well groomed poodle by her side. She believes in dialogue and understanding and buys her accessories from Michael Kors. She doesn’t speak a language other than English, but she is internet savvy and uses google translate to do her spy work. She definitely needs her weekends to herself and reaches an agreement with the most notorious terrorists on the planet not to attack and destroy the Earth on a Saturday or Sunday. She’s classy, one may say even sassy but she refuses to name her dog Lassie (too old school for her). She is witty and tries not to place herself near any explosive devices. She is not a pacifist, but she truly believes stopping villains shouldn’t require hand to hand combat or harsh interrogation tactics, given advances in science and technology. 

Wouldn’t that be something different? A Bond who is neither a misogynist nor a chauvinist? A Bond in high heels and with highlights who tries to put the terrorists in touch with their feminine side. A bond who is not only a bomb expert, but also a bombshell. 

This antithesis to Ian Fleming’s vision and imagination would be the natural outcome of a world that gradually defines and has defined not only concepts of bravery and dedication but also gender roles and, for that matter, gender itself. This new character has no penis envy. She actually has no penis. But as different, radically different, this new version of Bond may be she has two things in common with Fleming’s Bond: She never says never to a good fight, and when all is said and done, she always, always gets the girl.

Oh! Jane…

The True Story Of The Cell Phone That Died

Where should I insert the SIM card?

I was about to call a number I had gotten through one of my contacts. I wanted to inquire about a really good opportunity in downtown Toronto to, for once and all put me and my car out of the misery of a 3 hour daily commute when my phone died.

At first, I thought it is one of the many inconveniences my cell phone had been causing me for the previous few months so I restarted the phone. It didn’t. I tried over a dozen times until I realized this time it is different. My phone had simply died and there was no way to revive it. I went to a repair shop, called the mobile network customer service, looked online for discussion groups and tips on troubleshooting with no luck. It was then when I realized I had lost all my contacts and anything I had on that phone was for all intends and purposes gone.

What an awful feeling. Is that how people feel when they lose a loved one? Is that how one feels after a break up or divorce? Is that how an Olympic athlete feels when she comes fourth by a millisecond and is kept off the podium? Why did I save all my contacts on the phone and not my SIM? Why? 

Then I thought, but there had to be a way out of this; wait! I can send an email to all my contacts and tell them to send me their numbers, it may be inconvenient but at least I can get back all those 200 numbers I never call. It was then that I realized the true tragedy of my predicament: I had lost all my pictures and videos, anything I had saved on my phone for more than 3 years was gone: the weddings, family visits, birthdays and anything I thought was worth taking my clunky phone out to take a picture of. 

You cannot imagine the utter despair and sadness I felt at that moment. The pain was so intense, the grief so massive that I went into fetal position and started to cry like a little girl. Tears were flowing like a river running through a sun-dry valley. I kept asking myself why I hadn’t backed up my phone knowing the risk. What have I done to suffer such agony, such unbearable pain, such immeasurable loss? 

I tried to pull myself together. Life is full of challenges and I was now facing one of the worst a human being can face. I have always taken pride in being a survivor no matter what the circumstance and I decided, darn it, if I have to send a mass email and ask for everyone’s number again I’ll do it. I’ll even take the unthinkable step of actually calling some of my friends on this thing called Telephone which we carry with us but seldom use to actually call anyone, and ask them if they have copies of pictures I’d lost. I will suffer the indignity of checking other people’s Facebook walls to find those blurry, ugly images I used to post straight from my cell phone twenty at a time which nobody wanted to see but everyone “liked”. 

Worst of all,  and now that I can no longer stare at a 4 inch LCD screen for a few hours at a time to fill the unbearable emptiness I feel within when removed from social network, I will actually look at people’s faces and do this thing some call “converse” to fill some of the void in my life (the last time I did this face to face talking thing was, oh I hardly remember, in a birthday party where I looked at the birthday boy and said “happy birthday”. What a strange feeling that was. I had the urge to text him even though he was 5 inches away from me and I could hardly hold the phone without touching his belly). 

Oh! The horror, the horror! To think I may actually have to carry a 4 minutes conversation with a sentient being. Not since the Vietnam War one has been subjected to such humiliation.

I struggled to come to terms with this life changing experience. I had heard and read in tweets about great men such as Mandela and Gandhi who had risen to the occasion in order to make man’s life better and more dignified. All of a sudden, and as if by a miracle I lifted my phone, took the SIM card out and cried out loud: “I shall insert you in a different mobile phone, just to see if there is hope. I believe I shall overcome”. At that moment I felt like one of those legendary men on course to change history. I inserted the SIM card in my spare cell phone and, what do you know?! I had actually saved all of my contacts. So basically, all this blog was for nothing. 

Sorry to waste your time. I have to go now to post a few pictures of my half eaten salad on my profile. Make sure you check it out. 

Remembering Haleh

It has been over fifteen years since I last heard her voice on the phone, reassuring me all would be fine and that I should not worry. She said our faith in the benevolence of God and what is to come should be our anchor. I remember for the following few weeks I kept wondering if I should call again, knowing she was not feeling well and probably not in a condition to talk until one evening my mom told me she had passed on.

It is not an exaggeration to say there is not a single day since then that I do not think about my youngest aunt, Haleh, at some point during the day. A cross between an older sister and younger mother, I still listen to a song I first heard her sing during her first visit back from Spain. Completely captivated by her voice as she played her guitar, swaying her shoulders from side to side, as an 11 year old boy I imagined how some day I’d get to learn Spanish, play guitar and sing like her. Upbeat, funny and full of life I still remember her taking me to the movies to watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, women’s basketball game and other events where she’d sing and tickle me as I sat by her.  

I didn’t see my aunt again until a few years later when I moved to Catalunya too, where she had gotten married and settled near Barcelona. It seems strange now when I think she was only 28 at the time, but her young age never stopped her from being a voice of reason, a guide throughout my life even many years after I left and our contact was limited to few letters and phone calls a year or occasional visits. 

Each year, and specially as I get close to the anniversary of her passing, I go through many “what would she say” moments. I ask her questions, tell her of my dilemmas and then listen to her voice softly advising me, with a couple of funny inserts in between. Then, and almost without fail, I get the urge to listen to El Vendedor, the song I most vividly remember her sing. I listen to it over and over, dissecting the lyrics as I try to remember each wall and perspective in her beautifully decorated living room where she’d sing the song. 

A short walk with her along the city’s old Gothic quarter is enough to make me smile. She, as always, covers me with a blanket of warmth, knowing what I care to say, saying what I care to know…

In the calm and quite of her smiling face, along the imaginary streets where she paces, something lurks, something chases; something I have never forgotten about, from a time I have never written about.

I become sixteen again:

Drowning myself in her love

Cleansing myself in her strums

Clothing myself in the meandering melodies of her amorphous songs;

I’ll see you again one day

To float adrift in the plain of your white

O! Queen of unforgettable hearts,
Poet of untenable loves,

Troubadour of unforeseen roads, I am

The shapeless raft of the seeker of your peace

Trans-ported through ether and space,

Cast in the shadow of the parallel of your rhymes

Crossing your path in the perpendicular of time

Listen to "El Vendedor"