Laughing at Death with Sir Riel

            I’ve been using the same gig-bag for my acoustic guitars for thirty years. For the last two decades it’s been falling apart and so from time to time I sew it up to keep it functional but I’ve been worrying lately about it falling apart while I’m riding my bike. My upstairs neighbour David has given me a few low-end electric guitars over the last couple of years and some of them have gig-bags, but they are the thinner ones that won’t fit an acoustic guitar. A few months ago though he gave me a First Act electric guitar in a gig-bag that looked like it might fit my Oscar Schmitt. I didn’t try it right away because I wasn’t playing anywhere but on the evening of Tuesday July 31st I planned to play a song on the Shab-e She’r open stage and so I tried the gig-bag on my guitar before leaving and found that it fit. The only problem was that I still wanted to wear my backpack but the gig-bag wouldn’t fit on top of it. I loosened the shoulder straps on the gig-bag though, as far as they would go and that worked.

            On my way by bike to the St Stephen in the Fields Church the neck of my guitar was pushing against my neck and forcing it slightly forward to an uncomfortable degree. After a while though I found that I could shift the gig-bag to the right so that it almost cleared my neck, making the rest of my ride a lot more comfortable.

            When I walked into the church, a handsome tall man with a prematurely white short beard was telling Bänoo Zan that he’d heard about Shab-e She’r from George Elliot Clarke and thought he'd check it out. I told Bänoo that I’d run into George a couple of weeks ago in the east end and I’d mentioned to him that Beatriz Hausner would be featuring at Shab-e She'r on July 31^st and he said he might come. Bänoo told me though that Giovanna Riccio informed her that she and George were going to a festival in Niagara.

            I went to my usual front row aisle seat and tuned my guitar, and then I put it on my guitar stand next the cathedra chair on the right side of the chancel, which serves as the Shab-e She’r stage. It was very hot in the church so I could expect it to go out of tune later.

            It looked like I was going to be the only musician there that night. My friend Tom Smarda was probably up on Manitoulin Island as usual this time of year and Tom Hamilton the violinist wasn’t there either.

            Beatriz Hausner arrived and I got up to give her a hug. I first met Beatriz through her mother, Susana Wald, back in the mid-80s when I used to work for Susana as a model at Sheridan College. Beatriz wasn’t much more than a teenager then and there was no indication at that time that she would become a surrealist poet like her stepfather, Ludwig Zeller. But surrounded by artists throughout her childhood it would have been hard to stop it from rubbing off on her consciousness.

            I went to use the washroom and took the first one before the auditorium but couldn’t see any way to lock the door. Sure enough, someone started opening the door while I was peeing.

            A woman came up to tell me she recognized me as a model that she’d drawn at OCAD when she was a student there in the early 90s. We chatted a bit about some of the teachers that she'd had and I told her which few are still there. She said she was there with her husband, who was going to read on the open stage, but I never did look to see which of the poets she was married to.

            The event began just after 19:00, and began with the native land acknowledgement. Since Laboni Islam, who initiated the land acknowledgement for Shab-e She'r and knows it by heart was away, Bänoo read the text. Bänoo added that in the first year of Shab-e She’r, when they only had one feature a month, she featured two indigenous writers.

            Bänoo held up the notebook on which she’d written down the names of those who'd signed up for the open mic and informed us that it contains the names of all the open mikers since the reading series began in November of 2012.

            The first open stage performer was Saher Lalani, who told us that her mother, Dr Fatima Hashamali had been a paediatrician for some of the world’s poorest children in Pakistan, Tanzania and Kenya and that her poem, “Maternal Love” was a tribute to her mother. She said it was appropriate to read it that night because it was the week of her own birthday – “Painfully she carried me in her womb / Stroked her belly to calming tunes … Worked the nights as paediatrician on call … Her heart yearned to hold me … in prayer asked for a healthy baby … Whispering to her belly, she talked to me … Abruptly she had to leave work / The labour pain … The physical process of giving birth / forever sealed her motherly love.”

