Against the Grain

            On Sunday morning I started memorizing “Des vents des pets des poums” (Farting Up a Storm) by Serge Gainsbourg. I had to make some adjustments in the translation because the final syllable of every line has to rhyme with “boom”.

            I read a chapter of The Picture of Dorian Gray. I have a week and a half before I have to hand in my Aesthetic and Decadent Movements essay and I’ve barely started it. There's not getting around re-reading the book though since it’s one of the subjects of my paper, along with Baudelaire.

            I tried to read more of the book but dozed off on the couch.

            I had cheese on toast for lunch.

            I tried to take a siesta and couldn’t sleep but it seemed to refresh me nonetheless.

            I was able to read some more after getting up.

            I did my exercises in the afternoon while watching a few more minutes of the Naked City episode “The Sandman”, which was an incomplete download without the audio. The dockworker that killed the cop finds out his brother ratted on him and he is attacking him when the undercover cop intervenes and they start to fight.

            I made it past the halfway point in re-reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. There’s a reference to an unnamed book that becomes Dorian’s Bible of decadence. I did some research and found out that it’s À rebours (Against the Grain) by Karl-Jolis Huysmans. I downloaded the original French novel and an English translation.

            I melted a tablespoon of garlic butter in a casserole dish and added the rest of the spiral pasta and sauce I’d made the night before. I put cheese on top and baked it in the over. I had it for dinner with a beer while watching Zorro.

            In this story Don Nacho Torres has left the mission and is on his way to tell the governor about the tyrannical rule of Captain Monastario over Los Angeles, but before leaving he stops at his home to see his wife and daughter. Monastario anticipates this and goes to surround the hacienda. But Don Diego and Bernardo get there first and warn Torres. When Monastario arrives he searches the house but also tries to court Torres’s daughter Elena. Diego and Bernardo help Torres avoid capture by distracting the soldiers. He also distracts Monastario by pretending to court Elena as he sings a song called “Elena”. He gets the comical Sergeant Garcia drunk in the wine cellar. He arranges for Monastario to “accidentally” get knocked out by a falling flowerpot. Then Torres puts on Monastario’s uniform and leaves in the captain’s carriage with Dona Luisa and Elena. Just as the soldiers discover the ruse Don Diego changes to Zorro and arrives in time to help Torres escape. When Monastario gains consciousness he finds Don Diego and Bernardo bound and gagged in the wine cellar, pretending that Zorro tied them up.