Embassies, dreams & living twice

A few blogs to the right and straight on till morning, in the world of Kaya, who originated in Vilnius in Lithuania, there has been an ongoing story about her journey from there to here -- here being America. Part of this adventure was going to the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland, to obtain a visa for entry into the U.S. So, for the fun of it and by request, here is a photograph of the American legation building in Warsaw for Kaya, taken last March or April (I am too lazy to check the precise date) by your friendly, neighborhood misanthrope (meaning me). The fence surrounding the building had a sign which forbid photographs, but, as any American citizen knows, public streets are public streets, even in Poland, and until fascism has replaced the republic, cameras are permitted in public places.

You only live .... how many times ??

Anyone who occasionally stops by here (and actually takes the time to read what has been written here) probably knows that I keep one or two televisions on by my computers from sunrise (more-or-less) until sunset (give-or-take eight or nine hours).

A few days ago, a series of James Bond films was being shown on the Science Fiction channel around here. (Do not ask me why the Science Fiction channel chose to do this; the early Bond movies were completely within the realm of plausibility and bore absolutely no resemblance to the genre.) Anyway, one motion picture in the series was, "You Only Live Twice."

The music captured me. The melody is nice, but it was the words which really caught my attention. Here are some of them:

You only live twice or so it seems
One life for yourself and one for your dreams

You drift through the years and life seems tame
Till one dream appears and love is its name

And love is a stranger who'll beckon you on
Don't think of the danger or the stranger is gone

This dream is for you, so pay the price
Make one dream come true, you only live twice
John Barry and Leslie Bricusse, two well-known songwriters in the world of motion pictures, wrote the piece. The film-version singer was Nancy Sinatra. She is the daughter of Frank. Her career was not as long or so great as was his, but, I think I like the words of this song better than those of any Frank ever sang.

And, for your edification (if you even care), here is an attempt at composing a haiku by "James Bond" (meaning, of course, by Ian Fleming, the novelist who wrote the Bond books). It is entitled, "You Only Live Twice," and it is from this poem which the title of the book, the subsequent film and the movie's theme song all originate. In an epigraph to the novel, Fleming wrote that Bond's haiku was done in the style of Seventeenth Century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho.

"You Only Live Twice"
by James Bond

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