            John Nyman said that despite being an atheist he loves the church setting for Shab-e She’r and what it represents in terms of dedication. His poem was called “Holy of Holies” – “The family praying softly at the table knows best …. They are eating at McDonalds … Meat smells of Earth’s first secret … This place is famous … The refugees from Syria … just wished they’d been taken to McDonalds … 3-D printed people … overstocked with fraudulent rewards cards … Glad to think that this is really heaven / instead of 100 billion served.”

            Bänoo informed us that Shab-e She’r would not be taking place in August. That works out fine for me because it will give me time to get some things done before school starts.

            Lida Nosrati said that she’s agnostic but still struck by the church space.

            Personally I’ve always thought that the Church of St Stephen in the Fields from the outside is one of the most beautiful churches in Toronto, but on the inside it’s just a brick barn with arches, crosses and some slightly pleasant stained glass. It’s a good size for a poetry reading though and the chancel works well as a stage.

            From Lida’s poem – “The scar on my wrist … Ma’am, please listen to the question … What marks the beginning of time for you … I notice that unlike other official documents yours bears the name of your mother … Occupation and country of origin … You would do anything … Once when you crossed from one country into another … Love sickness is not listed among those for which you will be quarantined at the border.”

             Nick Micelli read “From the Cell to the Sun” – “Into the deep / the guts of the beast … The beckoning chasm calls at the brink … with dank, oppressive blue surrounding … persistent, assertive, demanding … Why do I stand in my small, puny plan … There was never a dragon to keep me …”

            Bahar Ebrahimi, the volunteer behind the desk that night, read a poem about refugee children – “Where am I mommy? Why am I here? The sea threw me out … This foamy milk tastes so salty, mommy … Why am I here?”

            It was time for the first feature, Teddy Syrette, also known as Ozhawa Aanung Kwe and Yellow Star Woman. They are a gender-fluid person and work as a two-spirit indigenous-queer advocate.

            Teddy told us that Yellowstar Woman is their Anishnaabe name. They said that Sault Ste Marie refers to itself as the friendliest city in Algoma, but Sault Ste Marie is the only city in Algoma.

            Teddy’s first poem was "Beasts" - "Large objects both big and shiny … wondering how they move … Children laugh and watch ... these beasts land, park and anchor ... disappear."

            Teddy shared, “For the longest time I didn't know I was Native". They had a friend that was Italian and since he was dark and also ate pasta, Teddy said to their mother, “Mom, I’m Italian!” to which she answered, “No, you’re foolish … and you’re Native!"

            From “Lost" - "With a smile full of sunshine ... our shadows danced within your candlelight ... The bites of the snake that bit you were felt by others … We cried and held each other … Your exit was abrupt … sweet candlestick man.”

            Teddy told us, “Sometimes people suck at their good intentions … If you don't see my colour you don't see my experience ... I don't hear stupid."

            From “Places" - "Do you ever find yourself surrounded by strangers? Look around … You don’t know who they are ... I'm Native so I don't trust anyone ... The logical ones are usually the first ones killed or vanished ... The end of the world creates more division or exclusivity … Evil people from all walks of life will vie for dominance … Holding hands and speaking of chance … Chaos and loss can drive us together as much as pull us apart ... Each minute that passes only matters if you did something in that minute.”

            From “200 Words or Less” – “Teddy Syrette … The non-fiction pieces of work include income tax returns … Today they enjoy writing … poetry and polyamory … Enough words to make an impact … Listening to CBC Radio where folk discuss responsible gun laws in Canada … Live from your bedroom … the spotlight is focused only on centre stage … I try to be funny … Snorts are the best … Anyways I love laughing. When I meet another funny person I lose my wits because not everyone is funny … Trying to think of a joke to put into a bio that matters to the audience … Humour has gotten me to where I am today … Who am I in 200 words or less?”

            Teddy told us that when their father was in the hospital, when they went to see him he asked, “Teddy, do you want me to round up all the nurses?” “Why?” “So you can teach them about the Gays!”

