When I
got up on Monday morning I realized that I was going to have to stop staying up
till 1:00 doing research like I’d been doing for the last few nights. I’d been
taking the time to track down the names of the people in photos I have and to
find more photos of them. But four hours sleep is just not enough for my body
to feel healthy.
I memorized the first verse of
“J'aime les roses fanées” (I Love Withered Roses) by Serge Gainsbourg
and made some adjustments in my translation.
I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug”.
I washed a section of my kitchen floor in the hallway up to where the
end of the mantle starts to curve from front to back. After one more session
that area I'll have cleared the mantle and I'll be up against a big rickety
shelf that I'll have to move if I want to clean the rest of the hall. That's
going to be a big production.
I had tuna with salsa and chips for lunch.
I had a very restful siesta in the early afternoon and then did my
exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Kingfish and
Sapphire’s twentieth anniversary is approaching. Their friends are throwing a
big public soirée for them but Sapphire warns George that he’d better get her a
gift she can be proud of showing to all her friends, or else. Kingfish doesn’t
have a nickel and he tries to borrow from Shorty. Shorty says he can’t help him
but he tells him that he almost got married once. “She loved music and I love
music! She loved good books and I love good books! She loved culture and I love
culture!" "Why didn't you get married?" "We hated each
other." Kingfish learns that Andy just attended a lecture by a Rhodes
scholar that he’d been very excited about and so he tells Andy that he’s just
been awarded a Rhodes scholarship but needs the fair to get to Oxford. Andy
asks how much he needs. He says it’ll cost him $50 to get to the Rock of
Gibraltar and he could hitchhike from there. Andy says it sounds pretty fishy.
Kingfish admits that it is and just asks if he can borrow $50 for an
anniversary gift. Andy lends him the money. Kingfish is just on his way to buy
a gift for Sapphire when he’s accosted by a man on the street selling a beaver
coat. Kingfish notices the initials BB inside and the man admits it’s second
hand. He sells it to Kingfish for $50. Sapphire is happy with the coat but
later Kingfish learns that Bertha Benson, one of the members of Sapphire's
Women’s Club, recently had a fur coat stolen. On top of that Bertha will be one
of the guests that the anniversary party. Kingfish realizes that the coat he
bought must be Bertha’s stolen coat and so he tries to get rid of it with
Andy’s help. They cut it up and try to sell it as beaver skins to a fur
company. They pose as French Canadian trappers. Kingfish says his father was
“Quebecite” and his mother was a Labrador retriever. The man doesn’t buy them.
At the anniversary party Bertha comes up to congratulate Kingfish on his anniversary.
Kingfish mentions that he’d heard she’d had a coat stolen and she says that a
thief had taken her mink. Kingfish says, “I’d thought you’d had a beaver coat.”
She says she had one but she gave it to her sister and then her crazy brother
in law sold it to somebody for $50.
I finished editing the video of me performing Andalouse and uploaded it
to YouTube. Usually the upload is almost instantaneous but this one took at
least half an hour.
I grilled the two steaks that I got at Metro on Saturday and had one
with two small potatoes and gravy while watching two episodes of Racket Squad.
In the first story, at a club, a well-to-do bachelor named Don Riordan
approaches the beautiful Nancy Metcalfe and asks her to dance. They spend the
rest of the evening together and then Nancy says she has to go home. Don offers
to drive her home and she accepts but says she’ll have to call her father to
tell him not to send their butler George to pick her up. On the phone we learn
immediately that Nancy, her father Frank and their butler are all con artists
and Don is their latest mark. At the Metcalfe mansion Don meets Frank Metcalfe
and everyone gets along so well that Don is invited to spend the weekend. As
his relationship with Nancy blossoms he returns every weekend. Finally after a
month Don is surprised to learn that the source of Frank’s wealth comes
entirely from betting on horse races. Don thinks it would be impossible to make
a living that way but Frank says he has worked out a mathematical system. Don
is sceptical but Frank shows him several times in a row that he can pick the
winner. The reality is that George sets all of the clocks in the house half an
hour forward, including Don’s watch when he removes it to go swimming. That way
Frank knows the winners “beforehand” and when they listen to the race on the radio
it’s actually a recording that George made of the race that already happened.
Don offers Frank $10,000 to let him use the system and he agrees. Then Frank,
Nancy and George move on to another resort. After trying and losing at the
system Don goes to the police. Don finds the Metcalfes again and helps with the
sting that captures them.
In the second story Jim, after a long time of dating, finally proposes
to his assistant, Mary. When he tells his mother about it she is happy until
she finds out that they won’t be living with her. Mary wants for them to have
their own apartment but Jim’s mother is so disappointed that doesn’t want to
hurt her. This causes Mary to cancel their engagement. Bored and lonely, Mary
decides to respond to an ad for dance lessons that had been deliberately sent
to her by name. Meanwhile Jim tells Mary that he’s rented an apartment for them
and so the marriage will go ahead. Mary finishes the dance course and there is
a costume party at the studio. When she is changing back to her street clothes
one of the other students, Mr Webster bursts in, apparently drunk and pulls
Mary into a chair on his lap just as a secret window opens up in the wall and
the studio receptionist takes a photo. Mary is too busy struggling to break
free to notice the camera. Antoine, the dance school owner walks in and tells
Webster to leave. He then apologizes to Mary. Mary and Jim get married and she
is enjoying domestic life when there is a knock on the door. It’s Antoine. He
asks Mary to come back for a $500 course. She says she isn’t interested anymore
and besides it’s too much money. Antoine shows her the compromising photo. She
says she will tell Jim the whole story but Antoine says that the owners of Jim’s
company might not be as understanding. Mary takes the lesson and keeps taking
more courses as she becomes so increasingly unhappy that Jim begins to suspect
there is something wrong with the dance school. Captain Braddock investigates
and even has agents take lessons at the school but can find nothing untoward
about the place. By chance however he learns of a former student of the school
that committed suicide over a similar photograph with Mr Webster. Finally
Braddock convinces Mary to help them catch Antoine. Mary goes to offer Antoine
$1000 for the negative and he gives it to her just as the cops walk in.
Mary was played by Jan Clayton, who is best known for having played
Tommy's mother on Lassie from 1954 to 1957. She starred on Broadway in the
debut of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s "Carousel". She was an
ex-alcoholic who became a board member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The studio receptionist was played by Shirley Tegge, who was Miss USA
in 1949. She was uncredited in most of her films.
Jim’s mother was played by
character actor Edythe Elliott, who worked in a lot of films from the 1930s to
the 1960s but was a star of the stage before that.
Mary’s friend and co-worker, Mabel was played by B movie actor Claudia
Drake, who was also a singer. She starred in the 1945 film noir, “Detour”.
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