Dorothy Kirsten

            On Thursday morning I memorized the fourth verse of “Le petit Lauriston”. There’s one long verse left to learn. 

            I worked out the chords to all but the last line of “Cha cha cha des chauves” (Cha Cha of the Bald) by Serge Gainsbourg from 1960. I should have it finished tomorrow and will also probably have it published on my Christian’s Translations blog with even some time to search for the next song I missed in my Gainsbourg translation project. 

            I weighed 87.15 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I called She Said Boom to ask them to order my book. I learned that they don’t order books. Although they sell new and used records they only sell used books. I didn’t know that. I think years ago I had my chapbook “Adventures in Standing Still” for sale there on consignment. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a siesta at 14:30 and woke up at 16:18. It was just after 17:00 when I got away for my bike ride. Even though I was late I decided I needed the exercise of going downtown. I stopped at Freshco on the way back where the red grapes were super cheap but only some of them were firm. I got several small bags. I also bought a pack of raspberries, roasted red pepper hummus, roasted onion hummus, Full City Dark coffee, a jar of salsa, a bag of frozen peas, a bag of frozen lima beans, and some coconut based ice cream. It was time consuming trying to find products that are not made in the US. I was fooled by the Old El Paso salsa because it was labeled as a “Mexican” product but when I looked it up on line later I saw that it’s made in the States. I forgot to buy toilet paper so I’ll have to use paper towels until I go back there tomorrow evening. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos at 19:13. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 20:35, but it was too late to work on any projects before supper. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last grilled chicken leg while watching season 3, episode 21 of Batman. 

            Calamity Jan and her mother Frontier Fanny are visiting Shame in prison to tell him that they’ve planned his escape. Jan instructs him to be by the left wall at 17:15. Shame and Jan kiss through the wire and it’s the first time we’ve seen lips meet on this series. The Riddler has come close to kissing his molls, even in the very first episode with Jull St John, but there have always been interruptions. Maybe it was allowed for Shame and Jan to kiss because Cliff Robertson and Dina Merrill were really married. So later at the promised time a tank knocks a hole in the wall and Shame runs through it. Jan and Fanny are driving the red tank and they all escape while the guards’ bullets have no effect. They got the tank from Mad Man Otto’s Used Tank Lot. Bruce Wayne and Commissioner Gordon are having fondue in Barbara Gordon’s apartment when the commissioner gets word of the escape. He calls Batman and so Bruce signals the Batcave for the Bat answering machine to be turned on. All Batman usually says is “Yes commissioner?” and “We’ll be right there’ so the machine makes sense. Bruce leaves with Gordon because he says it wouldn’t be appropriate to be alone with Barbara without a chaperone. He’s been alone with women sans chaperone before. In Gordon’s office he is told there is a horse for him in the outer office. But it turns out to be a saw horse with an attached message for Batman. Shame writes that he’s going to rob the Gotham city stage at 20:45 that night and he’ll steal a rock and a roll. Barbara arrives and reads the note just before Batman and Robin leave to feed the clues to the Bat Computer. Shame and his gang are holed up in Gotham’s Central Park stables. Jan has hired two henchmen. One is dressed like a Mexican bandito and his full name is Fernando Ricardo Enrique Dominguez but they just call him Fred. He talks in a condescending upper crust English accent. The other is dressed as an exaggerated version of a Great Plains First Nations chief with a ridiculously long trailing feathered war bonnet that gets caught in closing doors. His name is Chief Standing Pat and he communicates with smoke signals that he makes while puffing a cigar. Shame tries to explain his caper in a clumsy and ineffectual way. Fred says, “Your lucidity is only surpassed by your remarkable command and penchant for gibberish”. Shame thinks it’s a compliment and thanks him. Shame starts kissing Jan but her mother tells him he can’t get closer than two feet until a marriage is arranged. Meanwhile Batman figures out that a rock and a roll are a diamond and a bankroll but he hasn’t solved the clue of the Gotham City Stage. Batgirl calls from Gordon’s office to tell him she’s figured out the stage clue but not the rock and the roll. Batman says, “We obviously need each other”. She gives him a street corner for them to meet then heads out on her Batgirl Cycle. She meets Batman and Robin and tells them the stage is the opera house stage where The Girl of the Golden West is running. Robin says Leonora Sotto Voce the world’s top soprano always wears her 283 karat diamond pendant. Batman says Fortissimo Fra Divolo always carries a roll of $20,000 in cash onstage for good luck. Meanwhile at the Gotham City Opera House, Shame and his gang enter through the stage door and are confronted by the stage doorman, who is 17 but all stage doormen are called “Pop”. That’s apparently true or used to be anyway. Pop is knocked out and Shame and his gang go back stage. Leonora and Fortissimo are arguing onstage about who is the star of the show when Shame and his gang approach them with guns drawn. The singers are robbed and then Batman, Batgirl and Robin arrive. Suddenly two members of Shame’s gang that we’ve never seen before appear. This happens quite often just before a fight scene. The stupidest thing about these fights is that the crooks always stand close together and watch as either a swinging Batman kicks them all over or an object is thrown that knocks them all over even though they all have plenty of time to get out of the way. The gang is defeated but then Jan and Fanny enter with aerosol cans that spray the heroes with Fear Gas. Now Batman, Batgirl and Robin are cowering in terror and begging Shame not to hurt them. Batman grabs Batgirl to use her as a shield. Shame decides to take Batgirl as a hostage. Batman and Robin cling to each other and are glad Shame took the girl. Later, somehow Batman and Robin make it to the Batcave though it doesn’t make sense they could drive the Batmobile in their present emotional state. Alfred gives them the antidote to the fear gas. When they recover, Batman deduces that Shame would be at the Central Park Stables. Shame and his gang leave with Batgirl for part two of their caper but on the way out Fanny is hit on the head by the horseshoe above the door. When Batman and Robin get there they find Fanny and revive her. She says if anything happens to her Batgirl will be killed. This story is continued next time. 

            Leonora Sotto Voce was played by Dorothy Kirsten, who studied piano as a child. She left school at 16 to work for the Singer Sewing Machine company, while taking singing lessons. She wanted to be a Broadway singer and dancer but became an opera star instead. She was one of the few opera singers that could sing jazz standards as well. She sang on the radio before debuting as an opera singer at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. She sang regularly on the radio with Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Perry Como. She was the first opera star to appear on the cover of Life Magazine. Naming it after her husband she founded the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation to find a cure. Her autobiography was entitled “A Time to Sing”.