            From a story about Teddy’s father’s death – “‘Pop, I’m here to see you … Our visit was shortly after Toronto Pride …” Teddy relates how the Gay Pride parade came on TV while their father and some old ladies were watching – “‘My son is probably walking in that parade!’ The ladies stood up. ‘Where?’ ‘There he is walking beside the prime minister of Canada! In the purple dress!’ The old ladies all sat down.”

            “‘I was outside having my morning smoke. It was a bit raining. I saw a worm. I tried to pick it up and I fell over.’ ‘Why did you try to pick it up?’ ‘I was going to try to scare the nurses.’”

            “‘Have I been a good dad?’ ‘You’re the best.’ ‘Okay.’”

            “The night before he passed he laid in bed with no shirt on. I looked over at my mom and said, ‘I must get the hair on my chest from your side of the family’.”

            “After he died I began to giggle … ‘Can I say something?’ ‘What?’ ‘I’m really gonna miss his smile. Do you think I can take his teeth?’ ‘Why?’ ‘So I can make a necklace out of them.’”

            “He only listened to Abba … Nothing besides Abba … Non stop Abba …” Teddy related how their sister would not have been able to handle having nothing but Abba played at their father’s funeral and so they compromised with just “Fernando” and one other song. “He was a character and you should’ve met him.”

            Teddy said that when they lost their father they also parted ways with their partner.

            From “The Grievey Train” – “All aboard … A lot of passengers on board didn’t know they had tickets either … You are not alone … Get over it … We are so sorry for your loss … They’ve never asked for your condolences in the first place … What is your own mortality going to look like … You’re right, our child doesn’t look like you … You are the father … You do your best not to forget the sound of your lost loved one’s laughter … There are those who carry with them a pocket of tickets … When you board this locomotive of loss and laughter you get your own seating arrangement … Karen Carpenter died of anorexia … You wanna go for ice cream? … The rage car … Maybe they heard about you before your father passed away and thought you could connect … Keep your circle small … Stop meeting new people because they’re just gonna die on you anyway … We board this train for different reasons … Until we each reach our final destination treat every day like it is your last … You have a purpose. So live it.”

            Teddy’s final story was about coming out to their family – “I didn’t know what it meant to be Gay growing up … I told my sister … She said ‘Don’t do anything Gay around the boys’ ‘I won’t’ … I told my mother … She said ‘Oh my god! Are you sure it’s not a phase? I don’t know how to support you! Don’t tell your dad! He’ll have a heart attack!’ … I went up to help my father fix my grandmother’s pipe in her house on the reserve … I saw my grandmother’s alcohol cabinet … I just wanted to taste everything … ‘Dad, I love you!’ ‘You’re drunk. I’ll take you home’ I thought it was a good time to come out to my dad … ‘Dad I’m having sex with someone’ ‘Is it Lorna?’ “It’s Darren.’ ‘Are you dying?’ ‘Dad, I think you’re thinking of HIV.’ ‘Oh well, you’ll always be my son and I’ll always love you. Whatever you do, don’t tell your mother, cause she’ll have a heart attack!’

            Teddy Syrette is not really a poet and their prose is not strongly creative but some of their wordplay is nice and they are a good storyteller with a great sense of humour. The tale of how they revealed that they were Gay to their mother and father is the funniest coming-out story I’ve ever heard and could make a great play if they reworked it into that format.

            We took a break. I went to use the washroom again and again someone started opening the door before I was finished. An older woman was waiting when I came out and asked if the washroom was for women and men. I told her yes but warned her that there was no lock. I told her that there were two washrooms on the other side of the door leading to the auditorium and so that’s where she went.

            I went up to the chancel to re-tune my guitar and then I went through my song one more time. My fingers felt stiff and a little sore because of some of the chords and the quick changes. I was hoping that I wouldn’t fumble the chords too much when it was my turn.

            Bänoo invited Sydney White to open for the second feature. She read two poems. The first was called “A Reporter at the Happy Hour” – “Children beaten … their mothers degraded … A story is a story … Don’t let the bastards come up smelling like a rose … Don’t count on justice … Nothing now can make me cry … except a kind word.”

            Sydney’s second poem was "The Coincidence Theory" - "Fact is now declared theory ... This new conspiracy is to replace evidence with fiction … I am a coincidence theorist and as such I know that there are none.”

