Shrinking Future, Shrinking Past

            On Tuesday morning I worked on adjusting the chord placement for “Bourrée de complexes” (Buried in Complexes) by Boris Vian on Christian’s Translations. I also uploaded and posted “Lunatic Asylum" by Serge Gainsbourg on my translation blog.

            Around midday I washed and scrubbed another section of my kitchen floor between the bathroom and the filing cabinet. In another three sessions I'll move the filing cabinet and clean the space where it’s been sitting, but I don't think I'll put it back there. I’ll probably shift it to the other end of the credenza and move the credenza where the cabinet is now. There is an end in sight however and the future is shrinking. But then again the past of the dirty floor is also shrinking.

            For lunch I had a lettuce and sausage salad with dressing made from mayonnaise and ketchup.

            I called my doctor’s office about my annual physical but I was told that Dr Shechtman is only doing check-ups on the phone and patients can only come in if he thinks it’s necessary. That seems like a waste of time since there’s nothing wrong with me that would make him ask me to come in. It’s not like I can check my own prostate, blood pressure, and all the other stuff, so I'll just call back when things open up enough for me to see him in person.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This was another somewhat rehashed story. Sapphire gets Kingfish a construction job in Guam where he would get a good wage and have all expenses paid. At first he tries to get out of it because he doesn't want to work. He hires a doctor to send an exaggerated report on his health without mentioning to him that he wants it exaggerated in the negative. The result is that he is offered a job as a supervisor and suddenly he is looking forward to it. Ultimately he loses the opportunity because they found out Kingfish is 47 while Sapphire had put down that he was 45 on the application and 47 is two years over the company’s limit.

            I finished editing my July 4 performance of “Personne" and uploaded it to YouTube. Next I'll decide which is the best version of my translation, "Person" and get that ready to put it online.

            I scanned some negatives of photos taken of my daughter Astrid and I in 1993 when I was posing at the Don Valley Art Club. I won’t be able to post some of them because they are nude pictures.

            I had a potato, steamed bok choy and three small pieces of a chicken breast with gravy while watching two episodes of “The Adventures of Sir Lancelot".

            In the first story king Marhaus, who Lancelot knows has shown himself to be maleficent is bringing his knights to a tournament at Camelot. Lancelot notices that Marhaus has requested of Camelot’s that the swords of his knights be dulled so as not to cause injury, but Lancelot is suspicious that behind this noble gesture is a deceitful plot. But when he brings this up with Arthur they argue because Arthur is bound by his duty as a noble host not to act upon speculation about his guests. Lancelot tells Arthur he is being naïve and he leaves Camelot. On Marhaus's way to Camelot some of his scouts see Lancelot cooking at a camp fire and they capture him. Marhaus’s sister Angela has a minstrel that gives her information in his song lyrics that is kept from her by Marhaus. He sings to her that Lancelot is imprisoned in one of their tents and she goes and finds him there. Marhaus pretends that one of His guards mistakenly thought that Lancelot was a poacher and he orders him released. He invites Lancelot to participate in his knights’ battle practice and during the bout they all gang up on Lancelot but Angela intervenes before they are able to kill him.  Marhaus argues that his men are just overzealous and he would not have allowed Lancelot’s death to occur. Lancelot sneaks into Marhaus’s armoury tent and finds a chest of sharpened swords. He realizes that Marhaus plans to replace the dulled weapons at Camelot with the sharpened swords in his chest. Lancelot reveals this to Angela and when Marhaus’s group arrive in Camelot Lancelot and Angela come to tell Arthur of the plot. It had been arranged that Arthur would joust with Marhaus and Marhaus’s plan was to kill Arthur and take over Camelot. On the day of the tournament Lancelot disguises himself in Arthur’s armour and defeats Marhaus. Angela begs Arthur to spare her brother and says she will keep him in line. In the end Angela and Lancelot go on a date.

            In the second story Lancelot and Brian go to help King Bolton who says his daughter Iolta has been abducted by the ghosts of Roman centurions. He says that she has been taken beyond an old Roman wall and no one that he has sent there has ever returned. Lancelot and Brian go there and indeed see what looks like Roman soldiers guarding the top of the wall. Lancelot scales the wall but is discovered and has to fight what are clearly not ghosts. Brian climbs to help him until a man in a white toga commands them all to stop fighting. He says he is Trollus, the governor of the Roman province of Britain. This is the last Roman outpost in Britain and it somehow has overlooked discovery by any knights in England. He invites Lancelot and Brian to be his guests and says they will talk of Iolta later. Lancelot is treated to the finest wine he’s ever tasted and Trollus orders that Lancelot be given some for his bedchamber. But later Brian sees the servant Gogus putting something in the wine. Brian warns Lancelot and so he uses the special strips that Merlin has developed for testing poison. He puts all three strips in the wine and one of them turns black indicating that the wine is indeed poison. Lancelot decides to rescue Iolta that night but she says she is not a prisoner and wants to continue being a Roman lady. Lancelot is captured and for betraying Trollus’s hospitality is sentenced to die in the arena against Gogus. But Lancelot with shield and short sword defeats Gogus with shield, spear and net. When Gogus yields he admits that he put poison in the wine but did so on the order of Probus. Trollus allows Iolta to go back to inform her father that she wants to marry the young Amadeus and live in the Roman fort. Bolton is invited to visit as a guest whenever he wishes.

            The Romans left Britain at the end of the 4^th Century. Arthur was probably a general rather than a king but in the late 5^th Century. Rome would have fallen by then and the last Roman emperor would have been dead before Arthur was born but the eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire still existed. They were busy fighting Iran when Arthur was alive in England.