Zorro

            On Wednesday morning I finally finished memorizing "Par hazard et pas rasé" (By Hazard and Unrazored) by Serge Gainsbourg and looked for the chords. I don’t think this was a hit and so I was right not to expect to be able to find them. Chords for almost any song that’s ever been recorded can usually be found on sites like Chordify but their chords are found by software that picks up every note played by every instrument in a recording and so it’s way too complicated. If I can’t find chords posted by a human being I don’t bother with them. I worked out the first three chords, which are just E, A and E.

            I washed another section of my kitchen floor about a third of the way across the front of the mantle. I didn’t take any pictures of my progress this time because it was cloudy outside. I’ll gradually clean a path along the west side of the room and down the hall to the entrance. I'll have to clean the big mirror, the mantle and the shelf by the door at some points as I progress.

            I spent two hours reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. I had one short chapter left once the time was up.

I did some exercises and tried to watch the rest of the Naked City episode called “Beyond Truth that hadn’t downloaded the sound. It froze a little after half way and so I don’t know what it was about.

I listened to half of another Naked City episode called The Rebirth that hadn’t downloaded the video. The audio was choppy too but what I could make out was that an elderly woman had held up a bank by pretending she was holding nitro-glycerine. It sounded like she had won for a better life for her and her cat.

I felt grimy so I took a shower without shaving first. I keep forgetting to buy shaving gel.

I think I’ve done enough and maybe too much research for my five page Indigenous Studies “Finding Place” essay. I want to finish all my reading for the Aesthetic and Decadent Movements course and start both essays at the same time.

I made French fries, put salsa and melted cheddar cheese on top and had them with a beer while watching the first episode of the Zorro TV show from 1957. This was a Disney production and I hated it from the start. Disney just has a way of turning everything into sugarcoated shit.

In the first story Don Diego returns to California from studying in Spain after receiving a letter from his father telling him that the tyrannical Captain Monastario has taken over military command of Los Angeles. He decides before arriving that he would endanger his father if he were to oppose Monastario outright and so he plots to pretend to be a pacifist scholar and to fight the tyrant in a secret identity. Diego’s mute servant Bernardo will also pretend to be deaf so as to spy for Diego. Upon arriving he sees a local landowner named Torres imprisoned for speaking out against oppression. Later Diego renews his acquaintance with his horse Toronado that was a colt when he left for Spain but somehow recognizes him and remembers all his training. That night Diego becomes Zorro for the first time and comes to rescue Torres. He beats Monastario in the first of their sword fights and escapes over the wall.

It turns out that the pulp novel character of Zorro turned one hundred years old in September 2019.

I finished reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. It’s really the best novel I’ve read in a long time. I think it’s a masterpiece. It’s a tragedy in the classical sense in that someone elevated to a high status has a downfall and in the end turns himself around to make up for what he has done wrong even though it’s too late.

I read two poems by Oscar Wilde and some by W.B. Yeats and I just have a couple more poems to read before completing all my reading for the Aesthetic and Decadent Movements course.