            The human mind is actually geared towards finding connections that aren’t there. We could not learn language without finding coincidences. Every word for a thing that we learn can be linked up by associative thinking to countless other things. It probably has its roots in times before language when we were just animals scoping out our surroundings, our predators and our prey. The ability to create connections between things is what helped our species to learn to think, but it also holds us back from reasoning.  Hence, for example, the conspiracy theory that several people that were critical of the Clintons and died were killed by their henchmen. The Clintons know hundreds of people. A certain percentage disagrees with them because of the nature of US politics. A natural percentage would die over the years of knowing the Clintons. Associative thinking can and does connect all of those factors into a conspiracy of murder if the desire is there to do so.

            Bänoo introduced Beatriz Hausner, who said it was interesting to read at an altar. She informed us that the Church of St Stephen in the Fields is an important building in Toronto because it had the same architect as the Ontario Parliament buildings. Actually Thomas Fuller didn’t design the Ontario Parliament buildings but rather some of the original Parliament Hill government buildings in Ottawa.

            She added that the church was a locus of the CBC but I didn’t catch what she meant by that.

            Beatriz began with her translations of  “Visita” by Rosamel del Valle. From “Visit” – “He will come … the room opens … the walls lose their tranquility … I know then that the walls are shaped like an ear … The moment I see him take off his hat and throw it in the ocean I know that our conversation has begun … I hear the tear falling from the door that closes.”

            Beatriz told us that it took her a long time to become a writer.

            She read her poem “Original Man” as a compliment to “Visit” – “I take out my needles … It would be ridiculous to say that I sew myself to him … before the night falls and the colour of our blood changes … our attending limbs growing wilder … raise our legs in tandem and speak the music of the heart … he does speak the language of the worm in the fruit … His ear sewn to the Earth by the invisible hands of the great sound maker.”

            From “Louis Riel is in the Neighbourhood” – “I see you every thirty minutes / per second at the top of my street … never stopping at the lights … feet that walk and unwalk / the knotted hard dream / hanged with you … the air breaks … much pain / flowing in capillary systems / that point to new republics … misfortune grows … sooner than ten / machines at a time growing // with the echo of your ravings … Blackbirds / escape from your mouth heralding // a life of dark screams inside the drum / where the daily rope is placed around / your neck … we roam in darkness tapping / lightly on electrodes / gadgets of the soul … those rooms without walls / we build for our dream of water / a new Saskatchewan of the mind … the new republic whose sediment / anchors the soul despite the mechanical / locusts … separated merely by the murmur of the Earth … utterances heard inside fruit / of restless vision … I stand at the prestigious / edge of violence … touch the edge of our golden Batoche.”

            Beatriz declared that Riel was a great poet.

            She told us that her next poem would be one about her family, which came to her in a vision on the western shores of Newfoundland. She dedicated “Cowhead” to her late father – “The ancestors have reached their destination … The silent one whose hymns darken … deep inside the gears … learning the tongue … that other season for answers … These are my dearly departed … alive in this heart, beating at the gate of pain.”

            These readings of Beatriz’s work were chronological. Introducing a different phase of her writing, she shared that a human-sized raccoon appeared in her life at a certain point. He was the perfect lover, was cuddly and warm, but also slightly repulsive.

            From “Prayer Heart” – “While visiting the Jewish Museum in Paris … The origin of prayer … created in Babylon … divine service of the heart … ‘You are lonely’ whispers the raccoon in my ear … Somewhere a woman and a man are lying down and preparing to feed the large cat that they have taken to bed with them.”

            From “Internal Meditation” – “Raccoons play a role in new strains of this virus … The process is called reassortment … They play the role of Typhoid Mary … Raccoon has grown weary of his form … It isn’t about his arousal … I hide these perceived weaknesses … time being elastic for Raccoon and myself … a way of being in several places and historical periods at the same time … I begin to speak this phrase from Ovid … What comes easily … the rest of the verses become inaudible …”

            Beatriz read two poems inspired by Empress Theodora of Byzantium.

