Machine Beheaded

            On Friday morning I finished posting my translation of “Variations sur Marilou” by Serge Gainsbourg and started memorizing his “Meurtre à l’extincteur” (Murder by Fire Extinguisher). This one is only two verses long and the background is just drumming and so I won’t need to work out any chords. It’s a brutal song taken by itself but it’s part of a concept album about a man who is going insane while fixating on his girlfriend’s uncontainable sexuality.

            During song practice I was struggling with the machine head for my B string when it suddenly popped off in my hand. I heard the little screw hit the floor and I was on my knees with my head down for five minutes looking for it until I turned and found it behind me. I fished through my tool drawer and found my smallest star headed screwdriver but it didn’t fit the screw. The one that fit looked too big for the head but it seemed to get a grip on it. While working on the couch I found two tiny washers which I wasn’t sure were part of the machine head but I picked them up, lost them, found them and put them together. I finally figured out that they had to be part of it and I screwed the machine head back on. The stiffness in tuning the B string was gone and so it must have been related to what had resulted in the machine head coming off. I shortened the length of some of the songs so I could catch up.

            Around midday I went over to Home Hardware with the partial pack of sandpaper that Nick Cushing had given me along with the electric sander. I wanted to start sanding the bedroom door soon and I wanted to make sure I had enough sandpaper. The pack I showed the staff wasn’t the kind of sandpaper they had. The woman said the kind I had uses Velcro but they had the kind one would have to clip on. I went home to get the sander and saw that it had clips as well and so Nick must have just clipped on the Velcro paper. Back at the hardware store I was told they only sold squares that I could cut to fit the sander and so I bought five, which would make ten. I asked if I needed a mask or goggles to sand and the guy said I could use them and some do but they didn’t have them. He said he didn’t use masks or goggles. I guess since my covid masks are washable I can use them and I might still have my daughter’s chemistry set goggles lying around somewhere. I asked if I needed a drop sheet and he said it would save time cleaning up and so I got one. Maybe on Monday I’ll start sanding the door.

            For lunch I had a can of cream of chicken soup with salsa and potato chips.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This listed as being part of the 1954 season but it was a re-run of a 1939 episode. It was an entirely different type of show, it was only fifteen minutes long and it had no comedy. It featured the wedding of Andy Brown and just showed his nervousness and Amos trying to calm him down. The wedding ceremony goes ahead and he marries Violetta Green but just as the priest is about to pronounce them man and wife a shot rings out and Andy is wounded in the arm. I guess it was continued in 1939 but not in 1954.

            I went for a bike ride. At Bloor and Bay an elderly man with a walker had an old toy poodle with no leash and they were waiting to cross. The dog was standing about a meter off the curb. I imagined some turning car turning the dog into a furry potoodle pancake.

            On Yonge Street a Sikh bike courier had his white face covering extending from of his purple turban and it seemed to be wound up with it.

            I watched and listened to four video recordings of me performing “L’accordion” and five of my translation, “Accordion”. Only one of the French performances and two in English made it through before the camera cut off. On “L’accordion” I hit the B chord wrong a few times as I did on performance of “Accordion”. One English version was okay but there were some that seemed better before they were cut off and so I’d like to wait until the next set of recordings when more attempts at this song will be captured.

            I worked on my poem collection, “My Blood in a Bug”.

            I edited some of the photos that I recently scanned from a twenty eight year old and damaged set of negatives.

            I had a potato, a chicken leg and some gravy while watching two episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood from the fourth and final season. I had already seen the first half of the fourth season because it was mixed up with the first season in the first torrent that I’d downloaded. I watched the first episode anyway to get some perspective.

In the story the Earl of Steyne on his way to the Holy Land to join King Richard with a letter of introduction from Robin Hood. Baron Onslow murders the earl and assumes his identity with the intention of assassinating Richard. That night the sheriff holds a banquet and Ali the Juggler, secretly in the resistance, is the entertainment. Ali’s assistant Sybella demonstrates photographic memory and can answer any of 1000 questions from a book. Ali eavesdrops on the plot to kill Richard. The juggler is caught but uses exploding powder as he and Sybella disappear. In their escape Ali is killed but tells Sybella to find Robin. She is caught by a guard but Robin kills him. Sybella can only say, "The new Earl of Steyne, three days, murder.” Robin decides to go to warn the earl but Marian says she will go under the pretence of having the earl take a message to her father in the Holy Land. Marian rides to the Falcon and warns the impostor Baron Oslow of the plot to kill the Earl of Steyne. Meanwhile Sybella’s memory returns and she says, "The Earl of Steyne is dead and Baron Oslow has taken his place. In three days Oslow will sail for the Holy Land to murder King Richard." Robin rides to The Falcon, reveals that Oslow is a fraud and he duels with and kills the baron and his squire.

In the second story we jump to halfway through he final season. Marian catches a fast talking peddler named Hugo hawking charms to her serfs, claiming that some of them are pieces of Noah’s ark and the bulrushes among which baby Moses was found. He claims that these items will bring good luck for their crops but Marian urges the peasants not to waste their money because if they come up short on their taxes the deputy sheriff will imprison them. But they ignore her and buy the charms anyway. Marian goes to the deputy sheriff to remind him that he licensed the peddler and so it’s his responsibility to protect the people from fraud. She tells him that if the jails are full than there will be less people to pay his taxes and she threatens that if he does not do something she will go to a higher authority. He finally says that he will arrest the peddler but he does not mention that he and Hugo have a deal whereby the deputy gets half the peddler’s profits. Meanwhile Friar Tuck is also aware of the peddler’s antics but he goes to appeal to Robin for help. Robin decides to give Hugo a taste of his own medicine by disguising himself as an old peddler, setting up nearby and claiming his own useless items are ancient charms. The serfs find Robin’s claims more interesting and so the crowd gathers around him. One of Robin’s objects is a tiny skull which he says is that of Julius Cesar and when a villager argues that the skull is to small to be from a man Robin tells him that it’s Cesar’s skull from when he was a small boy. The deputy arrives and, seeing two peddlers, decides to arrest both of them. They are thrown in a cell together and told they will hang at dawn. But when the lieutenant protests a morning hanging because he doesn’t want to get up that early the deputy tells him he can execute them that night. Meanwhile Robin reveals his true identity to Hugo and they combine their wits to coax the guard and the lieutenant into their cell by claiming to be in possession of an enormous ruby. They knock the guards out and put on their armour. They lead the soldiers to Sherwood and blindfold them to take them back to Sherwood for supper. Robin takes Hugo’s profits from him to give back to the poor but also invites him to a meal. He agrees and says he’ll turn over a new leaf.