Nora Swinburne

            On Wednesday morning during song practice I noticed just after 7:00 that the traffic lights were out. I looked at my stereo amp and saw that the light was out there too. I was hoping that the power would go back on after a couple of minutes as usual, but at 7:11 when I wanted to turn my computer on, the blackout continued. I finished my songs and would have normally moved on to projects at the computer. I couldn’t work out a few more chords for “J’suis snob" by Boris Vian, nor could I memorize another two or three more verses of “Puisque je te le dis” by Serge Gainsbourg. I couldn’t make coffee and so I ate some grapes and then some cereal. I did the dishes and a little after 8:00 I decided to wash another section of my living room floor. I cleaned a ten-board wide area, part of which is where the wheels of my computer chair have worn the floor. Before I moved the desk back into the corner my chair was normally further to the right for a few years, which explains why the floor is less smooth where it isn’t sitting now. My next cleaning session will get rid of the last visible dark section near the couch.

            The power came back after an hour and a half, just as I was finishing my cleaning job. It was the longest outage I’ve experienced in years.

            I made coffee and a piece of raisin toast.

            I did some more dishes.

            I had a toasted cheese, tomato and cucumber sandwich for lunch.

            I got caught up on my journal.

            I did some exercises in the afternoon and then took a bike ride to Ossington and Dundas. On the way home I stopped at Freshco where I bought cherries, black grapes, strawberries, a container of yogourt, three bags of milk and a six-pack of toilet paper. I overheard two young guys perhaps in their late teens talking. One guy said to the other, “But when you’re 23 and she’s 20 it won’t be weird at all!”

            I clipped the video of my July 28, 2017 song practice up to near the beginning of Jeunes femmes est vieux messieurs”. I wanted to get it closer to the beginning to edit out all the face rubbing I did but it somehow threw the video and audio out of sync more than I wanted it to be for the slight echo effect. I undid a few stages and adjusted it a little more carefully before saving it. It still needs a little more trimming to have it begin where I want it to but I come back to it later.

            I had a fried egg with toast and a beer for dinner while watching two stories from “The Veil” TV show.

            Pete Wade Jr. is training to be a pilot for his father’s company. The pilot, Bill lets him take the controls while he goes back to check the cargo. Suddenly Pete sees a face in front of the plane and hears a voice telling him to follow a certain heading. The pilot stops him from crashing into the mountains. Later Pete’s father tells him that during WWII he and his friend Wally were flying over enemy territory and were fired upon. Pete Sr. told Wally to bail out and then landed the plane safely. Pete Jr. sees an old photo belonging to his father and arranges for a flight with Bill. This time he locks Bill in the back and then sees the face again. He follows the heading the face tells him to and then it tells him to bail out. He leaves Bill to save the plane and jumps. He finds the wreckage of his father’s WWII plane. Later Pete Sr. tells his son that Wally was an intelligence agent and he’d been hurt in flight. Pete Sr. had been instructed by Wally to give him his cyanide capsule. He did so and bailed out.

            The second story deals with a professional clairvoyant named Walter He has a vision of a murder and the next morning his wife Judith reads about it in the paper. It turns out to be one of Jack the Ripper’s crimes. He goes to tell the police and finds a roomful of people claiming to have also had visions showing them the identity of Jack the Ripper. He has another vision and on his way with Judith to the station on public transit he senses the ripper is among the passengers. When Walter goes to Scotland Yard he is arrested after signing a paper and his signature matches a letter from the Ripper. That night while he is in jail another murder is committed and the woman’s ear is severed exactly as Walter predicted. The police release Walter and he leads them to the Ripper’s address. The Ripper’s wife Mrs. Willowden reveals that her husband has already been committed to an insane asylum. She says when her husband had to retire from his surgical practice he began to lose his mind. He tortured the dog. He collected live bats and enjoyed setting them on fire while they flew around in agony. Once someone has been declared insane they can’t be charged with murder.

            Judith was played by Dorothy Alison. She was an Australian born actor who moved to England. She won the 1952 British Film Academy award for most promising newcomer. She starred in “Reach for the Sky” and “A Town Like Alice”.

            Mrs Willowden was played by Nora Swinburne, who moved from being a successful stage actor to becoming a silent film star. Once sound came in she had a respectable career in supporting roles.

            The real Jack the Ripper was never found. The name Jack the Ripper came from one of the many letters from people claiming to be the killer. Most of the victims were sex trade workers and in addition to having their throats cut, organs were removed, causing speculation that the killer was a surgeon. There were eleven similar murders from 1888 to 1891 but the police could only link five of them between August 31, 1888 and November 9, 1888 as fitting a specific pattern that suggested a single killer.

            From the middle of the 19^th Century the influx of Irish immigrants and Jewish refugees had caused Whitechapel to become an overcrowded ghetto. Crime increased and the sex trade exploded. There was strong xenophobic sentiment blaming the Irish and especially the Jews for all of the criminal activity. It was around this time that Jack the Ripper began his or her murders.