Diaphanous

            On Thursday morning I had half of  “Vu de l’extérieur” (From the Outside) by Serge Gainsbourg memorized.

            I washed a six-board wide section of the western side of my kitchen floor in front of the entrance to the living room. The strip kind of looks like a golden doormat now.

            I went to Freshco where I bought two bags of grapes, a bag of Old Dutch potato chips, a bag of frozen french fries, a bottle of shampoo-conditioner and a pack of paper towels.

            I had a chicken drumstick and some yogourt with honey for lunch.

            I finished the Winkelman chapter from Walter Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance. The main point seems to be that Goethe’s writing was influenced by classical Greek literature that had been written about by Winkelman.

            I would like to get started on my Finding Places essay for Indigenous Studies but my TA has yet to pick two from the four proposals I uploaded. I emailed my TA about it.

            Also next week’s reading for Indigenous Studies has not been posted. This is a shoddy course for various reasons, including the way things tend to be posted at the last minute.

            I did my exercises in the afternoon while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Kingfish gets Andy to become partners in a cigar stand in the lobby of an old building. But when they start making money Kingfish wants the business all to himself and so he convinces Andy that it’s losing money and so he’ll take it off his hands. But later Andy finds out from Lightning that the stand has been making a profit. Next Kingfish sees a surveyor making measurements in the lobby. He tells Kingfish the whole building is being torn down. Kingfish then tells Andy that he’s discovered that he’s allergic to cigars and he’ll sell him the business for $50. Afterwards Andy says that it really cost him $55 because he had to pay a guy to pretend to be a surveyor.

            The guest star on this show was Al Jolson, although he wasn’t part of the story. He was promoting the movie, “The Al Jolson Story” and he sang a medley of his most famous songs.

            I finished the Conclusion to Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance. It’s there that he uses the slogan “Art for art’s sake”.

            I read Pater’s chapter on the painter Giorgione. It’s ironic that Pater declares that music is the ultimate expression of art and yet he doesn’t mention a single composer in the whole book.

            I read Diaphaneiete the final chapter of Pater’s book in which he talks about approaching art and life with openness or being diaphanous.

            My TA got back to me and thanked m for reminding her to post the choices. Apparently she’d made her selections last week but they didn’t become visible until she’d released the grades and comments for the proposals. She picked the two Toronto locations on the Humber River that I wanted to work on.

            I had a potato, two drumsticks and gravy for dinner while watching Wanted Dad or Alive starring Steve McQueen.

            In this story Josh is in Almagordo eating a steak when a fellow bounty hunter named Foley approaches and warns him not to go after Ted Nelson because he's his bounty. There is a fight and Josh throws Foley out. The sheriff, Pat Garrett, turns out to be an old friend of Josh but he doesn’t want trouble and asks Josh to leave town. Josh is approached by Anne Nelson, the wife of Ted Nelson and tells him that Ted wants to turn himself in but only to Josh, because thy are old friends. Josh rides with Anne to their home but Foley follows. Josh ambushes him, there’s another fight but Josh wins and ties Foley up. Josh meets Ted and Ted agrees to turn give himself up to Josh the next days as long as he’ll give Anne half the reward. Since Ted is not wanted for murder he would not be hung and might only serve a few months in prison. Josh goes back and frees Foley and then he goes to town to tell Pat about the deal. The next day Ruth the barmaid rides to the edge of town with Josh before he goes to meet Ted. After he leaves she sees Foley on his tail and so she rides back and warns Pat. Pat heads out after Foley. When Josh arrives Ted sees the other men and points a gun at Josh. He fires and creases him and Josh instinctively fires back, fatally wounding Ted. Before he dies Ted says that he made Josh shoot him because he’d decided he couldn’t go back to prison.