Stanley Adams

            On Monday morning I sang and played my translation of "Sermonette" by Boris Vian to hear if it worked, and now it's ready to upload to Christian's Translations. 

            I memorized the third verse of "Martine boude" (Martine Broods) by Serge Gainsbourg and reworked my translation of the final verse. I should have the whole song in my memory tomorrow since I almost had it nailed down today. 

            I weighed 86 kilos before breakfast. 

            At 10:00 I left for my first English Language in the World class. It was raining all the way but it was slightly more than a mist and so I only got damp rather than soaked. 

            There was another class ahead of mine in the lecture room. I stood there watching and listening to the feet of other students as their running shoes made loud squeaky/sucking noises on the vinyl floor. Almost all students were wearing running shoes but some made noise and some didn't. I was trying to figure out if it was the type of running shoe that caused the noise or just the way they walked. Later I noticed while walking to the washroom that I was squeaking a bit as well in my Blundies. 

            The other class left just after 11:00 and I found a seat in the front row where I could run my extension cord along the floor in front of the desks to a side plug so that way the cord was not a tripping hazard. 

            The lecture for English In the World.

            Every Wednesday our lecture will be in the basement of the Earth Sciences building. Professor Carol Percy made it part of the class for us to have "cheesy" conversations with our neighbours. She gave us three minutes to introduce ourselves to three other students. I talked with Chuanqi and it took a while to get the pronunciation of his name. At first, he said I could call him "John" but that seemed absurd. Finally, I got that it is pronounced like "Chew ann chee". The student behind me was I think, Eundlin. The pretty young woman dressed like a 1960s hippy at the end of the row behind me was Tiana. 

            The professor talked about vocatives and terms to address people.

            There is an Exit slip online that is like a quiz to show we were here. 

            Professor Percy has been teaching since 1990. She wrote her thesis in English on 18th Century grammar. Cap Cooke in the 1760s quoted Pope and Shakespeare to illustrate bad English. 

            She showed a slide showing the image of an 18th Century children's book by Ana Laetitia Barbold. Barbold's speaker tells children that if they learn grammar they are good dogs but if they don't they should be drowned like a cat. 

           Professor Percy wrote, "How I spent the pandemic". Language in the formation of 19th Century nation-states. Decolonizing orthography. 

           Our Saturday 14:00 o'clock homework is to introduce ourselves. We are to introduce ourselves online in a private survey, which counts as participation. 

           This course also fills a linguistics requirement. 

            Aside from the primary text, our secondary e-readings are mostly from Survey of Modern English and English in the World. Bring a copy of the primary readings to class if you don't have the book. 

            Find current online news items about English in other countries or settler countries of English first language. Print to pdf. Then start thinking about English as a news item in so-called "Inner Circle" countries (where it is the native language of a majority of people) - the UK, Canada Finding articles about global culture. That's Saturday homework #2. 

            Online exercises. Two practice questions. Scaffolded assignment.  

            The structure of the course is intersectional.  English in Canada, global English on social media, the context of norms: settler colonies (education), postcolonial (policies), global (pop culture), in-group global electronic. Explaining variation across Englishes: words, sounds, grammar, spelling, 

            Our presentations need to be pre-recorded on video. The video-recorded presentation would contain a description of the project, but first as a draft paper, then a peer review. 

            Course overview 2:  The literary aspect. Postcolonial texts from Concert of Voices.

            The midterm test will be open book and timed, relating to the literature. 

            We can write our research paper on a literary topic. Course description 3 The schedule key to the readings tells us the reading for the day. The modules duplicate the schedule.

            She prefers being called Professor Percy, but it can vary with the setting. If you are the professor's yoga instructor you might call her by her first name. 

            Pronouns as prescriptive are a recent linguistic change. Mx. as an honorific instead of Mr. is used in the UK. 

            We looked briefly at Kamala Das's "An Introduction" but we ran out of time. 

            After class, I went to the U of T Bookstore and bought Concert of Voices. I asked for the senior's discount but was told that they discontinued that in 2020. 