            From “The Dream of Theodora: Theodora in Kuwait” – “Always the gentle voice of mother and father … the mountains persisted … torment of memory of the cruellest cipher … early algorithms tattooed … rubbing against the new life of parents … the gas was inhaled for generations …”

            From Theodora Incipient” – “Gravity doing what gravity does … the shards of glass lined the floor of the love child in the womb …”

            Beatriz informed us that her natal homeland of Chile is a country with the Southern Cross replicating a morning star.

            She introduced her final poem by mentioning how Dante was inspired by Beatrice but how he also watched Beatrice eat his heart – “I will not really push your heart in my mouth … I will stop walking a great distance to place your heart in my mouth … A song fills my throat because I have your heart in my mouth … There are no limits to what I can do when I have your heart in my mouth … A life-size tiger threatens to appropriate your heart in my mouth … Innate always is the state of love … The soul and the spirit have become one with your heart in my mouth.”

            Beatriz Hausner is an inspired and eloquent writer who goes to that place where dreams make themselves available to her hand so they can be pulled into the attention in order to exquisitely destabilize reality. She doesn’t only dream while awake but has learned to speak the language of dreams where gravity is broken to throw the consciousness off balance and to reveal that there is something inside of and behind the ordinary. She is breaking the rules so that reality is penetrated by what secretly moves us and we are thrown off balance. Things become other things so as to give deeper meaning to those things, such as when the heart is a curtain over an open window in the wind.

            We returned immediately to the open stage, beginning immediately with Simon Constam, who read two poems.

From “Evanescence” – “Whatever they have become … what they have gone through is still undefined … I haven’t seen her for more than ten years … Sometimes it is good to not be differentiated … The night I woke to see you naked at your desk … threw caution to the wind and gave up an ocean of inexorability … because when you refused to love me I valued love too highly …”

From “A Mountain in the Sky” – “We must love one another and die … God offered the torch to the Jewish people … If I know Jews, some argued to go back to Egypt … After a month of their reluctance god tore Mount Sinai from the land and held it above them … We have no choice but to try and understand.”

Mehri Yalfani read “And Me” – “Such a beautiful day … sunshine everywhere … I have to go out … to see a sparrow sitting on her eggs … but … there’s war … The children are suffocating by poison gas … the trees are senseless / and me, nobody.”

            Bänoo called me to the stage and I went up to get my guitar. I was glad to find that it was in tune but I would have had time to tune it anyway while introducing my poem. I said that I would be doing my translation of a 181 year old poem by Gerard de Nerval and I heard a positive “Ah!” from Beatriz. I explained that Nerval had been a big influence on the surrealists and looked at Beatriz to ask, “Right?” She nodded. I recounted the legend that Nerval had pet lobster named Thibault that he used to walk every day on the end of a long, blue, silken leash in the gardens of the Palais Royale in Paris. I had meant to add, “And you can’t get much more surrealist that that” but I forgot and just said, “But that has nothing to do with the piece I’m going to do”. The original is called “L’Andalouse” and my translation is entitled “Andalusian Dream” – “Come now my Andalusian / as night in jealous confusion / casts her shade on the sky / Lift the veil she hides behind / to bathe her in the starlight / of the stars of your eyes // Come now my shining empress / into the serene darkness / We’ll throw arms around her / We’ll climb to her above us / on our silk-woven ladder / on our ladder of love // Come now with me my lady / as this night of ecstasy / grants my boldest desires / As the night is our sovereign / I now bid you to open / the door to paradise.”

            Although my guitar playing wasn’t strong, I actually played much better than the earlier stiffness in my fingers had suggested I might. I think that if I’d gone up before Beatriz I would not have played as well but she’d inspired me to rise to the occasion.

            Reza Eslami read two poems. The first was written in response to a letter received after a break-up – “Fighting the dream of you by the shore … To accept that what was happening is the reason for my bitterness … I just stand and stare … I was bound to stray from my being when the storm hit … The perpetual sneer was all that I could bleed … painting my exit path without any tactical thought of reality.”

