Monday 17 October 2022

Paul Henning


            On Sunday morning I worked out the chords for one verse of "Sans blague" (No Joke) by Boris Vian. 
            I memorized the fourth and fifth verses of "Trompe d’érection" (Missed Erection) by Serge Gainsbourg. 
            I weighed 85.1 kilos before breakfast. 
            I was going to work on my essay for ninety minutes before lunch but I felt sleepy and went to bed from noon to 13:30. 
            I weighed 84.4 kilos before lunch. 
            I left for an early bike ride downtown at 15:00. At Yonge and Dundas a woman was standing in the middle and blocking traffic. She was almost naked except that she had her shirt tied around her waist, although it wasn't hiding much. Her breasts were considerably large and she was shouting, "I hate Toronto!" Fortunately one can't be arrested for toplessness in Toronto but she would probably be taken into custody for blocking traffic. I assume she was on the upswing of a bipolar episode. 
            Bay Street was blocked off at Queen for the Toronto Marathon so I had to head north. There wasn't a way to continue west until I got to Armoury Street. It looked like the marathon was just finishing. There were some people walking with silvery foil thermal shawls over their shoulders and some were wearing medals. Quite a few people were limping or walking with difficulty. I could do a bike marathon but I don't think I could run around the block before my ankle got too sore to continue. 
            I weighed 84.6 kilos at 16:00. 
            I was caught up on my journal at 17:05. 
            I spent over two hours starting and working on my essay. Here's what I got so far: 

you are fools to speak French ... you are fools to speak English - Leonard Cohen 

Pissing Off the Diving Board: Daniel Leblanc's code switches and jokes in Acadieman 

            In an Acadieman cartoon strip by Daniel LeBlanc in which Acadieman is at a public pool and he is told that he has to stop pissing in the pool. His response is that everyone pisses in the pool. But he is told, "Yes, but not off the diving board." 
            "Pissing in the pool" is a metaphor for using English in French, which every Francophone does to some degree, but mostly with English nouns such as "weekend". But Chiac's use of English often involves the threading of English verbs into the structure of French grammar by conjugating them as one would a French verb. This can be understood as pissing off the diving board because it splashes and mixes English into the pool of French from an elevation. It raises both French and English to a new language that is neither. When an English word like "walk" is used as "walker", "walké", or "walkont" it is no longer merely a visitor in French but has rather taken up residence in the language. 
            The partnering of French and English in Chiac can be analogized as a Romeo and Juliet story applied to languages in New Brunswick. The ease of linguistic code-switching between Acadian French and English takes the language that is on top, that is the dominant language of English and puts it on the bottom. Francophones and French language purists are afraid of French being corrupted by anglicisms, but English words are dominated in Chiac. They are transformed, altered and fashioned into something new. 
            In the first panel of another Acadieman cartoon, Acadieman's friend Coquille talks in French about the common occurrence of fear of heights. Then in the second panel we see Acadieman squatting in front of Coquille's open refrigerator with the crack of his wide buttocks shown to the viewer above his pants, and saying, "As-tu d'la "grub"? Chu starvé", meaning "Do you have any grub? I'm starving." The English verb "starve" is conjugated as if it were a French verb. The English noun "grub" is used as well but as a normal anglicism and it is not changed. In the punchline, Coquille tells the viewer in French that what he is afraid of is widths. 
            
            I made pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread, with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching episode 16 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 
            The previous story ended with Pearl saying "yes" to Mr. Brewster's mock proposal when she was supposed to say "no". We are told in this episode that Pearl actually publicly broke it off shortly after accepting the proposal. That allows Pearl to save face and leave with Jed to California with her head held high. As she's getting ready to go, Brewster comes to see her and asks to kiss her goodbye. It looks like he actually does like her after all. 
            Pearl sees her daughter Jethrine with a big trunk and she hears moaning inside. She opens it and finds Jethrine's boyfriend Jazzbo Depew bound and gagged. After he'd told her he couldn't come to California she'd knocked him out, tied him up, and stuffed him in the luggage. Jazzbo tells her it's taken him years to build up a clientele as a travelling salesman and this is the busy season. He could make $100 over the next three months and he can't walk away from that kind of a goldmine. Then Elly May comes to check if everyone's ready to go and when Jazzbo gets a look at her and learns he'll be staying at her house he jumps back into the trunk. 
            Back in Beverly Hills, after learning that Jethro is on his way back, Jane Hathaway spends three hours in a beauty salon to make herself look seductive with a dark wig, false eyelashes and a much less conservative dress. 
            Drysdale and Jane are at the airport but the Clampetts are late. The flight attendant tells them they wouldn't leave the plane until they'd done the dishes after lunch. There were 120 passengers eating.
            When Jethro gets off the plane Jane poses as a Gypsy and takes Jethro away with the promise of food. 
            Pearl is amazed by the airport, the escalator, and the automatic doors. She's flabbergasted by her cousin's mansion as well, but as soon as she gets inside she begins to clash with Granny over housekeeping. The conflict escalates as they compete at cooking dinner. Pearl causes Granny's cake to fall so Granny causes Pearl's pie to fall on the floor. Then each cook proceeds to dump out everything that the other one is preparing. Jed decides he'll have to take everyone out to a restaurant or maybe buy one. 
            The Beverly Hillbillies was created, produced, and mostly written by Paul Henning. He also wrote the theme song. He based the character of Elly May Clampett partially on his daughter Linda Henning. He also created, produced and wrote The Bob Cummings Show and Petticoat Junction. He started out as a singer on the radio but when the station needed someone to write material to fill the space between songs, he became a writer. He began to write for the biggest shows on radio and later for television. He wrote the screenplay for the hit comedy film "Lover Come Back" which was nominated for an Oscar. He co-wrote "Bedtime Story", "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and the 2019 comedy film "The Hustle". 


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

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