October 25, 1991: It was the first day I'd worked since the cops kicked my back in

Thirty years ago today

            Friday was the first day I'd worked since the police kicked my back in. It was still a bit sore but I guessed I could go back on the job. I worked with Bill and we finished up near Victoria Park Station so I just went home from there. 

            Mike Copping called to tell me that he would come by after work and spend the night. He arrived at around 21:30. Along with other conversation he mentioned a book he was reading about demonic possession and which he wanted me to read. We went for a walk and when we came back we talked some more about my situation. I read him a letter that Nancy wrote to me in which she mentioned me reading a newspaper in a restaurant while tears were running down her cheeks. He sympathized with her, but to be fair if I'd known she was crying I probably would have comforted her as I had many times before.

1958 Dodge Coronet

            On Saturday after midnight I did my usual search for bedbugs along the walls and baseboards near my bed and found none. That made it five days since I'd seen the last one and I was feeling optimistic. But then when I went to make my bed I found one crawling right in the middle. I picked it up and crushed it and the blood inside was fresh. This is depressing. I did another search, this time all around the mattress and the pillow but found no more. I can't figure out where they are coming from. I'm going to tape over the electrical outlet again and see if that helps.

            I started memorizing "Arthur, où t'as mis le corps" (Arthur, Where'd You Put The Corpse?) by Boris Vian. I got the first three lines but there are a lot and so this is going to take quite a while. 

            I posted my translation of “Cuti–réaction” (Skin Prick Reaction) by Serge Gainsbourg on Facebook and then I looked for the lyrics to his song “Le vieux rocker” (The Old Rocker). I found them on gainsbourg.net and transcribed them to my “1980 Gainsbourg” document. I'll start translating it tomorrow. 

            It's three degrees outside but the landlord still hasn't turned the heat on. I called him and asked if the heat was on in his home and he said , “No, why?” I said, “It's three degrees outside” and he responded, “So?” He's such an asshole! I assume the heat in his house is automatically on and he's not even aware of it or else he was just plain lying to be a prick. He said he would turn it on tonight and also told me pest control would be coming on November 5 and 19. Nothing ever gets done around here unless I initiate it. 

            I weighed 88.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I went to No Frills. The grapes were on sale but chances are it's because they're lousy. I bought three bags of red and two of green. I also got two half-pints of raspberries, a pack of chicken legs, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, three bags of milk, a can of dark coffee, Greek yogourt and skyr. 

            I talked to my neighbour Benji in the hall. He called the landlord about the heat this morning as well. I weighed 89.5 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with cream cheese and paprika and a glass of limeade. 

            I finished reading The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare. I think for certain key elements of the play, a parallel can be drawn with the story of Christ. A mysterious pregnancy, a baby born in adverse conditions, raised in a rustic environment by a substitute father, and a plot to kill the baby by a murderous king. But in this case it is the mother that dies and is resurrected. The three principal women in the story can be seen as the Mother, the daughter and then Paulina as the representative of the magical element or Holy Spirit. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. On the Bloor bike lane there was a family on Ride Toronto bikes. The son in law was out front, the father behind, the mother and then the daughter. They were all wobbling along like they'd never been on bicycles in their lives. On Richmond there was a guy perhaps walking to a costume party. I don't know what superhero he was supposed to be but he had simulated gold armour, a red cape and he was carrying a motorcycle helmet. I weighed 88.5 kilos when I got home. 

            I read the first act of “All's Well That Ends Well.” Helen is in love with Bertram but he is far above her in class. His mother the countess has also been like a mother to Helen. The countess hears a rumour of Helen's affection and asks her if it's true. Helen beats around the bush but finally confesses. The countess approves. Helen is the daughter of a recently deceased physician and she has much of his knowledge. Meanwhile the King of France is very ill and his own physicians have given up hope. Helen thinks she can cure him. Parts of this play were added after Shakespeare's death by Thomas Middleton. There's a great argument against virginity as spoken by the character Paroles, that was apparently written by Middleton. 

            I made pizza on naan with Toscanese sauce and extra old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the first episode of the fifth season of “Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.” 

            This wasn't much of a story. Sergeant Carter decides to sell his car because he's only getting five kilometres to the litre of gas. Sergeant Hacker planned on buying it but he is short the full $250. Gomer however has the money so Carter sells it to him. Hacker sneaks to the car every night and adds gas to the tank. This makes Gomer believe that he's getting 16 km per litre. So now Carter wants the car back and so Gomer sells it to him. But now Hacker comes every night and siphons gas from Carter's car, resulting in Carter thinking his mileage has dropped to worse than before. Carter finally sells the car to Hacker for $65. But when Hacker is carrying his gas cans to put them in the trunk of his car he spills gas along the way. Later he lights a cigar and throws the match. The spillage bursts into flames and travels to set the car on fire. Hacker ends off paying Gomer $20 to take the car off his hands. Gomer now plans on fixing it up. 

