Fringe Magnets

            On Monday morning I translated the first half of "Sermonette" by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the first verse of "Suicide" by Serge Gainsbourg. This was sung by Quebecoise superstar Diane Dufresne. This was the first and only time Gainsbourg ever wrote lyrics for a Canadian. The song is an increasingly over-the-top list of ways to commit suicide, ending with being a rock star and being crucified by one's fans. Gainsbourg originally wrote it in the third person but Dufresne asked him to change it so it sounded like it was her personal experience. 

            I weighed 85.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday, I finished cleaning my freezer and started washing the upper part of the main fridge chamber. It might take a couple more days to finish the inside of the fridge. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:52. 

            I opened the July 9 audio file of my song practice in Audacity and amplified the volume. The first setting I tried took the waveform way over the clipping ceiling and so I undid that increase and started again with a lower number. It took four tries to get it at a good level. I was worried that increasing the volume would lower the quality but it sounded fine to me. I exported it back to my Sound Recordings folder. I went into the July 9 Movie Maker project and removed the original audio file, then added the new one. It was very satisfying to be able to fix that low volume problem because it's been bugging me since yesterday. No doubt one can increase the volume of files in Ableton too but they don't make it so simple as Audacity. In Ableton forums the audio tech nerds use terminology that laymen can't understand while in an Audacity forum the instructions are straightforward: "Select All, click Effects, select Amplify" and Bob's your uncle. I did a little work toward synchronizing the video and the audio, but didn't have a lot of time. I should have them lined up tomorrow. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" video, I shaved the video of the ocean lightning storm down from five minutes to one minute. I only need about five seconds and so I'll cut out some more of the black space of sky between lightning strikes tomorrow. 

            I finished sorting through the fifth file folder of my writing and began to go through the folder of all the poetry from 1993 to 2000 and dividing it into poetry alone and pages containing the Gumby Bible. 

            I put olive oil, salt, and roasted garlic and herb mix on ten chicken drumsticks and roasted them in the oven. I had two with a potato and gravy while watching two Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1952 and another two from 1953. 

            In the first story, Marvin the Martian and his green dog arrive on Earth with a mission given to them by their Commanding General E=McSquared to bring one Earth creature back to Mars. The first creature they encounter is Bugs Bunny. At first Bugs thinks they are trick or treaters until Marvin uses his disintegrator gun on Bugs's home. After seeing the power of Marvin's weapon, Bugs seems willing to go with them. He poses as a flight attendant to get Marvin and his dog to board the ship but halfway to Mars Marvin realizes Bugs is not on the saucer. He returns to Earth and tells Bugs that he has made him very angry. Bugs makes Marvin briefly doubt his dog's loyalty. They shoot a straight jacket ejecting bazooka at Bugs. On the ship, Bugs convinces the dog that the straight jacket isn't his size. The dog gets him another one and helps him out of the old one. Bugs puts one straight jacket on the dog and another on Marvin. Bugs turns the ship around but on the way back to Earth drops anchor and snags Saturn, the Moon and several stars along the way. 

            In the second story, a rain storm floods Bugs's den while he is sleeping and causes his bed to float out of the hole and down a river that passes a castle owned by an evil scientist. The scientist is looking for a brain for his giant robot and when he sees Bugs floating by he hooks him to take his brain. But after waking up and learning what the scientist wants, Bugs escapes from the lab. The scientist releases his monster Rudolph and promises him spider goulash if he catches the rabbit. When Bugs meets the monster he poses as a hairdresser to fix the monster's hair but uses dynamite sticks as curlers. While running from Rudolph, Bugs finds a bottle of vanishing fluid to make himself invisible. Then he uses shrinking oil on the monster. Now small as a mouse, the monster packs its bags and quits. The scientist throws an ax at Bugs but he ducks and it smashed open a bottle of ether. Bugs and the scientist are now running in slow motion as he chases Bugs. They both fall asleep but Bugs is still running and falls into a river that carries him back to his hole. Bugs wakes up saying it was all a dream until little Rudolph rows by in a tiny boat and says, "That's what you think!" 

            The third story is another "wrong turn at Albuquerque" gag. Bugs pops out of the ground in the middle of a bullfighting arena just as a matador is running for his life to escape the bull. The bull butts Bugs out of the arena and so Bugs says, "Of course you know, this means war!" Bugs returns dressed as a toreador and the bull charges but behind the cape is an anvil. Bugs then gets the bull to slam into a wooden wall with his horns sticking through the other side. Bugs bends them down with a hammer. In the next scene the bull is sharpening new horns. Bugs hooks a big rubber band to each horn, pulls it back and slingshots a boulder at the bull's head. The bull butts Bugs one more time. Bugs hides a rifle behind the cape but the bull accidentally swallows it. It suddenly has the ability to shoot bullets through its horns. It fires at Bugs until it runs out of bullets and then swallows a box of elephant gun bullets but they backfire and explode. The bull charges but Bugs opens the arena gate and the bull runs out of town. When the bull charges back, Bugs booby traps the ground with axel grease causing the bull to slide up a ramp and take flight long enough to fly over a brush that paints his belly with glue, then over a sheet of sandpaper which attaches to his belly, then over a match so the sandpaper lights a fuse leading to a TNT bomb that explodes just as the bull passes over it. 

            The last cartoon begins with Daffy Duck as a Musketeer with his sword drawn until he runs out of scenery. Standing in white emptiness, Daffy tells the cartoonist to draw something. A farm scene is drawn so Daffy changes to a farmer. But then the scene changes to the Arctic, so Daffy begins to ski, but skis to a tropical scene, so then he dresses like a Hawaiian and plays the ukulele. Then the scenery is gone again. Daffy is lecturing the cartoonist about what an animated cartoon is supposed to have when he is erased. Then he is redrawn as a singing cowboy. Daffy shrugs and starts to sing but nothing comes out. Daffy holds a sign saying "sound please" but then the guitar sounds like a jackhammer, then the horn of an early automobile. Daffy smashes the guitar and it makes the sound of a donkey. Daffy tries to speak to the animator but his voice is a rooster crowing, then jungle birds. When he can finally speak he asks for scenery. A city scene is drawn but with no colour. Then Daffy is coloured with multi colours and polka dots and stripes. Then all but Daffy's face is erased and he is redrawn as a ridiculous creature with a daisy for a head and a flagpole tail with a flag showing a picture of a screw and a ball. Daffy is erased and redrawn as a sailor on the ocean with no boat. He swims to an island. Then once again there is no background and the frame begins to collapse. We see "The End" but Daffy shouts "No" and pushes it aside. Daffy tries to dance without a landscape but the reel rolls up so he is half in one frame and half in another. Then Daffy is in a plane but a mountain is drawn in his way and he crashes. He parachutes out but the parachute is redrawn as an anvil. Daffy lands stunned and is hitting the anvil with a hammer when the anvil is redrawn as a bomb and it explodes. Daffy demands that the cartoonist show himself. A door is drawn and closed on Daffy, then we see the animator is Bugs Bunny, who turns and asks, "Ain't I a stinker?" 

            I searched for bedbugs and found none for the second night in a row.