            From “Herald of Rainy Day” – “On the tallest branch of a dried tree … sits a skylark.”

            Pat Connors read “The Rooster and the Piglet” – “Organizing my thoughts … the rooster crows … around the clock … waits for the piglet’s reply … Sometimes they cry at the same time … I have done nothing since I got here … I know in a few days I will return to my ordered and ordinary life … I will be happy to go back …”

            Norman Allan read “Three Thoughts in Search of the Mind” – “A quantum phase … We watch it happen … came out of nothing … in pixels of energy … happening somewhere … sliding out time … Being is because everything is in the possible … stepping into the river … why did the stone go from possible to was … iterations of something happening somewhere … sliding down time … visual fields … accessing contrasts … A fourth iteration brings linear boundaries … from possible to was … a tangle of activity … floating.”

            During Norman’s set, Imogen, the event’s photographer, approached me and asked if she could borrow my guitar for a song. I nodded.

            I hadn’t seen much of Imogen all night, which surprised me since all the other photographers of Shab-e She’r have come close to the stage for a lot of their shots. The only time that I saw her was when I was on stage and she took a picture of me from the back. Did she use a zoom the whole time?

            From Ben Brendis’s poem – “ … Mount Olympus in the true north … a Canadian Shield rock band … The sea of language … The past of the foreign country where they drive stick shifts … How do we say ‘Our home on Native land’ in Swahili? … Creating poems from stolen conversation … Smiting with premeditation eight innocent mosquitoes … French past and perfect … The sounds of silence … English parliament, seasoned with Churchill.”

            Madhu Arora told us that this was her first time reading anywhere. She said that she comes from India where the patriarchy expects women to become mothers. She shared that after she reluctantly had a child she irrevocably fell in love with her son despite the fact that she still hates being a mother. From her poem – “Dear son, What can I say about what binds me to you? … I rail against it, I fail against it … Even on my worst days when I hate everything about being one … I am not Mother Theresa … I cannot offer you perfection … I will offer you a love as faulty as myself for the rest of my days … Love, Mom.”

            Nordine moved the microphone back, about halfway towards the altar and said, “We’re gonna start in the centre where life began … I am ancient … the ancient female … the beginning of DNA … made in energy … navigated the mother ship … After protecting my woman … my right brain was defeated … my curly hair became dreadlocks … Wanted to protect my baby for a reason.”

            Chai reminded us that in the last decade or so Toronto has added a lot of condos and informed us that the forest fire in Parry Sound has just crossed the Trans Canada Highway. He said we are overbuilding cities at the expense of the forests.

            From “High Rise Slums” – “We look upon those quaint houses with gardens … those far away trees … for oxygen … think food comes from supermarkets with large parking lots … Not a blade of grass … concrete and glass … All of the rain that falls flows down the sewers … Why are parking lots like highways? To feed high-rise slums we cut down forests far away … Who cares for species extinction anyway? Why should we not have it all? So what if there is far away famine? Maybe we all need to learn from child … When will we stop building Trump Towers … High-rise slums may stand tall … dominate the planet … after our extinction.”

            Nicholas Hadzis read two poems.

            From a rap called “Oil and Water” – “Oil and water just don’t mix … Oil on the street, there’s a rainbow in it … Oil and water just don’t mix … More connected? No, not at all … I’m doing better cause I don’t need a fix.”

            From “Eternally Who” – “I wish someone could buy me memories of sweet wines … A tongue intertwines … Yours a chest of airs … from whom I want more love … I am also you … a sweet and ageless wine … That’s who.”

            The final poet of the night was Imogen, who sat down with my guitar and two microphones. She would be the first person besides me to play my Oscar Schmidt. She sang a poem which she told us was about a girl in love - "You were Charles Bukowski without the gambling ... I played a song for you over the phone … You said it wasn’t my best … You said you've got this pain in your chest ... Beatnik bullshit ... That suit came in the mail ... When I put it on you can see the scars on my chest … All you can do is throw your voice into the blackhole of opinion ... You're the closest thing to god ... Something so perfect couldn’t have a soul ... But now it's all just blank stares and blank cheques ... I stepped a little closer and found you're not so strong … You said I'm the only thing keeping you alive ... I'm glad we don't speak anymore but I think of you sometimes."