            The car was a 1958 Dodge Coronet convertible. My dad a had a 1958 Dodge Coronet but not a convertible. I thought it was like a space ship because the speedometer was a coloured horizontal line that ran from left to right. Up to 40 mph it was green, between 40 and 60 it was yellow and over 60 it turned red.

October 24, 1991: Ross Virgin was very pushy and said that if I really cared about my child I would join In Search For Justice

Thirty years ago today

            I stayed around my place on Thursday. I got a call back from Ron Virgin, the leader of In Search of Justice. He told me that I had a 3% chance of getting joint custody of my child. He was very pushy and said that if I really cared about my daughter I would join his group. 

            I talked to Mike Copping on the phone and he seemed to think that I should turn into the Buddha and just let Nancy walk all over me. He thought she was being somewhat reasonable. There I was being denied my moral rights as a parent and everybody was treating me like a criminal for making a stand against it. It seemed so obvious to me that if Nancy and I couldn't live together we should have joint custody. How many cases have existed where harm was done by such an agreement?

Perdita

            On Friday after midnight I checked for bedbugs and found none. That makes four days since I've seen one. 

            I sang along twice with the recording of Serge Reggiani singing "Arthur, où t'as mis le corps" (Arthur, Where'd You Put The Corpse?) by Boris Vian. Reggiani was a well known actor and this was his debut as a singer. There was apparently a contest at the time for people to guess who the singer was. Next I'll start memorizing the song but it's going to take a long time since it's really a short story in song form. 

            I published “Cuti–réaction” (Skin Prick Reaction) by Serge Gainsbourg on my Christian's Translations blog. 

            It was five degrees this morning so I called the landlord and left a message telling him to turn the heat on. 

            I weighed 89.6 kilos before breakfast.

            I weighed 89.1 kilos before lunch. 

            I read “The Sheriff's Children” by Charles Chesnutt. The basic skeletal structure of the story was extremely clichéd. In a small town someone has been arrested for the murder of a well liked and prominent citizen. The town wants to hang the man before his trial but the sheriff stands off against the populace to do his duty and preserve justice. But the point of deviation from the cliché comes when we learn that the sheriff used to be a plantation owner and that the mulatto prisoner is his son by one of his former slaves. At the end of the Civil War the father just let the mother and child go without helping them in any way and though his son managed to get an education it did him little good. Even though he did not kill the man he is accused of murdering, he was there the night he was killed and he did steal his coat. His chances are slim and so he tries to escape. He gets hold of the sheriff's gun and is about to kill him when the sheriff's daughter shoots him in the arm. The sheriff bandages him up and overnight decides he is going to start treating the man like his son and try to help him beat the charges and support him afterwards. But the next morning he finds the prisoner had removed the bandages over night and allowed himself to bleed to death. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. It never went above eight degrees today. I weighed 88.1 kilos when I got home. 

            I finished reading Act 4 of The Winter's Tale and made it as far as 5.2 by dinnertime. In Bohemia the abandoned baby daughter of King Leontes that had been raised by the shepherd and named Perdita grew into a beautiful young woman. She and Florizel, the son of King Polixenes have fallen in love. But Florizel has not told his father because he would not let him marry a shepherdess. But Polixenes and Camillo have heard that Florizel has been seen in a shepherd's home and so they go there in disguise. At the time Perdita is the host of a festival in celebration of the annual sheep sheering. At the festival the shepherd gives his blessing as Perdita and Florizel announce their engagement. But when Polixenes asks if Florizel will tell his father of this union he says he will not. Polixenes condemns the engagement. With the help of Camillo, Perdita and Florizel escape to Sicily where Polixenes follows. The letter possessed by the shepherd reveals that Perdita is indeed Leontes's daughter and now everyone is happy. But it's not over. 

            I'm hoping to finish reading The Winter's Tale and All's Well That Ends Well in time to start my essay. I don't like to start an essay until I've done all the reading because I want to pick the best text to draw from. I don't have to read Othello to start my paper because I've read it a few times and so if I decide to write on Othello I'm already familiar. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching the last episode of the fourth season of “Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.” 

            In this story Sergeant Carter needs a new suit for the wedding of Bunny's friend. It's payday and the sharks are waiting outside the gates of the base to try to sell questionable merchandize to the marines. Gomer notices Friendly Freddy and goes to say hello. He ends up buying a suit from him. When Carter sees the suit he wants one but he doesn't trust Freddy. But Carter considers himself a very good judge of material and assesses that Freddy's suit is legitimately of good quality this time. He buys a suit. That night Gomer goes to Lou Ann's place in his suit but they both start sneezing. Lou Ann suggests that he go to the while-you-wait dry cleaners nearby because maybe there are chemicals making them sneeze. But the result is that Gomer's suit shrinks to the size of a child's suit. Gomer goes to warn Carter but he's already starting his role in the wedding ceremony. His sleeves fall off during the procession. They confront Freddy and he gives them both new suits. Gomer, Lou Ann, Bunny and Carter go out to dinner but when Gomer and Carter get up to dance the seats of their pants remain on their chairs.

