Betty Lou Gerson

            On Monday morning I started memorizing "Je suis snob" by Boris Vian and captured almost all of the first verse except for the last line.

            I tried to write down the lyrics to “Les Anthropophages” by Serge Gainsbourg because I couldn't find them online. I always make an effort even though I am never fully able to understand what’s being sung. I'll give it another shot on Tuesday and then I’ll move on to the next song. The song seems to have been just written to be performed as one of those skits on a television variety show for the purpose of bringing all of the guests together. It features Petula Clark, Dalida, Claude Francois and Gainsbourg stranded on a desert island and stirring a big pot while singing the song together. It has the same melody as "Les incorruptibles” (The Untouchables), which Clark and Gainsbourg sang together probably on the same show a year before. An anthropophage is a cannibal.

            Speaking of Gainsbourg, it’s been a month now since Facebook unpublished my Serge Gainsbourg fan page and since I appealed their decision. Other than acknowledging that day that they’d received my appeal I haven't heard back from them one way or another.

            I went onto Acorn, the student academic website for U of T to find out what time third year students are supposed to start enrolling next week. I was surprised to see that I’m now listed as a fourth year student and that my enrolment time is in two days, on July 10. I was pretty sure that I hadn’t completed all of my required third year courses. I might have to rethink which courses I choose now.

            I had the good part of my last avocado, a hot Italian sausage dipped in mustard and some yogourt with honey for lunch.

            I did my afternoon exercises and then took a bike ride. I had intended to only go as far as Dovercourt and Dundas but I absent mindedly overshot and ended up going down Ossington to Queen and then home. I’ll keep going that far from now on for a while until I extend it further.

            My neighbour Benji pointed out that someone upstairs had thrown out a large monitor on the deck and that they’d said it works. I took it into my place and tried hooking it up. It takes my power cord and powers up and it takes the cord from my computer but it says "No Signal". I don't know if it needs something else to connect it or if it's a write-off. It's an "HDMI Privé"; it’s 67.5 cm and seems to be a combination TV and monitor. It's a little big for my desk but it might be nice to connect with longer cables across the room and to use it to watch shows and movies.

            I sat down to try to figure out what courses I wanted to enrol in on Wednesday morning. I had to figure out which requirements were left and so I went on Acorn to look at my academic record and write down all the English courses I’ve already taken. I was surprised that I’d already achieved seven full course credits in English. As far as I could tell I only had to take half a fourth year course to complete my English major. That would mean that my remaining time at U of T would be spent finishing up my minors of Philosophy and French as a Second Language. I looked at my Grade Point Average and saw that it was 2.92. It would be higher if I hadn’t failed FSL in 2011, which was the University’s fault because they'd forced me into FSL121 when I'd wanted to take two non-credit introductory courses. While I’ve done well in a few Philosophy courses most of them have also brought my GPA down. It suddenly dawned on me that I would be better off in terms of GPA and in terms of personal interest to switch my program from English Major to English Specialist and to drop Philosophy and FSL. I’m interested in philosophy but not enough to torture myself over it. FSL could probably fast track my grammar but I can learn that on my own without dropping my GPA, which is bound to happen if, I finish university with FSL. I made the solid decision before the night was over that I would try to change my program to English Specialist on Tuesday. FSL is really for students that came into university from immersion programs in high school and not for people like me that want to learn to speak and understand it.

            I had a potato, two Italian sausages and some gravy for dinner while watching The Untouchables. This story was about the numbers racket during the Depression. When everyone was poor illegal lotteries made a killing. There is a thousand to one chance of winning and a $1 ticket pays $600. Some people spend every dollar they have. The mob gets 40% and has a lot of employees. A man named Al Morrissey supervises the collectors for a certain district and his son Phil is one of the collectors. Al and Phil are honest men but one of Al’s collectors decides to welch on one of his winners and not pay him. The desperate and poor man stabs and murders the collector. The mob puts Al on trial for not controlling his controllers. The court is a dark basement and Pat Danning the mob boss serves as judge, unseen behind a curtain. Al’s punishment is to lose half his collectors and to be beaten up. When one of the gangsters sees Eliot Ness visit Al at his home, Danning calls for Al to be killed. This compels Phil to cooperate with the feds but they are only able to make a dent in the racket because everybody loves a lottery.

            Mrs Morrissey was played by Betty Lou Gerson, who was the voice of Cruella DeVille in 101 Dalmations.