            The next Shab-e She’r will be on September 25.

            I told Beatriz that she’d done a great reading and told her about an interesting coincidence relating to the song that I did. I’d always wanted to sing the song someplace where she was reading but I'd already planned six months ahead of time on doing the song that night, even though I’d only heard about her feature a month ago. She said she loves Nerval but heard that he'd had a tragic life. I confirmed that he’d hung himself and had apparently chosen the darkest street in Paris to commit suicide. He was found carrying a note for his mother. Beatriz’s friend declared, "It's always the mother!" Beatriz introduced us, though I don’t remember what her name was, unless it was Samantha. She said she'd observed a lot of coincidences between the subject matter of many of the readings. She didn’t say specifically what those coincidences were but I noticed there were a lot of mother references throughout the night. She said that Beatriz told her that I know her mother, and I confirmed that Susana is one of the loves of my life. She said, "Mine too!"

            I chatted with Cy Strom and he told me that he’d looked up Nerval and saw that Serge Gainsbourg had covered him. I confirmed that Gainsbourg had done Nerval’s "L'Andalouse” as "Rock de Nerval”. I told him that the original song had actually been part of an opera called “Piquillo" in which the song lyrics were written by Nerval, the text was by Alexandre Dumas the elder and I'd forgotten who wrote the music other than that his first name was “Hippolyte". I can confirm now that his name was Hippolyte Monpou although I don't know if the music for the version of the song version of the poem that I did was by him or Gainsbourg. I told Cy that I changed the context of the song but if my translation were to be part of an English version of the opera then I would have to change it back. In the original, the speaker is telling the woman that he has been made sovereign and so he bids her to open the door to paradise.

            Shortly after the event finished, an intoxicated man came in looking for the pastor. He spoke to a counsellor that was still there but he was very upset about his mother and speaking very loudly over and over again about his wish that she would die a horrible death. So the theme of the mother that repeated itself during many of the readings carried over into the after-show as well.

            Outside, I chatted a little more with Beatriz’s friend as she told me that she’d recently had her bike stolen. I said that nobody steals my bike because thieves steal according to aesthetics and are too stupid to know what a good bike I have. I told her that she could build one at Bike Pirates. Beatriz came up and asked what we were talking about and her friend said, “This nice man was just suggesting that I build a bicycle". Beatriz shook her head, "Oh no, she doesn't have time for that!" and her friend nodded in agreement.

            I walked with them the few meters until I got to my bike and we said goodnight. Beatriz said that her mother would be coming to Toronto in August and so maybe we could all get together.

            After all the talk about theft, as I unlocked my bike I noticed that someone had stolen my front flasher. Fortunately it was bought at a dollar store and I have more.

            I had a late and quickly prepared dinner of ribs with potato chips and watched the last two episodes of the last season of Dobie Gillis.

            In the first story the dean has told Maynard that he must keep his hair out of his eyes and stop bumping into people or he’ll be expelled. Maynard brings hair tonic to biology class but gets it mixed up with the bottled musk from a male hippopotamus. When he uses it begins to have an alluring affect on women, beginning with Dobie’s girlfriend, Lara, who becomes extremely aggressive with Maynard and eventually drags him off by his hair. Even Dobie's mother is affected but the writers cop out by giving her an overwhelming urge to mother Maynard. When Dobie’s father notices the power Maynard suddenly has over women he tries to cash in on it and gets Maynard a movie deal co-starring with international film star Lola Lasagne, who goes nuts over him too. Nobody realizes though that it’s Maynard's smell that is making him attractive with so many women and so the movie is a bomb because the female viewers can't smell him.

            The last story is basically a repeat of the series pilot but instead of a movie theatre raffle it’s a charity bazaar raffle. In both stories it is arranged that Dobie will get the winning ticket by cheating but Dobie's conscience won't let him go through with it and so he ignores the call of his number, not realizing until it was too late that he actually legitimately won $5000.