October 23, 1991: The baby woke up in McDonalds and seemed scared like she didn't know me. That hurt

Thirty years ago today

            Nancy called me on Wednesday and asked if I wanted to go with her to take the baby to the doctor. I met her at around 14:30 at Victoria Park and McNichol. Her mother dropped her off and I was appalled that Nancy put our child's life in that absent-minded, horrible driver's hands. 

            The doctor tried to play counselor and said that Nancy should have custody. He also thought that the baby shouldn't have my name, should be using a pacifier and should start eating brown rice. He agreed with everything Nancy wanted and it seemed to me she had the hots for him. 

            We went to some mall, maybe it was Yorkdale, and then to Bamburgh Plaza near Nancy's place. The baby woke up in McDonalds and seemed scared like she didn't know me. That hurt.

Chris Robinson

            On Thursday after midnight, I checked for bedbugs and found none. So it's been three days since I dug one unhealthy-looking small one out of a little hole in the wall. 

            I finished translating the final two verses of "Arthur, où t'as mis le corps" (Arthur, Where'd You Put The Corpse?) by Boris Vian, which ends with a seance: “Arthur, are you there? / I'm here guys! / Arthur where'd you put your corpse? / I've a new body guys! / Arthur, have you a heart? / I've got the king and queen of hearts, all the winning cards // We finally realized / that bastard Arthur had wound up in paradise / Holy shit Arthur!” 

            I finished working out the chords for “Cuti–réaction” (Skin Prick Reaction) by Serge Gainsbourg and uploaded it to Christian's Translations. 

            I had time to eat two apples and drink most of my coffee before leaving for tutorial. I left about five minutes later than last time but I was still the first one there. I moved the tables into a skewed position so I could move my table forward and leave room for people to get by behind me. But when people arrived they didn't really like the arrangement and each student straightened their own table out.

            Sarah went to a radon spa in the Czech Republic. Everybody got naked in the water including one of her former professors but not her. 

            Radon is the greatest cause of lung cancer after smoking but the spas are considered to present a low exposure because of time limits. The staff at the spas are exposed longer and have to be frequently tested. Most official health organizations are cautious about approving radon therapy. It's covered by health insurance in some European countries. 

            Our attendance question was, “What was your worst job?” My worst job was in Toronto in a textile dyeing place. It was minimum wage, hot and the smell of the chemicals was overwhelming. I had to climb down into the dyeing vats after they'd been drained to clean them out. Another bad job was when I had to work one day in a Winnipeg fur place. In the area where I was working I could smell ammonia in the air and I asked to be moved to another room. I refused to go back. 

            Hawthorne on the true woman. Harriet Jacobs's text is similar to Frederick Douglas but she uses different genres in combination: autobiography, sentimental fiction, Gothic fiction, domestic fiction, and romance. Consent was erased in slavery. Literal and figurative spaces of freedom.

            I mentioned the pinprick eye hole that gave her freedom while confined in the attic. Figurative freedom came when she was trapped in a sexual relationship with her master Dr. Flint. She created figurative freedom by getting pregnant by a chosen lover.

            Bartleby and preference. Bartleby the Scrivener presents weird intimacies. The employment relationship used to be master and apprentice in a family environment. Is it cold now? Resistance is clear for Jacobs but Bartleby's resistance is a puzzle. 

            Melancholy versus not unpleasant sadness. Freud wrote in 1918 on mourning and melancholy. Mourning is conscious while melancholy is unconscious. 

            I said, "Bartleby the Scrivener" is Dickensian. 

            At the end of “Bartleby the Scrivener” when it is suggested that Bartleby once worked in a dead letter office does it function as an answer? 

            I say, first of all it's presented as a rumour that he worked in a dead letter office and so it makes it less sure. Especially since it is considered by the lawyer who constantly got Bartleby wrong. It seems to me that when he says “ah Bartleby, ah humanity” it's more of a clue than dead letters. But there is that frequent reference to death and staring at a dead wall. Something is dead. 

            There is an unreliable narrator. Nothing makes it clear. Bartleby as a dead letter. Letter undeliverable and unreturnable. One can't return him. Bartleby makes the lawyer look at himself and respond. 

            Does Bartleby have agency or is he passive?” 

            I say his two phrases, “I would prefer not to” and “I'm not particular” cancel each other out. His choices are only to refuse while claiming he does not care what choices he makes. 

