Splinters in My Dreams

            On Sunday morning I finished working out the chords to “Je suis venu te dire que je m’en vais” (I just came by to tell you I’m gonna leave) and started posting it on my Christian’s Translations blog.

            I washed a six board wide section of my bedroom floor. This area is directly in front of the entrance where I can see that I’ve accomplished something. Counting the part that I already washed I’m already half a metre into the room.  The problem with that section however is that it’s along the route my daughter’s computer chair rolled back and forth for years as she played games. Because of that, just as has happened a little bit under my chair, the wood has gotten splintered and so my washcloth kept getting snagged and threads were tearing off that I had to use the brush to free.

            I read chapters four and five of Walter Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance.

            Chapter three was about Luca della Robbia and said that his sculptures were halfway between Greek sculptures and those of Michelangelo.

            Chapter four was about the poetry of Michelangelo but also about his sculptures, saying that he added the equivalent to colour to his sculptures by leaving them slightly incomplete. Pater talks about Michelangelo’s relationships but he avoids mentioning he was homosexual, even though he knew that to be the case.

            I had cheese and crackers for lunch.

            In the afternoon I did some exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Kingfish tries to sell Andy his old car but Andy isn’t buying. Kingfish has to take Sapphire to a dance later but decides to take a nap and so he goes to sleep at the lodge. He wakes up the next morning and realizes he’s stood his wife up. He rushes to his car and it’s gone but he finds it a block away. Later he hears that an automobile meeting his car’s description was used the night before in a jewellery store robbery. He’s desperate to get rid of the car and so he gives it to Andy. When Andy finds out why he gave it to him Kingfish helps him paint it and then trade plates with another lodge member. With the heat off Kingfish claims it’s still his car. Andy leaves it to him but while Kingfish is driving away the cops stop him because his plates were used in a robbery on New Years Eve.

            I read Pater’s chapter of Leonardo da Vinci. Frankly I don't understand what this has to do with our course. I guess Pater’s own writing, as a critic is part of the aesthetic movement and it has very little to do with his subject matter. I was so exhausted from all this reading I’ve been doing since Friday so I took a break and did the dishes.

            The chapter on Joachim du Bellay was more interesting because I learned that he was part of a 16^th Century group of poets that called themselves Les Pleiades and it included Pierre de Ronsard. Serge Gainsbourg has a song called “Ronsard 58” which I’ve translated and which is based on a poem by Ronsard called “Quand vous serez bien vielle” (When you are very old). Here is the first verse of Ronsard’s poem:

Some night when you are old, spinning yarn out of wool

Sitting in candlelight and warming by your hearth

You’ll marvel to yourself while reciting my verse

Ronsard celebrated that I was beautiful

            Here is my translation of the song by Gainsbourg:

As long as you’ve got all of your well shapely favours
You'll have your lovers and you'll have your success
You will vacation on exclusive shores
wearing bikinis that’ll crack all their necks
You’ll have the glamour and you'll have the fast cars
Fashionable men will bow to kiss your hand
You’ll smile serenely while you play your part
But in the end you’re just another little tramp.

Whore on the sidewalk or in a palace
Any way you roll it it's the same old smoke
They make the money and you get the business
You learn to make love without making episodes
And then one fine day my sweet little dove

A younger face will just displace you from your high horse
And then between your sobbing you’ll admit that my love
wasn’t all that awful when I put it in verse.

And all you’ll have left of me will be my trashed lines
My literature that you once condemned
That’s all that you’ll have to remember the guys
All of your old men who will stop turning their heads
It’s the only mirror that you’re face will not break
and it’s guaranteed for eternity
Old father Ronsard wasn't out of his head
When he said the same thing to his own little minx

            For dinner I melted some cheddar cheese on top of some tortilla chips and had them with salsa and a beer while watching Wanted Dead or Alive starring Steve McQueen.

            The story begins with four convicts named Ash, Turner, Burns and Cutler escaping from prison in barrels. They are bent on taking revenge on Aben Starr, the man that ratted on them when they made their previous escape attempt. When they were captured before they were severely abused as punishment. They split up and arrange to meet at the way station where Starr is now working. Josh Randall arrives at the way station first because he’s looking to collect the reward on the convicts. Shortly after that Turner and Ash get there and take both Josh and Starr captive. Their plan is to wait for Burns and Cutler before killing Starr. Meanwhile the stagecoach pulls in with two passengers. Ash kills the driver and takes the man and woman prisoner. The passengers are Quaker siblings on their way to start a school for deaf and dumb children. He and his sister Jane, who is also a deaf mute, will be teachers there. The brother tries to escape to get help but is killed. Ash has his eye on Jane and so Josh plays the two men against each other in regard to developing a rivalry for possession of Jane. He uses eye signals to get Jane to help him along and she obliges. This distracts the two men long enough for Josh to get the upper hand and kill them. When Burns and Cutler arrive Josh and Starr have the advantage and after a gunfight they prevail. Josh gives half his reward to Jane towards the school for the deaf.

            Jane was played by Judith Braun, who was married to screen writer Walter Bernstein. He was one of the victims of the Hollywood blacklist.