            I had a late lunch and at 15:00 I took a late siesta. I got up at 16:30. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos at 18:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:42. 

            I introduced myself on the course website: 

            My name is Christian and it is pronounced the same as the religion. I despise being called "Chris" and hate nicknames in general but would not mind being called by the version of that name that might be used in another language. For example, I am okay with an Italian calling me Christiano. When I was learning to speak as a small child I remember calling birds "boards" and boards "birds", and pronouncing guitar as "tigar". I grew up in rural western New Brunswick and my community was English-speaking, but there were other languages not far away. My father was from New Denmark and could speak Danish, even though his father and mother were born in North America. My mother was from northern New Brunswick near Edmundston, where most people speak French and she became a French teacher. I started writing poetry at the age of 12 and have continued since then, branching out into songs as well. I have been active in the spoken word poetry community in Toronto for many years. I also write songs and have had clashes with some poetry event organizers who reject songs as being not poetry, even though before the printing press, most literature was sung. In the 1990s I hosted a weekly writers' open stage and also organized poetry slams. I've self-published two chapbooks of poetry and my manuscript Paranoiac Utopia is in editorial review with Exile Editions. It is not certain they will publish my book but it was recommended to them by Albert Moritz. I studied first and second-year FSL here at U of T but dropped it because it was lowering my GPA. I have however continued to study French on my own and have become a translator of French songs, poems, stories, and plays. My main translation project is the songs of Serge Gainsbourg, of which I have written English versions of all of his songs from 1958 until 1981, and I am now working on 1982. 

      

            I grilled some small chicken drumsticks in the oven and had three with a small potato and gravy while watching the sixth episode of Ben Casey. 

            In this story, a small-time entertainer named Tony Romano suddenly has a seizure for the first time in his life and wakes up in the hospital. His wife warns Casey that in Italy a hospital is where one goes to die and so her husband will not take well to being tested. Tony puts up a fight but Casey tells him he's welcome to leave if he can, but he can't get up. After several tests, it is determined that in order to really find and fix what is wrong he needs an operation. Finally, he gives in and during his surgery, a benign tumour is found, but it is in a difficult place. The result is that Tony's life has been saved but he is partially paralyzed. He is encouraged to go to physiotherapy to increase his mobility but now he is bitter, angry, and fatalistic about his condition. There is a very outgoing little girl named Gina Lasco who travels throughout the hospital in her wheelchair making friends while she is waiting for her heart surgery. Dr. Maggie Graham wheels Gina into Tony's ward and the child begins to melt his heart. He begins to be more motivated to take physiotherapy and also goes to Gina's ward to entertain her and the other children with stories and bare-handed puppetry. He begins to tell Gina a story about a tree on which the fruit is silver bells but before it is finished Gina is taken for her scheduled surgery. Hours later Tony discovers that Gina has died and he begins to scream. 

            After that, he loses all motivation. Tony's wife tells Casey that what really upsets Tony is that he can't work. So Casey goes to see a theatrical agent that had once visited Tony in the hospital and convinces him with great difficulty to give Tony a future booking. When Casey shows Tony the telegram Tony rejects the gig as an impossibility. Casey tells Tony to hand him back the telegram. He struggles and finally does it. Casey says it's amazing what you can do when you try. Tony finally starts trying. His physiotherapy efforts are excruciating but he continues, until in the end, he has gained back almost all of his mobility and his humour. 

            Tony Romano was played by Stanley Adams, who played mostly ethnic supporting characters for most of his long acting career. His biggest role was as the millionaire Rusty Trawler in Breakfast at Tiffany's. In the 1960s and 1970s, he appeared on almost every major television series. He played a time-traveling scientist named Rollo in a 1959 episode of The Twilight Zone, Cyrano Jones the Tribble dealer on Star Trek, and a space carrot named Tybo on Lost in Space. He committed suicide in 1977 because of unbearable back pain. 

            I searched for bedbugs and the only one I found was in the very first place I poked, which was in the upper right corner of the old exit door at the head of my bed.