            In the end Bartleby's strike is not just a hunger striking but he is striking from all action.

            Nobody liked Moby Dick at first. That's ironic now. 

            Comparing US renaissance authors alongside Karl Marx. They wrote at the same time. Emerson and Thoreau weren't reading Marx. Bartleby questions the social condition. Bartleby is suffering from exploitation. 

            Relating to the end of Jakobs's text, Google “a man was lynched yesterday.”

            I rode up Queen's Park Crescent and as I passed Victoria College I was thinking of Albert Moritz. Just then I saw him for the first time in more than two years. His voice was low and hoarse and I asked if he has laryngitis. He said he had a throat operation related to his stroke. I thanked him again for his help with my manuscript and for helping me submit it to Exile. I said I hadn't heard from them yet but he said the process can be lengthy. He added that if it doesn't work out we can try other options. He left me because he didn't want the coffee he'd bought on Bloor to get cold before he got to his office.

            I rode to Yonge and Bloor and then back towards home. I stopped at Freshco on the way where I bought five bags of black grapes, two half pints of blueberries, a half pint of raspberries, a bag of potatoes because they were $2, a bag of kettle chips, five year old cheese, limeaid, skyr, spoon sized shredded wheat, french fries, canned peaches, a bag of naan, extra old cheddar for cooking, 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner and petroleum jelly. 

            I weighed 87.6 kilos before lunch. 

            I finished posting my blogs and then typing my tutorial notes at around 18:30.

            I cut up a whole chicken and coated the pieces with olive oil, salt, and paprika before putting them in the oven. 

            I weighed 87.9 kilos at 19:00. 

            I read “Chickamauga” by Ambrose Bierce. A little boy has wandered away from his plantation and gotten lost. When he wakes he discovers an army of wounded men crawling to the water. He thinks it's fun because he does not understand. He marches ahead of them in the direction they are going and finds a burning house which he slowly recognizes as his own and finds his mother brutally murdered. 

            I read “Circumstance” by Harriet Spofford. A woman walking home at night is grabbed by cougar and taken up into a tree. To distract it from killing her she begins to sing, starting with dance songs but descending as she feels closer to being killed into deeply religious songs. She manages to engage the cat until morning when her husband finds her and shoots it. They walk home to find their cabin has been burned down by Indigenous people. So her being grabbed by the cat probably saved her husband and baby's life. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching the penultimate episode of the fourth season of Gomer Pyle. 

            In this story, Gomer is babysitting for private Riley and his wife who have to fly to San Francisco because Riley's mother is sick. They plan on returning before Gomer has to be back at the base in the morning but the planes are down because of fog and they have to drive, but then the car breaks down. Gomer calls Sergeant Carter to ask if he can be late but Carter insists he be there or be AWOL. So Gomer brings the baby. Colonel Grey is coming in a few hours for an inspection but Carter reluctantly allows Gomer to keep the baby in the duty hut until Riley returns. Gomer needs warm milk and strained potatoes for the baby and so Carter goes to ask Sergeant Hacker for those types of food. Hacker assumes that Carter has an ulcer but when he finds out otherwise he decides to sabotage Carter's hiding the baby from Grey. Hacker sneaks to the back of the duty hut and through the window takes the bottle away from the baby. When Grey hears the baby crying Gomer explains the situation. Grey says it's irregular but lets it slide and praises Gomer for helping out another marine. Carter decides to get into the colonel's good graces by also admitting to have helped with the baby but the colonel says that behaviour is excusable for a private but not a sergeant. Carter is in trouble and so his Hacker when Grey sees the baby bottle in his hand. 

            Private Riley was played by Chris Robinson, who wrote, directed and co-starred in “Catch the Black Sunshine” and “The Intruder”, and starred in “Ace of Hearts.” He co-starred in the series “Twelve O'clock High”. He played Rick Webber on General Hospital from 1978 to 1986. He was in the Vicks cough syrup commercials where he said, “I'm not a doctor but I do play one on TV.” Then he was convicted of income tax evasion but was allowed to act on “General Hospital” under a prison work release provision.

October 22, 1991: Central Guaranty said that since I'd put the city on their back about the heat they were going to play hardball with me about the rent

Thirty years ago today

            I called the city again about the heat not being on. An inspector came to take a reading but it was warm outside. They called Central Guaranty and someone from there brought me a space heater. Michael Quinlan came by with some extension cords but he told me that since I'd been getting the city on their back they were going to play hardball with me and charge me for the three months back rent that he'd told me to forget about before. He said that if I didn't pay I would be evicted. 

            I went to see another lawyer about joint custody of my child and I was more impressed with him than the one I'd interviewed the day before. 

            I still couldn't reach Nancy. The only one who was straight with me whenever I called was her sister Susan. I missed my baby and wanted to take care of her.