Anthony Caruso

            On Thursday after midnight I did my usual search for bedbugs and found none for the sixth day in a row. My place had been treated by pest control about twelve hours before. They're not scheduled to come again unless I see more and get the landlord to make an appointment. 

            During yoga I could almost put my weight on my right arm to lift myself up. I think I'll be able to do it in a day or so. 

            I translated "Papa Nono" by Serge Gainsbourg. The title is a play on Papa Noel, which is the French name for Santa Clause. So far I haven't been able to find a recording of the song. I know it's from the movie "Je Vous Aime" but I don't know if I can find even a video of the film to learn the song. I'll look some more tomorrow. 

            I weighed 89.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            Having to leave my place for four hours because of the poison spraying yesterday put me behind on my writing and so I didn't get a chance to do as much cleaning as I'd hoped. I finished cleaning all but the very bottoms of the cups on my muffin pan. 

            I weighed 89.7 kilos before lunch. I had roasted peanuts sprinkled with chili powder. 

            I took a bike ride in the afternoon to Yonge and Bloor. On the way back I stopped at Freshco where I bought four bags of green grapes, a pint of strawberries, a basket of nectarines, five year old cheese, some cheap extra old cheddar for cooking, two cans of peaches, two kinds of skyr, limeade, a bag of naan, a loaf Bavarian sandwich bread, and a bag of kettle chips. I weighed 88 kilos in my underwear and 88.7 in my sweat pants when I got home. I think my digital scale is a swinger. 

            Another piece of the black scab on my elbow peeled off until I had to cut it. 

            I checked on Quercus to see if Professor Gomez had posted a Shakespeare lecture and he had in pdf form so I downloaded and read it. He starts with eight lines from Cymbeline in which Shakespeare refers to the rich and poor coming to dust like chimney sweeps at the time of death. 

           The professor suggests that Shakespeare also had child labour in mind in the context of mentioning chimney sweeps. But I think that's historically inaccurate. Children didn't begin to be drafted into the chimney sweeping trade until after the great London fire of 1666. Before that the chimneys were bigger and more manageable by adult sweepers. But new building regulations due to the fire required that the chimneys be narrower. Of course it was later on during the Industrial Revolution that buildings became taller with more complex, narrow chimneys and the use of children in chimney sweeping became much more of an epidemic. Hence the poems on the subject by Blake and others of the Romantic period. Gomez gave some interesting history on Shakespeare's plays and his influences as well as those he influenced and passed the torch to. 

            I read Act 2 Scene 2 of The Comedy of Errors. The dialogue between Antipholas of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse is comic gold with great timing in the puns and the back and forth. Shakespeare could have been a great writer for Saturday Night Live if he hadn't squandered his life away in the theatre. 

            I read the preface for The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Slave narratives were often prefaced by prominent leaders in the anti slavery movement. They served to confirm that the former slave wrote the book himself. 

            David knocked on my door and I gave him his key back. He insisted on giving me pizza and $40 for letting the exterminator into his place when he was at work. I put the pizza in the freezer with the other pie he gave me a couple of weeks ago. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching an episode of Gomer Pyle. 

            In this story Gomer and Duke go back to the Jade Club to watch the talent contest that Duke had previously won . Gomer tries to get Duke to get up on stage to do his impressions again. But when Gomer stands up to get the attention of the MC, Duke is quicker and tells him Gomer wants to get up and sing. Gomer reluctantly goes to the stage and when he's there sings "Oh My Papa." Nino Gregorio, the owner of the club comes out from his office and when he hears the song he begins to cry. Later Gomer is called into Nino's office and told how much he loved the song. He asks Gomer to come the next night and sing it again. But the next night Sergeant Carter punishes Gomer with guard duty for keeping a dirty rifle. Gomer asks Duke to explain the situation to Nino but Nino forces Duke to take him to the fence that Gomer is guarding. Gomer says he'll sing the song while working but Carter stops him. Nino sends Carter a wreath with the words "Rest in peace" on it. He has his men follow Carter when he's on liberty in town. The next day the men show up somehow on the base and tell Carter to get in the car. It isn't explained how they could possibly get on the base and then leave with Carter. Carter is brought to the Jade Club and Gomer is there. It was Gomer's idea for Carter to be brought there because it was Carter's resistance to Gomer coming to the club that finally motivated Nino to send for his papa. That night Gomer sings "Oh My Papa" in Italian and both Nino and Carter cry. Papa likes the song but doesn't understand the crying. 

            Nino was played by Anthony Caruso who was typecast as an Italian mobster for most of his career. He was a close friend of Alan Ladd and appeared in eleven of his movies. He also played a lot of Indigenou American chiefs. On an episode of Star Trek he played Bela Oxmyx, the leader of a 1930s Chicago style mob that ran half of a planet and who was constantly at war with a rival gang that ran the other half.