Thursday 15 August 2024

Joan Hotchkis


            On Wednesday morning I finished working out the chords for “Love Fifteen” by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through singing and playing it in French. Tomorrow I’ll run through it in English and then upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog. 
            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. 
            I weighed 86.75 kilos before breakfast. 
            Around midday I sanded the lower middle part of the eastern wall of the bathroom, as well as the underside of the upper shelf in that area. Maybe tomorrow I’ll finish sanding the undersides of both upper shelves. 
            I weighed 87.1 kilos before lunch. I had Breton crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of raspberry iced tea. They were out of the low sugar iced tea at No Frills on Saturday and so I had to buy the sweetened stuff. I didn’t notice how overwhelmingly sweet it is until I got used to the low sugar kind. 
            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 
            I weighed 86.8 kilos at 17:30. 
            I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. 
            I took my camera and tripod out to look for Whispering Ghost with Wings of Silver for my video project. I walked to Sorauren, east to Brock, west to Jameson and then home. 
            I reviewed the videos of my song practice performances of “Annie C’s Aniseed Suckers” and “Les Sucettes” from August 8 to September 12 of last year. On most days the camera battery had run out of charge by the time I did either of these songs and so there were only seven sessions to review. On August 8 I played “Annie C’s Aniseed Suckers” on my Kramer electric guitar and the take at 13:45 in part B was not great and the light was not good. On August 10, 12 and 26 I played it on my Martin acoustic guitar. On August 10 the take at 9:15 in part B was not bad. On August 12 the take at 12:30 in part B was not great. On August 26 the take at 10:00 in part B looked good and sounded okay. On August 21, August 27, and September 12 I played “Les Sucettes” on the Martin. On August 21 the take at 13:30 in part B was okay. On August 27 the take at 15:00 in part B was okay. On September 12 the take at 13:15 in part B was not great and the light was bad. There are already takes of these songs on YouTube and these recently reviewed ones are not much better so I need to practice more and try to get some good takes during the next recording project, which will probably start at the beginning of September. 
            I made pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with Basilica sauce, a ground beef patty cut in half edgewise and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 7, episodes 3 and 4 of Bewitched
            In the first story Samantha is going to the centennial witches convention in Salem and Darrin comes with her. They are on a plane to Boston when they look out the window and see Endora riding the wing. A passenger sees her and takes her pills. Samantha goes out on the wing to get her to stop making a spectacle of herself and a flight attendant sees them both out there. But when she tells another flight attendant to look they are both gone. Endora pops inside the plane and tells a passenger he’s in her seat. Since he won’t move she sends him ahead to Boston. Darrin rents a car and they drive to Salem where they visit the House of Seven Gables. Inside an antique bed warmer keeps swinging out and bumping Samantha on the ass. When the tour moves on, the bedwarmer removes itself from its hook and floats after Samantha, nudging her from behind. She grabs it to stop it but then Miss Ferndale the tour guide sees her and reprimands her for touching a museum piece. Ferndale puts it back on the hook but it tries to follow Samantha into the living room. Samantha takes it back to the hook but then it flies ahead and bars her way, not letting her through the living room door. Darrin can’t move it either. Ferndale catches Darrin holding the bedwarmer and she says it’s their last warning. She puts it back on the hook. But as the tour is wrapping up the bedwarmer flies out the window and into the back seat of Darrin’s rented convertible. As they drive away Ferndale learns that the bedwarmer is gone and memorizes their license plate, then calls the police. Samantha and Darrin don’t notice the bedwarmer until it starts hitting Darrin on the head. They take it into their hotel room. Darrin wants her to zap it back to the museum but Samantha says there is obviously a warlock or witch trapped inside of the object. Endora speculates that he was probably changed into a bedwarmer to escape detection during the witch hunts. The only one that can change him back is the witch that transformed him. Endora says they will try to find out who that was that night at the witches gathering. Ferndale comes to the hotel with two cops and they are knocking on the door as the episode ends. 
            In the second story they hide the bedwarmer in the closet before they let the cops in but the bedwarmer floats back out in plain sight. Darrin takes responsibility for the theft and is arrested. Meanwhile Samantha goes to the witches convention to get help. Endora says she doesn’t have time and it’s not important anyway. Samantha threatens to tell her father about the night Endora spent with Sir Walter Raleigh when she thought Samantha was sleeping. Endora sends a message out through the atmospheric continuum. It turns out the one who cast the spell is Samantha’s cousin Serena but it’s been 300 years and so she doesn’t remember the spell she cast. Samantha tells Endora to send Serena back to old Salem so she can recreate the incident. Serena appears in the past, finds herself and then inhabits her own body. She goes home and then a young warlock named Newton appears who has asked her to marry him. He asks again but Serena is not interested. There’s a knock on the door from Captain Nichols who suspects Newton of being a warlock. Newton tries to disappear but his powers don’t work when he is nervous. Serena turns him into a bedwarmer. Then she returns to the present and tells Samantha the spell she used. Samantha goes to the courthouse and puts the guard to sleep then goes into the evidence room to turn the bedwarmer back into Newton. At first he thinks Samantha is Serena and tries to take her in his arms. She explains who she is and also tells him that one of Serena’s conditions is that he not bother her anymore. She takes Newton to Darrin’s hearing. Miss Ferndale enters and Newton calls out to her. Of course she doesn’t recognize him but she seems to like what she sees. He tells Samantha he’s been hanging on his hook for years and admiring Ferndale. Since the evidence has disappeared the case is dismissed. Ferndale is upset about the bedwarmer disappearing. Newton approaches her and offers his help. He says he’s an expert on bedwarmers and can perhaps duplicate it. He invites her to lunch to discuss it and she gladly accepts. 
            Ferndale was played by Joan Hotchkis, whose parents were nationally influential civic leaders. Joan earned a BA in Psychology and then an MA in early childhood education. She decided to act instead of teach and upon auditioning for the lead role in The Rainmaker at the Players Ring Theatre in Hollywood she got the part. She then studied under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York. While shooting a commercial she met director and future husband Bob Foster. She played Myra on The Secret Storm. She debuted on Broadway in 1960 in Advise and Consent. She co-starred in the sitcoms My World and Welcome to It and The Life and Times of Eddie Roberts. She played Oscar’s girlfriend Dr. Nancy Cunningham on The Odd Couple. She played Mama in the film Ode to Billie Joe. She co-wrote the acting handbook No Acting Please, which is still used in acting courses. She wrote the play Legacy, which was also made into a film that won the Best newcomer Award at the Tehran Film Festival. After having a brain tumour successfully removed she gave up Hollywood and returned to theatre. In 1990 she became a performance artist and starred in “Tearsheets: Letters I Didn’t Send Home”, which won the Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1992. In 1996 she performed “Elements of Flesh or Screwing Saved My Ass”. She was also a part-time paraprofessional in aggression training at the Institute of Group Psychotherapy.




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