Heart Surgery

            On Monday morning I finished editing the HTML for “Bourrée de complexes" (Buried in Complexes) by Boris Vian on my Christian's Translations blog.

            I finished memorizing “Lunatic Asylum” by Serge Gainsbourg and looked for the chords online even though I didn’t think there would be any. The background music is just didgeridoo and drums with a bit of a chorus but I was curious if anyone had posted anything about the music. I assume that there is notation for didgeridoo music but there wasn’t in this case.

            Around midday I worked some more on sanding the upper half of the former exit door in my bedroom. I managed to get off all of the heart stickers that my daughter had placed there when it was her bedroom, and also the pen marks and most of the bedbug stains.

            I had two finocchio sausages for lunch and some Greek yogourt.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This was a mostly verbatim repeated story about Andy getting engaged to a beautiful woman by mail. When the woman was on her way up from the south to marry him he heard from the magazine that they’d mixed up the photographs. Floretta turned out to be very unattractive and so Andy had to figure a way out. He asks Kingfish if he could tell her he was dead but Kingfish says with her looks she wouldn’t be that choosy. Finally he tells her that he already has twelve wives. Her brother calls the police and has him charged with bigamy but he gets off in the end because he was lying about the wives. Finally he proposes to the beautiful woman whose picture had gotten switched but when he meets her at the station she turns out to be elderly and had posted a photo of herself from when she was nineteen.

            I synchronized the two audio recordings from July 4 of me performing “Personne" and left them slightly out of sync for an echo effect. Next time I'll chop off the rest of the session, have it fade to black at the end, render the movie and upload it to YouTube.

            I had a potato, steamed bok choy, three small pieces of chicken and some gravy while watching two episodes of The Adventures of Sir Lancelot.

            In the first story pirates invade a coastal village not far from Camelot. Then a knight named Sir Liam of Ireland arrives in Camelot. The guard is puzzled by the name Ireland and angers Liam by asking what part of Britain it is. Liam is welcomed in Arthur’s court as he says he represents King Badin of Ireland. He has a message that they have learned that pirates plan to raid the tomb of Arthur’s father Uthur Pendragon at St Andrew's Abbey. Arthur and Guinevere show Liam around the castle including the strong room where they keep the kingdom’s treasure. Then Arthur leaves Lancelot in charge of the castle while he and the knights go to protect the abbey. Lancelot shows Arthur's weapons to Liam, including something called a "silencer" which is basically what we would call a blackjack. When Lancelot’s back is turned Liam strikes him with the silencer and then calls Guinevere. He lifts Arthur’s keys from Lancelot and tells the queen he will go for the physician. But he locks Guinevere and Lancelot in the room and then signals for his fellow pirates. He drops a rope and they storm the walls. They loot the treasure, then steal horses and ride away just as Lancelot recovers. He climbs out the window, gets his horse and manages to cut ahead of the pirates. He warns the villagers that the pirates are returning and then he goes to wait by the pirate ship. The villagers ambush the pirates and kill everyone but Liam who returns to the boat with the treasure. Lancelot fights him but he is killed by an arrow from one of the villagers.

            In the second story a knight named Sir Bernard has come to Camelot for training as a warrior because his lady love Lydia has been imprisoned by four fierce brothers who are all great warriors and Bernard wants to rescue her. But Bernard is a horrible fighter and the instructor is ready to give up on him. Lancelot however observes that Bernard is brave, fast and strong and that all he is missing is confidence. Merlin agrees and makes a bet with Sir Kay that Bernard could beat him in a sword contest. Kay accepts the wager and formally challenges Bernard. Merlin calls Bernard to his laboratory where he is making measurements of Sir Lancelot’s sword. Lancelot comes in while Merlin is telling Bernard that Lancelot's is magical and that it was given to him by the Lady of the Lake as she emerged from the water. Merlin tells Bernard that he will lend Lancelot’s sword to him so he can defeat Sir Kay. After Bernard leaves Lancelot wonders why he told Bernard that his sword is magical when it is just an ordinary sword. Merlin explains that if Bernard thinks the sword is magic then it will give him confidence. It works and Bernard easily defeats Sir Kay but then Bernard immediately leaves Camelot with Lancelot’s sword because he thinks that with magic he can now save Lydia. Bernard goes to the castle of the four brothers and finds that the brothers are out hunting. He forces his way to Lydia’s chamber and tells her about the magic sword, explaining that he will be returning it to Camelot when the brothers are beaten. But while he is holding her he removes the sword. The brothers’ squire on hearing about the magic sword sneaks in and steals it. He gives it to the oldest brother when they return from hunting. Lancelot arrives and tries to convince Bernard that his sword is not magic. To prove it he faces the brother and knocks the sword out of his hand and into the lake. Suddenly Bernard realizes Lancelot is telling the truth and he realizes his previous victory came from himself and not magic. Together Lancelot and Bernard conquer the brothers. Lancelot tries to get his sword from the lake but Lydia dives in to help him. After she finds it at the bottom she lifts the swords up and it rises out of the lake exactly as Merlin had described that the Lady of the Lake had done.