I continued working out the chords for “Entre l'âme et l'amour” (Between Love and Spirit) by Serge Gainsbourg. I’m used to starting at the beginning of a song and working out the chords in sequence as I listen to it. I’m usually able to stop and go back and then replay a section over and over until I’ve figured out the chords. But since the only player for this song is an extract player on Apple Music there is no way to go back and so I have to work out a chord for part of a line, then move on to another part of another line and so it’s very patchy. It might take me another day or two to figure out the music for this song.
I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the second session of four. I cranked it up even a little louder than yesterday to take advantage of the fact that there’s no one living above me right now.
Just after I finished I could hear my landlord upstairs clearing out Caesar’s apartment. I’ll bet he’ll be able to jack up the rent to more than twice what Caesar paid. Caesar was there for at least thirty years.
Yesterday or the day before I texted my neighbour David to let him know Caesar died. It’s hilarious how people change how they think of someone after they’ve died. David texted me that Caesar was “a gentleman”. All the time we talked about Caesar when he was alive David never once referred to him in that way.
I weighed 87.4 kilos before breakfast.
I continued to make notes on the Medieval poem “Pearl”:
“I stood stock still and dared not call” (183). “And yet I feared what might befall / That she might stop ere I drew near / And might escape me after all” (187-189). Is he actually afraid that she might run away from him? Or is it that he thinks that if she is a ghost then there might be something fleeting about her manifestation and if he were to disturb the balance in this strange place by calling out to her it might cause her to disappear?
“A precious maid in pearls bedight” (193). When he begins to describe her as being adorned with pearls he no longer refers to her as a pearl personified. Perhaps he is still uncertain of who she is.
“The fairest words she did release / Bowed low as e'er she did of yore / Removed her crown of richest store / And hailed me with a sweet delight” (236-239). He waits for her to initiate the exchange and she greets him elegantly. She bows and shows the respect that apparently she showed him before she died. She removes her crown perhaps because it puts her above him and so removing it is a gesture of respect that goes along with bowing.
“Are you my pearl for whom I cried / For whom I grieved alone at night?” (243-244). He seems unsure and yet she does not need to confirm who she is before he accepts her identity.
“Much longing I for you have sighed / Since into grass you left my sight / Sorrow and grief with me reside / While you remain in true delight” (245-248). Seeing his daughter alive and happy is a shock because up until now he thought that she was gone forever. He’s been grieving while she’s been happy. He is stricken by the contrast. Perhaps he wishes that she had somehow communicated her happy afterlife in order to save him from grieving.
“And donned her crown, of jewels made / And gravely then I heard her say / 'Sir, your conclusion is mislaid / To say your pearl has fled away / That is in such a casket laid / As in this gracious garden gay / To dwell in joy in endless day / Never can loss or grief come near / ''Twould seem, for any jeweller.” She puts her crown back on to establish that she is now of a higher position of authority than him. From this standpoint she begins to rebuke the one who mourns her death in an echo of poem 31 by of the voice Paulinas of Nola when he rebuked the parents of the boy Celsus for mourning the loss of that child.
I got sleepy and decided to have lunch half an hour early. I weighed 87.7 kilos before lunch, which is the most I’ve weight at midday since April 3. I had toasted seven grain bread with caramel peanut butter that I got from the food bank a few years ago with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. The peanut butter was disgusting so I threw the whole jar in the garbage.
I took a siesta half an hour early but stayed in bed for an extra ten minutes.
I took a bike ride downtown and back. I wore one scarf but no gloves. The scarf felt a little too warm sometimes. I had to pee before I got to Yonge and Bloor and planned on stopping at the McDonald’s just north of College but I forgot. I didn’t have to go as bad as I’d thought.
I weighed 86.5 kilos at 17:00.
I was caught up on my journal at 17:30.
I’ve decided to not watch any shows in the evening until after my essay is handed in because there are only five days left until the deadline. This is what I got done while making notes on the Medieval poem “Pearl”:
The girl he meets in his dream makes it clear that she is his pearl and that his pearl is now dwelling in eternal ecstasy, but she separates herself from that previous identity as well by not saying “I” in relation to that acknowledgment. Indeed she speaks of her past life as his daughter in the third person, “She was a rose which could not choose / But bloom and fade by laws austere / The casket naturally endues / The pearl it holds with worth most clear / And yet you call your fate severe / When much from naught was offered there / The cure you curse lay always near / You most unnatural jeweller” (270-277). She explains that his daughter was bound by the laws of mortal nature. The fine casket she was placed in enhanced her value. He did not realize her value even in that context. She would have needed to have been baptized in order to have a Christian burial and so the coffin served to transport her towards her higher destiny in the kingdom of god. She accuses him of having been an unkind jeweller for not realizing her value in that context.
“I thought my pearl far out of reach / Now I have found it, great my glee / … / And if yon bank I now could reach / ' I'd be a joyful jeweller” (283-284, 288-289). He made it clear before he knew that his Pearl was in this realm that he wanted to cross the stream and was trying to find a way to do so. Now that he sees that his Pearl is on the other side he feels further motivation and perhaps a certain familial right to be on the opposite bank. She has established a foothold and by association with her he should be able to dwell there as well.
“You think to dwell here, if you can / First you must needs ask if you may / … First, you must sink into the clay / In Eden, man dared disobey / Because he lacked humility / Now man through death must make his way” (316-317, 321-324). He needs permission to enter heaven and he also needs to die first.
“Gain that brings tears is mere deceit” (332). To show him paradise and yet deny him access is a deceptive tease.
“He who concerns himself with less / Must thoughts of greater loss forgo” (340-341). It is petty for him to merely want his Pearl back and to have physical access to paradise. He is still concerned with mortal joys and so he misses the larger picture of the spiritual growth that is necessary for him to access the kingdom of heaven.
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