Bonding In DC
Another Bond-in-Motion encounter, plus we say farewell to another couple of members of the 007 community.
For a building about spying the International Spy Museum in the L’Enfant Plaza area of downtown Washington D.C. isn’t exactly shy about announcing its presence. A modern grey and steel edifice it stands out among the faded beige concrete structures around it. The presence of giant red cutouts each displaying letters that spell out the word S.P.Y. are also a bit of a giveaway to its purpose.
Once inside, admittance is strictly timed to limit group sizes, and they suggest that you should leave yourselves two to three hours to see the exhibits. The elevator whisks you up to the top floor where you are issued with a code name and a ‘mission’ to complete. Thankfully this isn’t compulsory and you don’t have to take part if you don’t want to.
We’re not a big fan of that sort of gamification so didn’t bother, but we’ve heard from others that they really enjoyed that aspect of their visit. The exhibits wound down from the fifth to the fourth floor, and again this may be a preference, but although many of the individual exhibit sections were interesting in themselves, we prefer museums that tell a historical chronological story, rather than set pieces grouped around a theme, which is what this was.
But the main reason we’d come to the museum was for the special exhibit on the third floor, the latest incarnation of the Bond-in-Motion show. We’ve been lucky enough to visit Bond-in-Motion in both London and Los Angeles before and were happy to support the effort for a third time.
As always it’s great to see members of the general public enjoying the vehicles on display, sharing memories of the movies, and introducing younger members of their families to the worlds of 007.
Although perhaps the smallest of the three BiM exhibits we’ve seen it was still well laid out and imaginative lighting and backdrops helped provide an inclusive atmosphere. These visits are always made more special when reconnecting with vehicles we worked on as part of the Ian Fleming Foundation efforts, and we ended up doing a few impromptu tour guide storytelling moments for other visitors who heard us talking about them.
Bond-in-Motion at the International Spy Museum is scheduled to run through April 2025, so if you are going to be anywhere near the Washington D.C. area in the next twelve months, we recommend stopping by. But book tickets in advance, it seems to sell out most days.
Alan & Gill
Bond Briefing
A massive thank you to our first few rounds of subscribers. The reception and uptake of folks registering to receive this newsletter exceeded any expectations we had. It was a very humbling start seeing the names roll in as folks signed on.
Bond People
Since our last newsletter we are sad to report we lost another couple of well-regarded members of the Bond family
Dan Goozee
Artist Daniel Goozee was born in Astoria, Oregon, in 1943 and began his career as a fine artist. He later found commercial work for the motion picture industry, film advertising posters, and theme parks. his love of movie posters was imbued from an early age as his father operated the two movie houses where he worked on weekends. His movie poster credits include 'The Poseidon Adventure,' 'Towering Inferno,' 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind,' and 'Crocodile Dundee.'
He was best known to Bond fans for his work on the iconic Moonraker poster as well as Octopussy, and A View To A Kill
Wolfgang Thurauf
The Bond fan community suffered a major loss with the sudden passing of Wolfgang Thurauf, at aged 62. Wolfgang was currently serving as the VP of James Bond Club Deutschland. But his enthusiasm and support of the Bond community transcended borders. He was a regular at many Bond events and provided advice and support for many in the world of 007 fandom. He will be sorely missed.
Bond Chronology
An extract from our current in-progress project. - A detailed chronology of the James Bond phenomenon from creation until today, one month at a time.
March 1953
At Goldeneye Fleming completes the manuscript for Live And Let Die
Bond Blatherings
After a short hiatus, the On Her Majesty’s Secret Podcast team is once again busy talking Bond.
The latest Rogue Agents episode is now online right HERE In which the crew revisits the Roger Moore years and discusses the trailers for The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, and For Your Eyes Only.
Coming up we will be recording the second episode of James Bond vs Spy Movies in which we compare From Russia With Love and the Gary Grant, Audrey Hepburn thriller Charade.
Next up for the Rogue Agents will be a review of the BBC Radio adaptation of From Russia With Love.
As always all our past episodes (176 of them at this point) can be found at the OHMS Pod network home page or on your podcast platform of choice.
Bond for Sale
Looking for a few James Bond book ideas? - How about checking out our dedicated 007 on-line bookstore?
Of course, there is always our own James Bond Lexicon which you can order from Bookshop.org just by clicking HERE or on the cover below.
If you would like a personalized, signed copy we still have a few copies of both the James Bond Lexicon and James Bond: The History of the Illustrated 007 in stock. Just drop us a note at alan@jamesbondlexicon.com and we can get that fixed for you. (Sorry US only at the moment due to shipping costs)
Where to Find Us Online
For more information on what else we have going on with writing, podcasting, and general slice-of-life stuff, check out our regular FREE weekly CAN’T SEE THE FOREST newsletter -
We also have our monthly Before They Were Beatles newsletter featuring articles and news related to all things early Beatles
You can now find links to all the places you can find Alan online, websites, newsletters, social media, and more in a single LINKS page - on his personal website.
As always, thanks for joining us this week. If you know someone else who might enjoy the contents of this newsletter please feel free to share by clicking the button below.
See you next time
Alan J. Porter & Gillian J. Porter
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